Benefits of LMS for schools
What is LMS for schools?
Learning management systems (LMS) is a software application that reports, tracks and tests learners so that they can progress through online courses. The learning management system emerged from e-Learning.
What is LMS in education?
A learning management system (LMS) in education provides students and staff with a large and necessary set of features, especially during the coronavirus and remote learning. LMS in education supports remote learning like classroom learning.
Common Features of LMS for schools
These are the features that are common in LMS for schools:
Online Presentations
Without a doubt, online presentations on PowerPoint have emerged as extremely valuable and relevant as an alternative to face-to-face teaching. Teachers can present important areas of the curriculum through online presentations; these are particularly effective for students who learn more effectively through listening to their teacher explain concepts.
Student Messaging
It is important that teachers keep in contact with their students in order for them to keep track of how they are finding the course, if they are struggling with anything and how they can help if they are.
Online Classrooms
Online classes are created with the use of Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Elearnus that allows both students and teachers to connect and allows live interaction between the teacher and the learner.
Online Quizzes, Surveys and Polls
These all enhance student engagement and learning. Some students find it difficult to retain information using traditional methods alone, this is where online quizzes, surveys and polls can be beneficial as they suit every learning type. For example, Quizlet, which is a free website that provides learning tools for students, like flashcards and game mode. Another example is Mentimer which uses polls, questions and answers and open responses to enable students to contribute using their smartphones This promotes creativity and discovery; this can be especially beneficial for students with learning disabilities like dyslexia and ADHD.
Online Gradebook
Chalkboards and blackboards are now a thing of the past and teachers no longer use paper gradebooks. Now electronic gradebooks are becoming more popular in the e-Learning community and schools. A benefit of using an electronic gradebook is that teachers can instantly and easily record and calculate students’ final grades. This gives teachers more time to offer students one to one support for example.
Discussion Boards
Discussion boards are a great way for students to brainstorm their ideas and respond to other students about their ideas. Students can also use discussion boards to share images, videos and film clips. Discussion boards are a great way for students to reflect on what they have learned.
Online Attendance Tracker
Students attending lessons are extremely important, even if these lessons are remote. When students show up to learn it means that they’re more likely to stay engaged and on track. Teachers must keep track of student’s attendance and notice which students are struggling to show up to lessons.
Virtual Certificates
This is a great way to award students who are working hard and gaining good grades. Students require recognition when they gain good grades, and this in turn helps boost student’s confidence.
Types of LMS for schools
- Webbased LMS vs Installed LMS software
- Saas / Cloud LMS vs Hosted LMS
- Free vs Commercial
- Open Source vs Closed Source
- Integrations
FAQ’s
What is the best LMS for schools?
There are a range of LMS for schools and it can be confusing to choose which one suits the needs of your school. This is why we have created a list of some of our favourite LMS for schools and their main features so you can choose which one suits your school’s needs.
Udemy
Udemy is the world’s largest online platform that helps students, governments and companies gain skills and their headquarters are in San Francisco, California, United States. They also have offices in Denver, Brazil, India, Ireland, and Turkey. Udemy have a mission to improve lives through online learning. Forty million students are using Udemy to gain new skills from 70,000 online instructors of over 155,000 online courses. Udemy offer a range of online courses like programming to team building.
Udacity
Udacity is an online learning platform that trains workers for their future careers in fields like artificial intelligence, machine learning, self-driving cars, digital marketing and robotics. They have worked alongside technology leaders like Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, and Mercedes-Benz to help their workers learn important technology skills.
Coursera
Coursera is an online learning platform that is partnered with 200 of the most prestigious universities and companies and was founded by Stanford professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. Coursera has 71 million online users, 500 companies, and 6,400 campuses, businesses, and governments. Their mission is to provide flexible, affordable and job relevant world leading learning to online learners around the world. Coursera offers a range of learning programmes and provides certificates and career qualifications.
Moodle
Finally, Moodle was developed by Martin Dougiamas and Open-source software and is an online learning platform. It has received the O’Reilly Open-Source Award for Best Education Enabler. It provides educators, administrators and learners with a single, secure and integrated educational system to create personalised learning environments. Moodle software can be downloaded through a web server. It is a free service but some of the more premium features are paid for with different payment packages.
Which is better moodle or edumeet?
As always it depends on your schools needs, both Learning Management Systems are excellent and have all the features needed to deliver online learning.
Lets discuss both LMS software a little further…
Moodle was developed by Martin Dougiamas, an Open-source software which is an online learning platform. It has received the O’Reilly Open-Source Award for Best Education Enabler. It provides educators, administrators and learners with a single, secure and integrated educational system to create personalised learning environments. Moodle software can be downloaded through a web server. It is a free service but some of the more premium features are paid for with different payment packages.
The Edumeet LMS was developed by the Research and education community. Edumeet is an educational space that transforms education into a hybrid, collaborative, exciting and enriching experience. It enables schools to have a low-cost and easy to use platform.
Both LMS platforms are great for schools with a tight budget, moodle is free with some premium paid features and Edumeet is also a low-cost option.
Which is the best LMS software?
There are a wide range of LMS software for schools to choose from but we believe our software offers the best there is to offer. Make sure to browse our state of the art education services that allow learners to flourish while learning remotely.
A bit more about us…
Elearnus was created when the lockdown restrictions created a need for more specialised remote learning tools for schools, nurseries, education centres and tutors. Elearnus allows teachers, tutors and online schools to manage their online education and virtual classrooms. The owners of Elearnus during lockdown restrictions were in need of remote education tutors with specialised tools and this is where Elearnus was born.
Elearnus can be used on any screen and is built to provide the same experience on any screen size, whether that be on a mobile, tablet or PC screen. Parents receive weekly follow up reports about student class performance with teacher comments. Teachers/tutors can create quizzes for students, and they can build these smart quizzes for exams that can be autocorrected and graded with feedback.
Furthermore, elearnus provides parents with a powerful dashboard to follow up and monitor their child’s progress. On elearnus students have their own dashboard and tools which help them to receive direct contact with parents or students either during class or privately. Elearnus online virtual education and classrooms allow instructors to monitor student’s status, get in direct contact with parents or students either during class or privately.
Some final thoughts…
Remote learning is a fairly new phenomenon for learners around the world and will become a way of life for the foreseeable future and therefore Learning Management Systems will as well. Learning Management Systems are fundamental for schools to allow students to further develop their knowledge of the school curriculum.
We hope after considering all your options that you consider choosing elearnus, we are leaders in delivering quality online learning for schools.
References
eLearning Industry. 2021. The Top Learning Management Systems | Reviews & Pricing 2021. [online] Available at: <https://elearningindustry.com/directory/software-categories/learning-management-systems> [Accessed 7 July 2021].
Financesonline.com. 2021. Types of Learning Management Systems – Financesonline.com. [online] Available at: <https://learning-management.financesonline.com/types-learning-management-systems/> [Accessed 7 July 2021].
Neolms.com. 2021. What is an LMS? What is an LMS used for? – NEO LMS for Schools. [online] Available at: <https://www.neolms.com/what_is_an_lms#:~:text=A%20learning%20management%20system%20(LMS)%20is%20an%20online%20education%20hub,distance%20education%20and%20continuing%20education.> [Accessed 7 July 2021].