This is where we’ll talk about Lisa M. Lane’s “Insidious Pedagogy: How Course Management Systems Impact Teaching.”
First off, some of what Lane is talking about here might be a little foreign if you have never taken any other online class other than this one. I very consciously decided to use WordPress as my own version of a “CMS,” largely because of some of the arguments that Lane is making here (though I hadn’t read this essay until this term). In any event, if the only experience you have had with an online class/CMS is the limited way we’ve been using emuonline for this class, then I would suggest that you take a few minutes to take a tour of the emuonline demo course.
Now, Lane argues that most CMS-s on the market are not as “monolithic” in their assumptions about the relationship between pedagogy and technology as they once were. She writes:
Over the past several years these products have become extremely rich in their features, able to accommodate all sorts of non–traditional activities. They feature in–network blogging, portfolios, branched lessons, instant messaging, and research “scholar” elements, including RSS feeds. The ability to customize such systems, not only with colors or themes, but also with links to external URLs and internal features, are expanding with each new version. Even if you leave aside the fact that these systems are closed silos, and that this fact alone could hamper pedagogy (Lamberson and Lamb, 2003), there are still plenty of pedagogical choices.
I have to say that I am not sure I agree with that sentiment. For one thing, your mileage varies on how much you can customize these things– for example, here at EMU, we can’t change the ugly color of the set-up. For another, a lot of the “features” in the CMS-s that she mentions here are kind of, well, half-assed. The ability to “blog” with most of these systems is pales in comparison to free software like WordPress or Blogger. And, as she points out, the fact that CMS-s tend to be closed systems have some severe limitations. In our class, we would have had none of the conversations with the authors of various readings we have had this semester had I hosted this class on emuonline.
But I think that her points about “novice” users here are spot-on– that is, people who have been teaching for a long time but who are new to online teaching often assume that you can just “pour” your face to face class into an online interface and it will work out fine, and that CMS-s present themselves in a way where it is often difficult or more trouble than its worth change the defaults.
I also have to say that at EMU, we have some really good support folks in continuing education for these online classes, and I do think they follow Lane’s advice of supporting novice instructors and more experienced instructors differently. Which, by the way, is also a reason I’m able to do this class on this web site instead of on emuonline.
“Course management systems (CMSs), used throughout colleges and universities for presenting online or technology–enhanced classes, are not pedagogically neutral shells for course content. They influence pedagogy by presenting default formats designed to guide the instructor toward creating a course in a certain way.” Like Dr. Krause, I completely agree with this statement. I would feel stifled as a teacher if I had to use a CMS to do my teaching. I like to be more creative and structure my classes in different ways so as to break up monotony. With Lane’s explanation of CMS through this article, I don’t think– regardless of them having more advanced capabilities today– that they would really support that.
And, yes, I have heard teachers state that very little needs to change for online teaching. Well, I would say that the same over all principles apply for online teaching, in that the class needs to be well structured, interesting, and call for student participation. But, umm, it’s a completely different environment and, therefore, a completely different way of relaying the information you have to students. I like how she says, “It’s important to make a distinction between a teacher experienced in instruction, and one experienced in using the Web to instruct.” Although she is trying to define novice faculty here, I think it outlines that it really requires that faculty and their classes become one thing for face-to-face teaching and another for online teaching insomuch that distinctions do have to be made. I suppose, however, that teachers who have been teaching for years might not like to be knocked back down to novice level in their careers all because of using a certain medium.
I really liked how this article spoke, kind of in broad terms, about the pedagogical influences of CMS’s. I don’t think it’s necessarily ground-breaking to say that the system you use is going to influence your pedagogical choices, but looking at how they can actually do this and how instructors can consider it, was interesting. Knowing this, I wonder if a better starting point for a solution would be something like a hands-on how-to seminar for novice online instructors rather than just instructor-initiated support systems. Why not have a seminar that takes instructors through a hands-on experimentation with various CMS’s before they decide on one. Maybe this would counter the intimidation factor a bit. I also wonder why, if there are so many better choices out there for free CMS’s, universities are still endorsing more archaic systems. If the commonly-used one’s are so much more closed than others like WordPress and Blogger, then why are institutions still using the less customizable ones? Is it because they are assuming a certain pedagogical stance, or is it as Lane seems to suggest, they are just valuing ease-of-use over customizability?
