The Learning Management System is Dead
I’ve come to the realization that the Learning Management System is dead. There are no minor fixes, new product updates or next versions that are going to solve the LMS. It’s time to move on to a new solution and here’s why…
1) Zero focus on the student
In the mass consumer market, applications are built for the end-user. User experiences are seamless and easy to use. For most LMS products, there is a lack of student experience which is completely unacceptable. Schools were built to focus on the student. So, when the experience is not focused on them, it’s not a surprise that problems such as student retention and engagement exist. If we want to solve these problems, we first have to ensure the learning platform is focused on the student.
2) It’s overwhelming!
When you log on to an LMS for the first time, you feel — lost. You don’t know where to go, how to get to your classes, where your syllabus is or how to navigate assignments. There’s rarely a relevant walk-through or tutorial. No support page that’s not a book long. It just plain sucks. And it’s not surprising that many students dislike it, which eventually can result in them dropping out of school.
For faculty, it’s an overwhelming experience too, resulting in poor or zero adoption (even when required!). Some figure it out painfully and others spend more time trying to learn the LMS than teaching.
3) Support is non-existent
The very first thing I noticed on any LMS I used as a student, was that there was no guide or help touring the platform. This is so crucial to the student experience. The sense I got was that we were just expected to learn how to navigate this clunky platform and that if we figured it out, we somehow were smarter than other students that didn’t. This is just not right. Students should not have to figure out how to use a platform on their own. And they absolutely shouldn’t be thrown into a fire and have to figure out how to survive. This is not teaching, it’s ignorance.
We need to provide an experience and showcase the students how to navigate these platforms and what students can do to organize themselves to achieve success. Most learning management systems do not have the ability for students and faculty to reach out to a support team for help within the platform. When companies like Apple who have support teams ready for help, it makes all the difference. We need a platform that provides a focus on support rather than an afterthought.
4) So the LMS’ say they ‘engage’ students, huh?
Engagement has become quite the buzzword in the LMS market, but you need to deliver the experience to be able to say it. When an LMS does not focus on the student, it’s pretty clear that it will not be able to help provide an engaging experience. What does engagement really mean? In my eyes, it’s providing an immersive experience where the student is connecting with other classmates, chatting among groups, organically asking thought provoking questions and finding interesting new clubs or organizations to join. Does the LMS do that today? Definitely not.
5) Isn’t a classroom a two-way street?
A real classroom is a two-way street between faculty and students. Faculty provide guidance and teach the students. Students communicate back and interact with one another to learn. Today, the LMS is a one-way street. There’s no communication back and forth between students or faculty members. We need a two-way street and we need to extend the classroom not just put files online. In a classroom, you can raise your hand, ask something and everyone hears it. Where is that in an online classroom experience today?
6) It’s a laundry list of features
The problem with many LMS’, is they develop too many one-offs. It’s really a problem with their product strategy. When you don’t integrate other applications into one experience or prioritize letting students create applications on top of your platform, then you end up having way too many features on your platform. It becomes more about checking off a box than actually developing the correct solution.
It’s naturally harder to develop and solve the core problems than it is to develop a one-off. A one-off is easier but delays the solution until eventually you have a platform that is just a bunch of one-offs.
Ultimately, a user understands when looking at a platform if it is better than another platform or not. But not necessarily able to tell you how you can revolutionize the user experience or product environment to make the experience better. What this means, is that as a company, you need to solve the root of the problem. For example, a faculty member might ask to make the forums usable for students to ask questions in them. Instead of adding that functionality to the forums, I’d create a Facebook-like bulletin board for students to ask questions and have conversation on. The faculty member is now happy and you solved the core engagement problem of the platform. But many LMS’ fail to do this. It really comes down to building a platform with the focus on the end-user and caring enough to solve these problems that come along the way knowing that you are not going to build everything.
7) Students should be able to hack their own experience
Speaking of knowing the fact that you are not going to build everything, where’s the integrations and applications inside the experience of the LMS today? Where’s all the student driven applications today on an LMS? There’s very little. Reasoning is because they make it very expensive or almost impossible to do it. You’d have to build your own company and be around for 10 years and maybe, just maybe you’ll then have a chance at integrating your app inside of an LMS.
