Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy.

© 2008 Lisa M. Lane Creating an online class is a task of construction. A course management system (CMS) provides faculty with a set of tools, a kit to use as we build our classes. We want to construct classes according to our own pedagogy—what we know works with our learners and our teaching style. If we were building something tangible out of wood or metal, for instance, it would be silly let the tools in our toolbox determine what we construct and how we construct it. I wouldn’t set out to build a Victorian dollhouse and switch to a modernist garden bench because I couldn’t find the scroll saw. And yet this type of shift often happens when faculty encounter a CMS. Institutions purchase commercial course management systems to facilitate online teaching and learning. Although most colleges began adopting course management systems after faculty innovators independently created the first online classes, integrated systems are now used for online, onsite, and hybrid courses worldwide, with Blackboard and WebCT the most frequently used commercial systems.1 Campuses have adopted these programs on a wide scale, yet few studies have looked at how the design and use of a CMS affects pedagogy, and instructors rarely discuss how a CMS affects their teaching. With the emergence of new learning management systems and Toolbox or Trap? Course Management Systems and Pedagogy