Dave, one thing I wonder about regarding closed, store-bought CMS-s is the issue of liability. If a University endorses something, they also provide support for it and *protect* it, right? When student conversations/writing/etc. go on under the explicit auspices of a university’s CMS — as opposed to a public WordPress blog or a Google site — it is clear that the work is done for educational purposes, and the audience is very specific, local, and contextualized. To give an example, say in my book review (which is published publicly on YouTube) I used a copy-written image (accidentally or intentionally — I don’t think it matters). Because the video is public, people could find my mistake and make me pay for it, and I/my work would have little protection. If that video were posted on an internal CMS, this problem wouldn’t occur, because not only is there a 0.00001% chance anyone will find out about it, but more importantly the university would also protect me if someone did find out. Anyway, it’s just another layer to the discussion about the publicness/privateness of coursework/discussion and the reasons for university buy-in. To cite another example, this course site is public, and future employers could, in theory, find it and read our projects, blogs, and opinions. If they don’t like what they see, they might not hire us. The implications of all-public educational venues are mighty scary, if you ask me…
hmmm…. didn’t think about that. definately food for thought.
I’m not sure that it would be any more “legal” if that material that you used that wasn’t in “fair use” was behind the firewall of the official CMS, frankly. But I do take your point, Carrie, and there are some interesting tensions about institutionally mandated CMS-s. (Which, btw, is not really the case here at EMU. The CE people know I’m doing this, and they are generally “cool with that.”)
At many places, people are a) required to teach at least some of their classes online, and b) they have to use the institutional CMS, and the general reason for that is consistency and identity. I think that administrator-types are commonly afraid that if everyone “did their own thing” like what I’m doing, students would get confused. The problem I have with this is that this logic does not extend to the f2f classroom. I mean, we have all sorts of different room and building configurations, and it’s not like I’m expected to wear a uniform. And more significantly than that, every class and how it is evaluated is a little different– different kinds of assignments, quizzes, tests, etc., etc.
Now, one thing I do think is an institutional thing is grading, which is why you’ll never see on this site or on your individual sites something akin to a letter grade. There’s laws about that stuff. Frankly, I avoid emailing students about grade information too because that’s not an official way of distributing grades and it is not (in theory) as secure as things like emuonline and my.emich. Plus I like the gradebook function on emuonline….
I understand the idea of uniformity to some extent…As a student, I know it’s terrifying to enter a class with an Online component and feel completely lost. It takes time to learn something new, and, in the mean time, it’s agonizing to worry that something might be missed while trying to learn what’s going on. I think this element is a little different than the challenges that you encounter in a f2f class, but I understand the argument that there are differences in teaching styles in a traditional classroom.
My guess would be habit…people don’t like learning new things; particularly new computer things
I know that in the business world this was the case, and, in fact, I personally felt this way when I did a lot of my work on computers. It’s so much easier to simply keep with what’s familiar.
I have used Blackboard and our EMU online as a student and I like ours better becuase it was easier to navigate as a student. I have taken a class at Schoolcraft to be able to teach online classes or use them in my F2F classes. For me if I cant navagate the shell how can I expect my students to? I like the idea of an online component in my classes, I have used NINGs for two semesters now and I am still working out how to use them completely effiectively, but I will figure it out. I like the blogging idea (I hate doing it myself for my own personal reasons) and think I have to figure that out as well. What she says about the difference between those instructors who are tech savy and those who dont have a clue come through in the teaching of online classes. Some just use is as if they were teaching in a F2F class and that does not work. When I took the Blackboard class at S’craft there were some in the class that just complained all the time about not being able to find things. I am not tech savy, but not totally illerate and I realized I had to play around a bit, but for students who have not clue about technology (and there are some) they get lost in online classes if it is no easily spelled out. It is up to the teacher and if they are lost how can they expect the student to keep up?
Wow Cristin! I had no idea you used so much technology in your classrooms! What do you think has been most effective for you so far?
Well I have only used the NINGs and I have my 121 students create a technology/web based genre after they do their web search to evalute the reliability of sources. The NING thing is still something Im working out but I like it and will continue to use it becuase I feel like my students also have some control over the content as well, its not my space but our space. I am thinking about a FB page as well, but have not worked that out. I dont like Blackboard at all so I dont use it, if I dont like it how can I make it effective. The only thing is I cant post grades.
Thanks Cristin, I will look into the Ning thing then when I have a chance, I think that may be one of the better ones to use as well, but I have to admit, that was the one networking site we used in the TC class that I never felt like I had a handle on. Things didn’t seem to all update in one spot and I felt like i had to hunt around to find stuff, but like I said, I think it was just me
What class?? I like the ning in some ways and not in others, but that is with anything at all.
