Educators Say 'Meh' to School LMS Choice
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 08/05/21
According to a
recent survey, while nearly nine in 10 schools have adopted a
learning management system that every teacher is supposed to use,
fondness for functionality is hit-and-miss. While 85% of respondents
said their schools have adopted an LMS, only two-thirds (64%)
reported being satisfied with the current choice.
The survey collected
responses from 173 K-12 education professionals, including
administrators, technology directors, principals and teachers. The
project, done in May 2021, was a joint effort of Edsby,
which produces an LMS, and marketing and PR firm C.
Blohm & Associates.
Exactly half (50%)
of survey participants said they were "satisfied" or "most
satisfied" with the classroom management functionality of the
program, including being able to set up classes and students
automatically; print class rosters and seating plans; and facilitate
live video conferencing, whiteboarding and chat.
A higher share (58%)
said they were satisfied and most satisfied with the course content
functionality, including being able to produce or import content with
multimedia; centrally manage course models for reuse; and generate an
audit trail of changes to course content.
Similarly, 57% of
respondents said they were fairly happy with the assessment
capabilities of their LMS: creating, customizing and grading tests in
various formats; getting support inside the LMS for setting up
assessments; and being able to capture and tag evidence of learning
through formative artifacts, such as audio or video.
In the area of group
collaboration functionality — the use of mandatory staff
moderators, the ability to set up collaborative areas that can be
viewed by school personnel; and an option to auto-assign users to
groups based on role or grade — 54% of people reported being
satisfied or most satisfied.
Just 44% of people
said they were happy with reporting capabilities of the official LMS,
such as the ability to push report cards digitally directly from the
LMS or share learning artifacts with parents.
Parent outreach was
one area where the largest share of respondents (33%) was most
satisfied. Another 25% were satisfied. This category encompassed the
ability to give parents and guardians logins, 24/7 access, and
"instant" grade or attendance alerts.
While overall
happiness with the respective LMS was 64%, according to Edsby, 85% of
its own customers gave its platform high marks.
"As schools and
districts plan for a mix of remote and in-person learning this fall,
it's important that educators know and trust their LMS platforms,"
said John Myers, Edsby CEO, in a prepared statement. "A strong
LMS platform makes all the difference."
A report with
results is openly available on
the Edsby website.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.