5 reasons, why a multi-featured LMS is better than multiple standalone solutions for the online teaching-learning process?

With the ongoing pandemic, many of our education institutions took to online platforms. Due to lack of awareness, many institutions adopted different tools to take care of all the activities put together that are involved in teaching, e.g. one tool for the online class, another one for tracking attendance, and then the third one for submitting assignments, and believe it or not, yet another one for submitting tests.

Having such multiple tools has not only made life more difficult for teachers and students, but it has also made the adoption of technology cumbersome and inefficient.

Adopting a Learning Management System, instead of so many standalone tools would bring in the much-needed ease and effectiveness in the use of technology by our educational institutions. The following are the reasons how an LMS is better:

1.     Single sign-on – All students and teachers sign-in only on one platform. They don’t have to go to multiple platforms for various features. This ensures they don’t have to install various tools on their devices or create groups/cohorts everywhere. They don’t have to keep checking the various tools for the latest news and updates. All updates and messages are available in one single platform which improves the efficiency of the overall online teaching-learning.

2.     Consolidated data at one place – Whether it’s the students’ attendance or their assignments, or the notes shared by the teachers or the lecture schedules, or even an online test, the entire data is in one single consolidated tool. The entire history of whatever has happened through the semester can be referred to easily by the students and the teachers from one single place. Year-on-year, semester on the semester, the entire history is maintained in one platform. With all the activities and data available in one single LMS, it is much easier for the students and teachers to coordinate and communicate. They can focus on only the teaching-learning part rather than wasting time in keeping up-to-date and coordinating with each other on various platforms.

3.     In-depth analysis and MIS for the management – the LMS has the entire data of all the activities of the various courses across the semester taken by the teachers and students. The senior management, HODs, and the principles/Directors can analyze the data and generate MIS, tracking the students’ performances and their progress with ease. The teachers’ activities and the course completion details are also easily available to the management on a single click. This helps the management in taking quicker and intelligent decisions about the progress and efficiency of the online teaching-learning.

4.     All features in one Platform – Virtual Classroom, Online assignments, online tests, feedback, online attendance, and many more in the same tool. The LMS has features way beyond so many standalone tools put together. It has a virtual classroom with whiteboard and screen share options. The handouts and presentation can not just be shared live, it can also be uploaded beforehand for pre-study to the class. The recordings of the live class can also be put up in the LMS for future reference. LMS has online assessment features like online assignment submission and online tests. To be able to understand the effectiveness of online teaching, LMS has polls and feedback features. For out of class discussions, the LMS has a Discussion forum as well.

5.     Cost-Effective – Having multiple stand-alone solutions, even if they are at a very low price, are actually more expensive than one single consolidated LMS. The time consumed in coordinating and managing the stand-alone solutions is also equivalent to the cost incurred on the tech solutions. 

Its time that our educational institutions do some serious introspection and look for a long-term solution towards adopting technology in their teaching-learning process. This pandemic is here to stay for long, and technology is the future for education. A good, well thought of, the consolidated solution would go a long way in ensuring our education sector comes back to speed quickly in not just fighting this pandemic but becoming future proof too.