Laura Gekeler Speaks Her Mind

Here we go again

2021-01-27T16:19:40Z

The University of Notre Dame adopted Sakai in 2011, a long-running blockbuster, it’s time to move on. In 2011, everyone was evaluating, and switching Learning Management Systems (LMSs) about every 4-6 years. It’s a tough transition, so these days, an LMS can expect an 8-10 year run before the market and other change forces combine to indicate its time to find out if your institution still has the LMS that’s right for you.

So at the University of Notre Dame … here we go again.

LMS Evaluation Viewpoint 2020

2020-02-19T19:52:54Z

If you are faculty, if you’re ever surveyed about your institution’s LMS, participate! If you are faculty, if you’re invited to a focus group, speak up. If a member of administration renders a strong opinion, ask why, ask for sources.

So tell us – what do you like about Canvas and why? What don’t you like?

What do you like about Brightspace? Don’t like? Why? What about Blackboard, or the open source kids like Sakai and Moodle? Have you ever used them? Tell us, what do you like, don’t like? Be specific. Does it matter? Does open source matter to you? If so, why?

Maybe choice of LMS doesn’t matter, but it’s the way the service is managed at your institution… do you get the help you need? Do you have the choices you need?

Please share!

What focus today?

2019-03-27T14:12:30Z

Good Morning Robin Williams! Oh wait, he wasn’t even an LMS Administrator but he killed himself…

So today. What initiative, fix, feature, campaign, education, development, or QA effort do I focus on?

My list includes:

Discovering if its feasible for CKEditor 4 (the RTE embedded in Sakai) could be configured with a fontawesome embed widget
Discovering if anyone else thinks the CKEditor’s stupid buttons should be turned off/made invisible

Stupid buttons here:

You get this, right? When you press any of these 3 buttons, they tell you that your browser (any modern browser) doesn’t support using these buttons, just go ahead and press [cntrl]+ V or [cmd]+V.

Back to the list…

Using Longsight’s clever text report tool and mining the report to discover just how many people I’m going to piss off if I take webdav away from them. Would it be a huge learning curve to zip up a group of files, upload to the file repository and let Sakai unzip them? sigh… I’ve hated webdav as a protocol for 15 years now, through 3 LMSs and how ever many desktop operating systems that’s been.
Oh right, my performance review self-evaluation is due.
And I have got to get our faculty MapleTA champion (now Möbius Assessment, of course) out of his role as go-to support person. Sooo hard. He’s a Math genius, for that, I will always call upon him. But how to use the software? I think I can help, but how?
Gradebook, the central element of any LMS. And something everyone wants something different out of. Professor Sinatra, yes, you can do it your way. There’s this Sakai widgetey thing that allows you to use a local spreadsheet configured any way you want it and then you upload it for students. As long as each row begins with the student’s user name, that row displays only to that logged in student. But really… do we need this option? Who wants to support this? I don’t. But maybe we should?
Advanced coolness. You don’t know what you don’t know. I’ve got some advanced coolnness HTML / CSS I’m working on which isn’t going to entice a lot of course designers unless / until I can ensure they can be copied term to term to term and site to site to site ad … delectum.

Okay… I’m off to QA the copying term to term to term for advanced coolness because, well, if I tell you my criteria is Biggest bang for the buck will you believe me?