What the LMS?

For those of you not in the know (like me a few months ago) LMS stands for Learning Management System. It's a fancy way of saying an online classroom. Yeah, I know! Let's complicate this and then use an acronym because it got too complicated.

Anyhoo, I'm looking to start using an LMS next year since I am fortunate enough to have students that are getting laptops to take home with them and into class everyday. So before I decide on a system, I think I need to decide what I am looking for. Also, I need to think about my district at large because while I am choosing for me, I also will probably help support a district system sometime in the near future.

Things I need:

• Simple start up with heavy lifting behind the scenes.

I want something that has a very low initial learning curve so that teachers would be excited to start using it. I also want it to be able to say "YES" when teachers ask "Can I do this?" when they are ready to do more complicated things with their students.

• Math Markup

I teach math. I'd like to have a relatively easy way to add mathematical notation in the LMS. I'm ok if I need to use LaTeX, MathML, or another coding language. It's simple enough. But I want in-line viewing of actual text. Not a cut-n-paste image from another editor.

• Discussion Section
• Polling (Exit/Entrance/Whenever)
• Handing out (and collecting) assignments

This is where I am going to have problems. I really fell in love with using gClassFolders last year. I know that I could hook this up behind the scenes, but working with collected work here (including grading) really was easy for me. Since I have to maintain a gradebook through my school's Student Information System, I don't care if I can grade in the program--not a biggie.

• Saving a course to use in a future year/trimester.

Look, I don't want to reinvent the wheel every year. I do want to be able to put snow tires on in the winter, or upgrade later. But I don't want to reinvent.

• Syncs with Google Apps for Education

I'd like to post my assignments for the students. I like them to be able to save a file to Drive. I like the assignment to show up in their calendar. At last polling a few years ago close to 20% didn't have internet access at home in my district. An LMS won't work for these students. They need access to their files offline and Google, thankfully, has offline apps! 

I'm for sure going to look into Schoology, Canvas, ChalkUp and Moodle. Oh yeah, and Google Classroom (I got my invite). 

So today I start my journey. Feel free to comment on any you use with the pros and cons . I'll have future blogs with my initial previews of the above systems.