We need a way for students to be able to create their own applications for everyday issues at a school. There is so much talent out there, we should be empowering students to create solutions to problems or new ideas that can open up a world of opportunity. Giving students the ability to create something out of nothing and make an impact on many schools, not just their own.
8) Content does not equal folders
I’m sorry but ‘content’ shouldn’t just be a windows 98 personal file system for your classroom. Students have no idea what faculty will name the folder that holds their assignments and students will have to go digging through a bunch of folders to find important items. This wastes time for students and makes it that much harder to complete work. Getting rid of this folder system will increase productivity.
9) Manually connecting your syllabus and calendar
Speaking of assignments, when I was at college, I knew I had to be organized to have a chance at passing my classes. There’s no reason why students should have to manually use their paper syllabus to insert an event for each assignment for each class, each semester, year after year. That’s a ton of busy work, and a key reason why students get frustrated and dropout. Think about it…if you are not connected and notified about meetings in the real-world, are you going to know to attend?
The ‘real-world’ is filled with notifications that make it easy to be more organized on a digital calendar. We need that for students and faculty. Let’s be honest, today’s students are juggling work and a family/social life with school. But if they get a notification now that their assignment is due tonight or tomorrow, they can better prioritize their time.
10) Course pages have way too much customization!
We need to stop with all the colors and customized pages. When students get on a course page, they want to know where to go quickly. It’s great to have customization for select things but some things just need to be simple and straightforward. The LMS reminds me of Myspace. It was great to customize things for a little bit but it got way out of hand. Then, users moved to Facebook since they could finally know how to navigate on the platform and could find people by searching their real name, not a fake one. If we want to make a better student experience, simplifying the course pages on a platform is absolutely necessary.
11) Was this platform built in the 90's?
The new generations coming into college expect social capability, Mobile/Tablet ready experience and a modern user interface. When students get on an LMS today, they are completely lost and confused. They are shocked at the horrific designs and expect better. If we expect a school to solve engagement, involvement or retention, then we better provide an experience that suits the students. If not, we are going to continue down the road of problems and it’s only going to get worse.
12) Where’s the personalization?
Everyone that learns has a different style. Whether you like to learn in a group setting, in a large classroom, by yourself or by watching others. We need to let students learn how they feel most comfortable. Today, the LMS provides only one option of interaction. It’s a one-way street. No communication naturally happens from students to other classmates on an LMS.
The only way to communicate on an LMS with others is in a forum, that nobody uses. Why does no one use it? It’s behind the scenes and far away from the experience. It’s only utilized for assignments and doesn’t cater to organic communication. If we want a true online classroom experience, we need to allow students to talk to one another, collaborate in groups, ask questions, or just watch and listen in on the action. All naturally and organically. Just like a classroom.
13) Where’s student life on the LMS?
Isn’t the university experience a combination of campus life and academics? So, if a university has both, why is there not a platform that combines them? Why else would a university have these aspects of school if they were not important to have in one location? These were the questions I was asking as a freshmen at my school. I couldn’t understand why an LMS didn’t incorporate 50% of my college experience and many other students agree.
A New Way Forward
The LMS is dead, but a new category and product has emerged — a social learning platform. All of the problems above are issues we as students faced, struggled through and ultimately decided because of the frustration that we needed to solve. We knew that if we were going through these frustrations, that they must be effecting many others. We were unfortunately right. These issues can force a student to drop out of school, struggle to find a job after graduation, can’t connect with anyone on campus or won’t find their passion. We set out to change those results.
So in turn, we created notebowl. We welcome students to a modern design they’re comfortable with and a nice warm video introduction into the platform. No longer are students or faculty told to just ‘figure it out’. We prioritize support from the beginning and allow users to ask us questions anytime through our personal support chat. On courses, it’s a two-way street of communication, where students and faculty can interact, ask questions, post a video or if they feel more comfortable they can simply watch the course have a conversation. We built notebowl in mind to have a digital syllabus for all students, automatically syncing assignments to everyone’s calendars, just like the real-world does.
Notebowl combines the other half of your experience on campus — student life. With a new backbone to the college experience, it’s easier than you think to make the switch today. It will save you time, engage your students and improve the college experience .
Ultimately at notebowl, we simplify it down to what’s important — providing the best experience possible so that the students have a better chance at success. By focusing on keeping it simple, we can create a special experience for each and every student and faculty member.
