LMS and LCMS are very important to some institutions. Whether it is an educational facility or a business, once a LMS is in place it practically helps the institution to exist. This week I found an educator who realized how important his Moodle was to his everyday schedule. He reflected on what happened when the Moodle was down. Here is a link to the entire blog post: http://dstfccc.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/the-day-moodle-died/
I never realized how important such a system could be to a learning environment. But after reading the blog, I began to compare it to people’s dependency of their cell phone. It is like their whole world revolves around the cell phone. The same was with this educator’s use of the Moodle. He could not function or teach his course properly. His interaction with the students was almost nothing. He had a hard time even creating an alternate lesson for that day. He even reflected that the use of the Moodle was so important, his colleague refused a new job because the company did not have a Moodle. These tools are now the “in” thing that is very necessary for an efficient method of management. Will this lend itself to a new existence? Will we change our entire thinking? It amazes me how these tools that rely so heavily on the technology and whether the server works that day, is slowly becoming the end all to be all for course management. What will we think of next?
-Jolandra
May 3, 2009 at 5:13 pm |
Jolandra,
You brought up an excellent point that we have become so dependent on technology, we can hardly function without it. The example you gave certainly brings such a scenario to light! I do depend a lot on technology, but it is important to be able to function without out. The power was out at our school recently for several hours. One would think that it shoudln’t make much difference, but it did! The front office was nearly incapacitated! In the library, I was unable to check out books. It was also too dark to even shelve books! In the classrooms, most teachers had students reading if there was enough light, but many simply went outside when the weather cleared. It was interesting how little we could do without the power to run our technology tools!
May 4, 2009 at 3:56 am |
Jolandra,
Interesting post. A thought that came immediately to my mind was that as technology becomes an increasingly vital resource in our teaching, so does the need for teachers to become skilled with a diverse number of approaches. This teacher felt powerless in the face of the loss of a resource. What will happen when textbooks (at least in paper form) are taken away? Imagine the implications for multitudes of educators who have been reluctant to embrace technology. We need to be able to adapt on the fly and have the needed skills to utilize what we have access to at the time.