Toolbox or Trap CMS

After reading Lisa Lane’s article, I feel that course management system is a trap especially if you are a talented teacher and find it hard to apply your creative techniques in an online class vs. an f2f classroom setting. The trap being, that the online class is already set up for the teacher, in which they have already built in pedagogy for the teacher, which limits the talented teacher to teach. It is more of a “cookie cutter” approach to teaching. In the course management system setting, your new lecture is the “discussion board”. However several facilitators use this online classroom approach successfully. I for one like the online classroom setting as it gives me time to think about what I want to say in the discussion board and I do not feel rushed as I do in a regular classroom setting. I am not the type to raise my hand, in order to be called on because I don’t want to be the one to “feel stupid” if I ask a stupid question. This is what is nice about the online class when you ask a question, you do not get the body language or looks from the students as you would in a regular classroom setting if you were to ask a “stupid question”.
Another disadvantage to course management systems is that the instructor’s role is to provide a rich learning environment, and in order to do that there needs to be social interaction, self-assessment, and independent projects. These techniques are better supported by the learning management systems that encourage such pedagogy at the novice level. The more the course management system promotes traditional pedagogy, the more likely it will limit faculty creativity and flexibility and creativity are the foundations of academic freedom and good teaching. This is not to say that it is not possible to be creative and flexible in using course management systems, it all depends on how much the teacher knows and how computer savvy they are to utilize the software they are teaching from.