Like many who have weighed in on this subject, I think the success of LMS/EMS lies in the user’s experience. All of the learning affordances available today can be, and frequently are, undermined by an inelegant user interface. My experience in K-12 education has been frustrating in this regard. The vendors dealing with my district do not seem to be committed to optimizing the user’s experience. Consequently, products are piloted by a handful of willing early adopters and rarely integrated into the teaching toolkits of the less enthusiastic larger community.
I think the people with purchasing power must demand more from vendors. When my district purchases a new product, administrators expect users to bend to the product, rather than demanding that the vendor bend the product to the user. I have never seen a vendor design team perform a user analysis (or an analysis of any type) in my district. Significant improvements in usability are market driven and will come about when a savvy competitor (think Apple) dominates by designing an EMS that teachers want to use. When that happens, we will see the transforming effects of EMS on education in America.
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