Week 3 - Journal

This week’s topic and reading allows me to deepen my understanding of some of the basic terms commonly used in the online sphere; the two words in particular are Learning Management System (LMS) and Content Management System (CMS).  I have come across these words before but I didn’t pay much attention to them because I thought they mean the same thing; however the two terms differ considerably. LMS, also known as Course Management System (CMS) or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is a learning platform through which ‘the management and delivery of learning content and resources to students’ at anytime and anywhere (TrainingForce, 2012) can be done, and the success of any LMS is dependent upon the e-moderator/facilitator. If the e-facilitator cannot arouse interest in his/her students to effectively participate in the course, it will certainly fail. Two years ago when I started using Moodle to deliver my course, I did not know about all these things and how important my role as the course coordinator was. I was more excited by the use of technology and the fact that, each day I become more and more confident in the use of Moodle, for example, knowing how to use the grade book, or creating a sign up space and so forth, but I was also very aware to the fact that my students were not responding to any of my postings, and it made worry. Then, I didn’t know what to do because I thought it was the system’s (as I now as LMS) job; now, I know that it was my job. I am glad to have taken this course.

The importance of the e-facilitator in the success of the LMS is seen and reinforced in the reading: http://trainingforce.com/things-a-learning-management-system-doesnt-do where it talked about the limitations of LMS in certain areas of delivery and the fact that the need for an e-moderator cannot be avoided. I recommend you to read the article.

CMS, on the other hand, refers to the system that is used to manage the content of a website which involves two elements: content management application (CMA) and delivery application (CDA). The former allows the author to manage, modify and/or remove content from a webpage, while the latter ‘uses and compiles the information to update the website’ (Rouse, 2011). On the basis of this definition, I think, correct me if I’m wrong, blog is a CMS.

Now, things seem to be making sense after all.