The Learning Management System is ubiquitous across education. But is it really a worthwhile pedagogical tool? This presentation, offered at the Digital Pedagogy Lab Institute in Cairo, looks at ways to work within the limitations of the LMS to build courses that adhere to the tenets of critical digital pedagogy.

1. The Learning Management
System as Portal
Sean Michael Morris
@slamteacher

2. There’s nothing wrong with Blackboard, except in the way that
there’s something wrong with all of it.

3. The invention of the LMS (Learning Management System) was a
mistake.

4. Pedagogy has at its core
timeliness, mindfulness, and
improvisation. Pedagogy
concerns itself with the
instantaneous, momentary,
vital exchange that takes
place in order for learning to
happen.

5. The LMS is meant to help us think about teaching, not to do the
teaching, or to tell us what teaching needs to occur. The LMS is
not the course; it’s the launching pad for the course.

6. 6 Principles of Critical Pedagogical Course Design
• Content is #1
• Narrative Structure
• Open-ended Questions
• Actual Work, No Busy
• No Assessments
• Business Casual

7. Content does not equate to learning, but should instead form the
foundation for inquiry, discussion, dissension, and the production
of knowledge.

8. An online course cannot be a series of handouts followed by a
quiz. The course should begin one place and end someplace
decidedly elsewhere… someplace learner and teacher mutually
discover. The best courses are as engaging as the best stories,
and they don’t neglect aesthetic considerations.

9. Yes or no questions are for
computers, not people. If we are
truly curious about what learners
think, then we need to leave lots
of room for their reasoning,
musing, and questioning.
And sometimes the best answers
are questions.

10. Activity in a course should never be empty.

11. A course should be
challenging enough that
just getting through it is
an accomplishment (and
compelling enough that
learners want to get to
the end of the story).

12. Most teachers sound nothing like themselves when they write
online; and yet voice sets the tone in an online course.
Perfect grammar shakes no one’s hand, gives no hugs.

13. Pushing through the LMS
• Choose one aspect of the LMS (discussion fora,
video lecture, quiz, grade book, content, etc.)
• Talk with your neighbor about how you have used
this piece of the LMS in the past.
• Together, collaborate on some way to hack at least
that one part of the LMS to better serve your
pedagogical purposes, student agency, or the idea
of not-yetness.
• Take some time to consider other digital tools that
could support your effort.

14. The digital pedagogue looks at the options, refuses the limitations
of the LMS, invites her students to participate in — indeed, create
— networked learning.

15. • What tools are available for me and my students to play
with?
• How can improvisation occur online to reinforce learning?
• Does digital learning end when the course ends, or is it
sustained perpetually by the online learning environment
(aka, the Internet)?
• Do disciplines matter online? Do canons exist? What is
the point of rote memorization when everything is
available online all the time?
• Where is my authority now that all authority is a Google
search away?
• And most importantly: What happens when learning is
removed from the classroom and exposed to the entirety
of the digital landscape?
Questions that the Digital Pedagogue Asks:

16. For the digital pedagogue, teaching begins with inquiry. And that’s
why digital pedagogy is so important. It reminds us that the new
landscape of learning is mysterious and worth exploring.