Week 5: LMS Evaluation
Homepage Set-up
LMS-D2L Tools Review - Strengths:
1. D2L has great options for customizing the home page to just reflect the areas a course designer wishes to emphasize. This is important to make sure students don't get lost when they first log in to a new course. I love the way the widgets are organized help diminish cognitive overload by breaking up information into smaller chunks.
2. D2L offers many layout options for the homepage to allow a designer to easily customize the overall look to suit his/her course needs.
3. Adding a new getting started module and uploading new content into the news page was very easy in D2L this week and I was able to figure this out without any instructions. The drag-and-drop function was nice to move the newly created getting started module to the top of the content list.
3. Adding a new getting started module and uploading new content into the news page was very easy in D2L this week and I was able to figure this out without any instructions. The drag-and-drop function was nice to move the newly created getting started module to the top of the content list.
LMS-D2L Tools Review - Weaknesses:
1. It seems odd that I have to copy the homepage in D2L in order to make any changes to it. This was not intuitive, and I would not have figured out how to do this as a new designer.
2. Although adding a new news item was simple in D2L, linking it to the getting started document using the "Insert Quicklink" icon was challenging. First, it would be hard for a new designer to know which icon to use to link to other portions of the course without looking at all the options in the HTML editor. Next, whenever I clicked on the inserted hyperlink to change the document name, the hyperlink would not work for the entire phrase. It took several tries before I could successfully change the wording in the hyperlink.
3. When creating a new widget to the homepage in D2L, it was hard to find the Widget icon since it was buried within the navigation bar. It was also not intuitive that any widget content needs to be added under the content tab, not the description box in properties which shows up first.
4. Recording the audio welcome message in D2L was difficult even though I had Adobe FlashPlayer installed on my computer. The icons needed for changing the settings in the record audio dialog box were buried at the bottom and not easily accessible. It took me several tries even after changing the recording properties to actually get the recording function to work.
LMS-Canvas Tools Review- Strengths:
1. Canvas is very user-friendly both for the instructor creating new content and for the student accessing it. The final home page I created was very easy to navigate as a student. It was also very intuitive to figure out how to add a new news item by clicking on new announcements in Canvas.
2. Unlike D2L in which I had to go though the complicated Course Admin page to add widgets and copy the homepage, these functions were very easily accessible on the right hand navigation bar in Canvas. All I needed to do was click the choose homepage icon to change it, and the new announcement icon to add a new news item.
3. It was much easier to link new content to the home page in Canvas than it was in D2L. I could easily link to previously created assignments and announcements by following the link in the right hand navigation menu.
4. I really liked the audio recording program in Canvas. It also used FlashPlayer but did not have a lot of complicated setting properties and worked well the first time around. I also liked the option of adding closed-captioned text to the audio recording in Canvas for users with hearing impairment.
LMS-Canvas Tools Review- Weaknesses:
1. I could not find a way to add widgets to my Canvas page, and this was a draw-back for me, since I like how the widgets help to organize the content into smaller chunks. This might be because I'm using the free version.
2. Although I can customize a home page by adding a new page and linking content from other areas of the course, I felt that I had fewer options for customizing the home page than I did in D2L.
LMS Comparison & Recommendation:
Although D2L had a lot of great tools for customizing the homepage and I really liked the ability to organize information using the widgets, I found a lot of weaknesses with respect to linking course content, adding new information using the complicated Course Admin menu, and using the audio recording program. Canvas had fewer options for customizing the homepage, but as a new designer I found it very easy and intuitive to use. I did not have to copy the homepage to change it, and the icons for updating a home page and adding new announcements was very easily accessible. The audio recording program worked better in Canvas than in D2L and also had the option of easily adding closed captioning for increased accessibility. I also found Canvas very user-friendly as a student logging in to view the home page where I could easily find all the important information at one time. Therefore, based on the ease of use for both designers and students, I choose Canvas as the recommended LMS this week.