Learning Management Systems: Be Prepared!

Learning Management Systems – you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them! I’ve worked with quite a few LMS’s over the years – eCollege, several versions of Blackboard, Jenzabar, I’m now learning Moodle – all have their benefits and their drawbacks. The one thing they all have in common is downtime. By downtime I mean interruptions in service due to some malfunction in the server, in the software,  some necessary upgrade, a virus, weather events affecting some students in the class but not others – scheduled and unscheduled situations that make the LMS unavailable to students at particular times. The scheduled downtimes are usually announced in advance and occur at times when fewer students would need access to the LMS. It is the unscheduled downtimes  that can wreak havoc with communication to and from students, as well as with the completion of assignments. Walden University is excellent about addressing downtime due to server issues with redundancy, and they notify students and faculty via e-mail when the LMS interruption in service begins and ends.

More disruptive are interruptions at the  regional and local levels resulting from severe weather events. As an online university, Walden has students from all over the country and the world. Thus, it is common for some students to have their communication with the LMS interrupted at one time or another over the course of a semester. Tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards are all regular interruptions in our classes. Since I live in the northeastern United States, I experience hurricanes in the fall and blizzards in the winter, so I may not be able to communicate with my class. Again, redundancy is the key. I have four laptops, all fully charged, and a cell phone that can serve as a modem fully charged with an extra battery in the event of a loss of power, and thus communication and connection to the LMS. If severe weather is predicted and there is the possibility that I may not be able to communicate with my students via the LMS, I let the students know via e-mail and announcement. I make sure I do this at least 24 hours in advance based on weather reports so that students can contact me with questions before a loss of communication happens. I also notify them when I am back online, or when the danger of a loss of communication is imminent.

Walden has a policy about communication, submitting assignments, etc. during unanticipated interruptions with the LMS in the Student Handbook and in the syllabus published as part of every course. Students are instructed to download and printout the syllabus with this information so that it is available in the event of an interruption of service. The Student Handbook is large, bust student are advised to at least download it for off-line reading. Instructor contact information, including telephone numbers, should also be downloaded.

Perhaps someday LMS’s will be impervious to weather, viruses, needed maintenance, or unexpected breakdown, but until then, I will draw on my Girl Scout training and ”Be Prepared”.

Born to be Wild!

Even though I’ve been an online instructor since 2004, I’m still very excited about it. Over the course of my nine years in this position, the options, tools and capacities of online education have tremendously expanded. Perhaps because I came into online education at a relatively early point in the development of this  approach to learning, I never really felt overwhelmed because I had the opportunity to grow with it. At the same time, I have continually felt the need to keep up to date with need developments and learn new skills and tools. The research about online learning has  expanded rapidly, so keeping up with that body of knowledge is also a challenge. Challenged, I think, is a more appropriate word than overwhelmed. I feel challenged in a very positive way. The certificate program has contributed to the positive challenges I have experienced through the new information, new skills, new people with whom I am interacting, and the self-reflection that is a part of each week’s learning. No – I do not feel overwhelmed. I feel like I’m riding a motorcycle on the open road singing “Born to  be Wild”. Am I dating myself?