Steve’s Traverse City class about teaching with technology. We used all the latest stuff, played around in the WetPaint sites, used Podbean, Ning’s and all sorts of other things. I loved all the technology we talked about except really the Ning’s. Like I said, for some reason I just didn’t “get them” like I did the others.
Come see me next week and Ill show you mine and how you can use them. I like them because its not all about me.
“It’s important to make a distinction between a teacher experienced in instruction, and one experienced in using the Web to instruct.” I found this to be an interesting point because I know that before this class I certainly didn’t consider how much things like emuonline actually controlled the way I teach or how I thought about teaching. I’m definitly still a novice instructor in terms of both online and real teaching, however, because of this class, I’ve at least got some way of thinking about online CMS’s that is more theoretical than probably most teachers out there.
One of the things that keeps me from exploring some of this stuff is simply the time investment it takes to learn new technologies and implement them well. I’m kind of a stick to one new thing a semester thinker. Next year I hope to integrate blogs into my teaching, so that will be a sort of big project. I know blogs perhaps have lost some novelty, but I see some practical uses for them in specific situations.
Its messy and if you do too much I think it can make us feel overwhelmed at times. I am going to use the blogs when I teach a 121 like class again, but not sure about what Im gonna do for a 120 type class. I think that just the more you do the better off you will be.
My ears are on and my antenna’s are up because this is my 516 project topic. I liked the article but felt my tail between my legs because I am one of those novice instructors. I am like Brian and try to implement something new each semester because grading papers and teaching, you don’t have time to play around with CMS. I have become more aggressive with technology since I have taken this course. It is nice to have a computer guru modeling all the technologies out there and staying current with issues.
Cool topic Gloria. Are you teaching online now or just trying to incorporate it into your classroom more?
I agree with you all. I especially was taken by the following: “While seeking information, the web novice groupswere overwhelmed by simply keeping track of their location, and they reapeatedly got lost,” Yes, yes, yes! That’s me. If I begin to use a technology, I want to start slowly, learn it a bit at a time, etc. But, I have used Blackboard and I have found it to be too heavy on the learning and setting up end for the outcomes. I think that, since I teach in high school, I have a different outcome than someone who teaches a higher level course. High school students are not already tech-savvy when they come into the school, and, to be frank, when I was using Blackboard, I felt that not enough students were taking advantage of it to make it worth my while, This semester, I wanted to explore it in a full-blown way, and just don’t have the time because of this class.
I understand that our school system may be dropping Blackboard next year due to the cost, so it will be back to square one!
I understand that a lot of teachers might utilize primarily the default settings, and I agree that the default settings should be based more on pedagogy than they seem to be.
This is a very interesting idea to me because it applies to my research topic.
You’re all making good points here. I should point out that I don’t think CMS-s are “completely evil” and/or wrong. I’ve often described them a s a “gateway drug,” in part because I think what happens when they work with Blackboard/eCollege/whatever for a while, they start thinking “well, what if I tried this on my own with WordPress/Blogger/Ning/Wetpaint/whatever next?” As long as you see the CMS and its initial tools as a beginning.
The problem– and I think this is what Lane is getting at in her article– is that people just don’t take advantage of all the features, that they use the software to replicate the worst practices of f2f classes. So my hope is that you don’t do that, and even if you’re a novice, try to think what the software allows you to do differently. If that makes sense.
Lane makes the important point that many teachers teaching online are novices, maybe not in teaching and maybe not in their subject, but a lot of them are teaching novices when it comes to teaching online, but this can be bad because they may not be setting up their classrooms to the best means possible like Kevin DePew and Heather Lettner-Rust’s article pointed out. Like Lane says, we need to help guide these novice instructors in ways that a typical face-to-face instructor doesn’t necessarily need. Maybe online courses in each department should hire an online department head to make sure online courses are meeting rigorous departmental requirements and are challenging students to the same extent as in-class instructors are expected to.
I don’t know about an online department head, but you are making a really good point here in that we don’t really have very good evaluation/assessment measures for these courses. Without going into a ton of details about it, faculty who are seeking tenure or promotion get their teaching observed by various peers, including the department head. When I went up for promotion, I had the department head visit my online class by signing up for it and “poking around” a bit (I was teaching it on emuonline). It was an interesting experience and I was reviewed positively, but we’re still kind of making up the process a bit as we go along.