As I read chapters 9 through 11 of Martin Weller’s book, 25 Years of Ed Tech, I kept in mind the concept of “good enough”, a theme that came up often in the first 8 chapters. While discussing the Web in Chapter 2, Weller (2020) stated that “good enough is usually the victor in terms of popularity if it can be made universal” (p.18). The concept came up again with reference to the LMS in the chapter 9 of the book and related Between the Chapters discussion with host Laura Pasquini, and guests Laura Gibbs, Brenna Clarke Gray and Caroline Kuhn. The popularity of the “good enough” LMS and our love/hate relationship with it is a phenomenon worth exploring.
First, the LMS has immediate relevance to me since I recently started using Kajabi to support my Child Mental Health practice. As a small business, we struggled to manage more tech platforms than we had time or capacity. Kajabi has proven to be a cost-effective and time-efficient way to manage our website, newsletter, blog, and other digital assets. In addition, it is allowing us to build online courses, a free membership platform with the potential of building an online community, providing a variety of ways to offer additional support to our in-person clients, and the ability to reach a broader, geographically diverse clientele. Another significant benefit is that it offers a very responsive help desk and online tutorials, which our old platforms, such as WordPress, lack. Weller’s (2020) description of what the LMS offered in 2001 still rings true to me today,“the LMS offered a neat collection of the most popular tools, any one of which might not be as good as the best of the breed-specific tools but good enough (another example of the “good enough” principle). It allowed for a single, enterprise solution with associated training, technical support, and helpdesk features to be implemented across an institution” (p. 63).
In contrast to my positive, liberating professional experience with the LMS as a simple, cost-effective, and time-saving tool to support our client and business needs, Between the Chapters episode 9 guests feel anything but liberated and supported by the LMS in higher education. Context is everything. They share their frustrations around the constrictive and rigid nature of the LMS, offering an excellent example of the tension between educators who support a more open approach to education through technology and the slow pace of change in higher education. According to Caroline Kuhn, as both a student and now a professor, the LMS has always felt like a straitjacket (Pasquini, 2021, 2:35). Furthermore, Laura Gibbs acknowledges that she was “struck by the horror of it from the start….the LMS is not linky, it’s not part of the real internet” (Pasquini, 2021, 4:30). She continues sharing that she would like to see the LMS pared down so that it meets the institution’s needs and then educators and students could have the freedom to connect, collaborate and create outside the LMS. I then found it so interesting to hear from the 3rd guest, Brenna Clarke Gray, that during COVID, she needed to move over 500 faculty members onto the internet, estimating that two-thirds of them “had never used electronic tools in their teaching” (Pasquini, 2021, 7:22). This tells me that most educators still lack the desire, motivation, or skills to embrace technology and use it innovatively to support student learning. She also shared that the “good enough”, structured quality of the LMS made it possible for her small team to support changes that needed to be made quickly during COVID.
In watching my young adult children make their way through traditional University programs, I can attest that they engage in technology platforms outside of formal classes to support their learning and educational goals. Even if most educators and Universities are not yet ready, for various reasons, to incorporate tech in more innovative and creative ways, it’s my experience and opinion that students are leveraging digital tools and spaces that resonate with them, and they are creating their own personalized digital learning environments outside but inclusive of their school’s LMS. I think what’s missing in the discussion is that education doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and students are not given enough credit for using their own agency to connect to digital tools and environments that support their learning.
It seems that context is in fact everything. Although the LMS is not a perfect solution to all our business and client needs, it is offering us a better option than we had before. It is good enough for now. In terms of the use of the LMS in higher education, that is a much more complex and contentious issue that I need to learn more about before I make any comments on a way forward. Through my own current experience and that of my children’s in regard to the use of LMS in education, we are enjoying our respective learning journeys and have experienced growth in both knowledge and skills in our areas of focus. I can only conclude that the LMSs supporting our learning are fulfilling their purpose and are good enough, for now.
References:
Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of ed tech. Athabasca University Press. https://www.aupress.ca/books/120290-25-years-of-ed-tech/
Pasquini, L. (Host). (2021, January 7). Between the Chapters: #9 resistance & care for the LMS with @OnineCrsLady, @brennacgray & @carolak [Audio podcast episode]. In 25 Years of Ed Tech. Spotify.
Fantastic post, Lara! You did an excellent job articulating my thoughts on the LMS. For my previous employer, I had to purchase an LMS for the global educational services division. I recall hundreds of vendors I needed to vet before choosing a system. I am not kidding when I say hundreds. I do not remember an LMS called Kajabi. I am glad the LMS is working well for your company. I will share a quote by Clark (2023) that resonated with me today about LMSs, “Some love them, some hate them. It is easy to criticize LMS platforms, and critics have been predicting their death since their inception” (p. 169). I agree with you that the LMS is ‘good enough’ for now.
Do you have a plan to evaluate your LMS? My organization formally does an evaluation every year on ours.
~Marni
Reference
Clark, D. (2023). Learning technology: A complete guide for learning professionals. NY: Kogan Page Limited.
Great reflection Lara, and I’m glad that you found an LMS that works so well for you and your business! Kajabi isn’t one I’m familiar with, I’ll have to check it out!
One thing I had to keep reminding myself about Weller’s book and Pasquini’s Between the Chapters podcasts is that – although it is applicable to other learning sectors, like private sector services and corproate learning – the context of these chapters and conversations is towards Higher Ed. I think for many using LMS systems to deliver courses as part of a service tied to revenue or in the corporate sector there benefits from an LMS could be slightly better than “good enough”. Do you agree or disagree that there may be some difference due to context?