Importance of LMS Software During Covid-19 Pandemic
The world plunges into uncertain times as the COVID-19 virus continues to post as a threat to everyone. Schools across the globe have closed down temporarily to protect students, teachers, and staff from possible infection. In fact, a study by UNESCO says that almost 1.2 billion of students in 143 countries are affected by the pandemic.
But thanks to the rise of online learning during COVID-19 pandemic, students can carry on with their education. Schools, colleges, and universities are shifting away from the four-walls of their classrooms and are taking advantage of the digital space. A recent study shows that educational institutions are willing to invest up to $350 billion on education technology by 2025. This includes tools like video conferencing, virtual tutoring, and, most importantly, learning management systems (LMS).
LMS is software solutions that manage administration, monitoring, and reporting of online courses and training programs within an organization. It serves as a virtual classroom where teachers can interact with their students and conduct learning activities online.
This type of solution is essential during this time where social distancing and lockdown protocols are in place. Here are the reasons why.
1. Provide continuity in education
The pandemic has forced a percentage of the world’s educational institutions to shut down schools in the hopes of minimizing harm on their students, teachers, and staff. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that the academic year should be put on hold. With technology nowadays, online is where learners should be.
LMS for higher education serve as virtual classrooms. Despite the distance, students can still learn and study in their respective homes. Likewise, teachers can keep on with conducting their lectures and educating the younger generation. It provides the flexibility and accessibility they need to ensure normalcy in their day to day routine.
With education LMS, students don’t have to be held back a year from their education. They would only need internet connectivity and a device to attend school again. In this way, physical distance and location won’t be an issue for both students and teachers.
2. Ensures health and safety
In this era of the new normal, health and safety are the top priority of every organization and the government. The educational institution is not too far behind this trend. Hence, more institutions are looking for the best virtual classroom, where they can continue operations while also ensuring everyone’s health and safety.
With education LMS, students, teachers, and staff don’t have to brave out the threat of exposure to the virus. They don’t have to visit schools and other educational institutes. There won’t be mass gathering in one place. Likewise, it observes and secures social distancing. In this way, they minimize the risks of getting infected and infecting others.
LMS provides a way for teachers and students to interact as if they are in a traditional classroom setting during this quarantine period. They don’t have to go out of the house. They can study or teach within the comforts and safety of their own homes.
3. Guarantees effectivity in online learning
One possible concern with online learning is how no one can guarantee its effectiveness. Learning from home is a whole different experience compared to learning inside a classroom or a conducive learning space. Students and teachers can easily be distracted and unable to focus when they are in the comforts of their homes.
Fortunately, education LMS provides tools and features to help simulate experiences and activities that usually happen within a traditional classroom. Teachers can post and upload powerpoint presentations on the platform.They can distribute supplementary learning materials to their students in the course, post reminders, hand out assignments, and administer tests.
LMS may even be more effective and efficient compared to traditional methods. It offers integration of multimedia content such as videos, links, document sharing, live conferences, and even top virtual tour software. Likewise, LMS serves as a centralized repository of learning materials relevant to the course. It makes them all easily accessible, copied, and downloaded by anyone enrolled in the course
4. Monitor progress and performance
While conducting virtual lectures and conferences are useful in today’s condition, it can get challenging to keep track of everyone’s activities and performance in “class”. Thus, the biggest benefit of having LMS is its analytics and reports regarding the effectiveness of your online courses.
LMS helps monitor students’ progress and performance in the course. It has an in-built feature that keeps track of their records, grades, submissions, and engagement with the course. Likewise, it collates important files and documents shared by the students in the platform. These, in turn, will measure their progress in the course. You can also create milestones which students need to achieve, step by step, to ensure that they are right on track with the course progression.
Most importantly, LMS can pinpoint areas in your lessons or course that need improvement. It can suggest activities and supplementary learning materials that you can add in your syllabus. It can assist identifying which of your students will need extra guidance to get through the course.
5. Increase engagement
Nowadays, distance is one of the greatest obstacles for teachers and students. But thanks to various communication tools that technology provides, both sides can interact outside the classroom and school grounds.
To keep students engaged, LMS provides such tools for communication. These are in the form of chat boxes, forums, posts, blogs, and even social media platforms integration. This encourages students to speak out during and even outside class hours. Likewise, LMS keeps the channel for interaction open so that anyone can ask questions, post reminders, and clarify anything related to the course. This also allows collaboration between other students.
In a way, LMS for higher education is better than simply having video conferences between students and teachers every now and then. After all, having several people in one virtual conference call can make it difficult for each of their voices to be heard. With LMS, you can ensure engagement with everyone enrolled in the course.
6. Personalize learning experience
With a learning management system for students, they can personalize their learning experience. Since online learning provides flexibility in terms of where, how, and when they can be accessed, students can learn anytime and anywhere they want. They can access learning materials during and outside class hours. They can conduct their independent study or watch live streams of lectures with the rest of their classmates. They can choose where they want to take their course and what device to use.
Teachers also have absolute control on how they want to teach and interact with their students. They have various tools to choose from to support their preferred teaching styles. Likewise, they can upload files, videos, powerpoint presentations, modules, and others to supplement their syllabus. They can also choose to be dynamic and interactive or more modular and traditional.
In this way, LMS does not only customize learning content. It can also personalize the learning experience with the course as well. This flexibility and personalization serve both students and teachers.
Education must go on!
With the pandemic still looming overhead, the future remains uncertain. However, not everything is hopeless. As more countries begin to adapt to the new normal, educational institutions are starting to adopt as well.
The virus isn’t a death sentence on education. With the right tools like LMS COVID-19 paves the way to a different form of learning and teaching. Teachers can continue with their job of instructing the younger generation, while students will not be bored stuck at home. In the end, LMS can give that sense of normalcy in these trying times.
Therefore, LMS is important, especially now while COVID-19 remains a threat to everyone’s health and safety. It will ensure that education can carry on while also ensuring the effectiveness of online learning.
