Emerging Technologies Consulting

Mike Bogle argues that social media creates a better environment for learning than a Learning Management System does.  He goes through each learning goal set by his university and examines which set of tools does a better job at meeting those goals, and each time social media wins.  Mostly, I agree with him.  I do think that social media does a better job of encouraging reflection, collaboration, and personal responsibility for learning than most LMS’s do.  What I think the issue is is the default settings for each set of tools.  I’ve seen faculty create great environments for learning within course management systems, but it’s taken a lot of work and it often requires doing some serious outside the box thinking.  And it still has the drawback of not being open.  On the flip side, I’ve seen faculty do a blog “all wrong.”  They’ve worked hard to recreate a closed, non-interactive environment that’s on a blog instead of within an LMS.  In both cases, they’ve worked against the default.  The thing that I like about starting with social media is how stripped down it is and how it forces faculty to think pretty hard about the environment they want to create.  They may have to use different tools and connect them together using RSS or embedding it within a blog or wiki or other tool.  In an LMS, you can forgo thinking about the environment too much. First, there’s a default that looks familiar–a place for documents, a place for grades, a roster, etc.  Second, there’s little one can do to change the look and feel of the site, so that one often feels trapped.  You can add a discussion board, but you can’t change what it looks like or how it’s laid out.  Often the course exists within a frame where the school’s chosen banner and colors show up, overpowering any customization one might do. If a faculty member feels like they don’t have control over the site, imagine how students must feel.

The default for social media can usually be changed quite readily.  There are themes for blogs, changing its look to fit with the theme of the class or lay it out in a way that facilitates student work and learning.  Widgets that can incorporate Twitter feeds, video feeds or del.ici.ous links can be easily added.  There’s also the larger option of having a class site versus having each individual student set up their own site.  Either way, it’s easy to get student input and/or let students be responsible for what gets included and what tools will benefit them in their learning.  Links to wikis or other tools can easily be added to the site.  Learning needs to be flexible and the learning context needs to responsive to student needs.  It seems to me that social media offers that flexibility and responsiveness in a way that LMS’s just don’t.