Teaching the Facebook generation:
A wish list for course management software

Brian Whitmer and Devlin Daley

Today’s generation of students know how to use the web for a lot more than just checking their email. They’re perfectly comfortable with dynamic web pages and highly interactive content. They spend hours a day on social networking sites communicating and collaborating with friends. So why is it that the only interaction they have with Learning Management Software is when they check to see if their grades have been updated?

LMS systems offer a hub of interaction for today’s online students — at least, they should. Instead of collaborating within an LMS, students are organizing themselves into independent Facebook and Google groups, and teachers are making outside blogs for their students to follow. Some teachers avoid LMS software altogether because it’s too clunky and confusing. There’s a growing disconnect between what LMS solutions provide and what students and teachers actually use or want.

At Instructure we’re working to create a new type of course software that embraces the open technologies of the web. Our real goal, though, is to create a system that will actually get used. We have our own ideas about how to make a modern LMS really shine, and we’ll start the presentation off by going over some of these thoughts. Then we’ll open it up for discussion to hear what you want/need in an LMS. We’re building this product for you, and we want to make sure it’s something that will actually fit into your educational plans.

This presentation will be the chance to start participating in the creation of a meaningful, useful educational product. It’ll be an open-discussion opportunity for us to get to know you better, and for you to get excited about a fresh new take on educational software.