My experience with a Course Management System (CMS): An Evaluation

A CMS is Internet-based software that manages student enrollment,
tracks student performance, and creates and distributes course content. In this way, the CMS enables teachers to extend the classroom beyond its traditional boundaries of time and space. Some common systems include Blackboard, eCollege and WebCT (The Journal, 2007). I have used WebCT, which is also known as Desire to Learn when I was a teaching assistant for two semesters. In this paper I will evaluate my experience based on my position as a teaching assistant. In doing this I will address some of the tools that were utilized as well as some that could have benefited the class.
Distance learners from all parts of the state of Arizona were enrolled in this class. We mostly utilized the discussion board. The first experience with the tool was not very good, as the instructors had no control of the time of posting. Many students were late to post their discussions and could be allowed to post several weeks later. This was inconveniencing for me as a teaching assistant responsible for grading the discussions. The second time I assisted teaching this class was better organized because the professors restricted discussion time to one week. This was not a very good experience to students at first because many were timed out trying to beat the deadline.
The other pitfall of this was that students were not able to come back to view the discussions and provide feedback after the time was up. I thought that was not good since most students were employed at that time and could only participate in the discussion over the weekend. This problem was later partially resolved with an extension of time until late Sunday prior to the start of a new week but the fact that students could not access their peers’ past discussions not very good.
The Grades tool enables the instructor to manage class grades. As I have already mentioned, I was responsible for grading the students’ discussion. This is a very good tool that displays the grades for students. It enables the instructor to enter or edit entries incase there are mistakes. This tool is great because only the instructors can view all the students’ marks and only displays individual marks to the individual students allowing for privacy. I feel it is very well designed in this regard as students are able to follow their performance throughout the semester.
The checklist is a good tool to use to help students manage assignments. This tool was not utilized in the courses I taught but it is a great inclusion any future courses I will teach.
Class Blog is another important tool that was not utilized in the course I taught. Students had a lot of information to share with there classmates that were beyond discussion of the week. This tool could have aided in this. Since it was missing, many students who had knowledge to share to others ended up not sharing it because they were advised to stick to the topic on the discussion board.
The Drop Box seems to be another good tool to submit assignments to the instructor. It was not used and students could have benefited from it and it is a great addition to the traditional emailing option.
The Locker enables students store their files and is a good tool to them to manage their files. This could be used as a backup for their class projects. It was not used but is certainly a tool to utilize in my future courses.
The Chat Room was not in use in those courses I taught but it is a great tool to consider for my future courses where students can discuss class projects with their peers as well as instructors.

In conclusion, I have learnt new tools that could have made my course interesting and easy to manage. I hope to incorporate most of these tools in future.
Reference
The Journal (2007). Course Management Systems and the Reinvention of Instruction. Accessed online on February 12, 2007. Available at http://thejournal com/articles/17014

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