What is Learning Management System (LMS)?
While integrating technology into educational environments makes the work of teachers in the classroom more effective, it also requires them to employ new methods. This means learning new knowledge and skills. It is considered very important to provide the necessary guidance to young generations who are willing to use all kinds of technological tools. Academicians and teachers who conduct research on the "use of technology in education", which has become a state policy, make great efforts.
Today, it can be said that there is a transformation from traditional classes to cyber classes in the field of education and learning environments in order to raise the human profile needed by today's technologies with today's technologies. Because by using e-learning environments, students can access the information they want, whenever and wherever they want, and communicate with the people they want. In addition, e-learning environments have the ability to combine various communication technologies that can be used on independent platforms. With the development of technology, it has become almost mandatory in educational environments for teachers to make their work in the classroom more effective and to use new methods on the other hand. Especially considering that Web 2.0 technologies have become extremely widespread, the use of today's social networking websites has become indispensable for individuals of all ages. This situation necessitates the need to learn new knowledge and skills. For example, individuals using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can share files or information in the form of text, images and videos through the network connections they establish with each other. Considering that today there are individuals who cannot spend time without going to the Internet and sharing anything through social networks, the idea that various changes should be made in the education of these individuals comes to mind. When the literature is examined, we come across Learning Management Systems (LMS) developed for this purpose.
LMS are web software designed to carry out distance education activities. The concept of LMS can be used in Turkish as learning management system, teaching management system, learning management system. Performing functions such as presenting learning material, sharing and discussing the presented learning material, managing courses, taking homework, taking exams, providing feedback on these homework and exams, organizing learning materials, keeping student, teacher and system records, receiving reports, learning management systems are their basic duties. Learning management systems must have certain features in order to provide full service to users. First of all, interoperability and compatibility with other systems; Archiving and file management capabilities, reusability, consistent organization of learning objects, rapid accessibility, and support for a wide range of content types (text, multimedia, HTML or PDF) are the main features it must have.
Features of Learning Management Systems
A learning management system; It covers management, communication, interaction, collaboration, course presentation and management, and content development processes. In order to provide maximum benefit to users, such products must have a number of features such as portability, interoperability, reusability, manageability, accessibility, continuity and scalability. Apart from these, education management systems are expected to have the following features and capabilities;
Performs user registration and management operations,
It provides communication and interaction between learners and teachers,
Performs measurement and evaluation,
The learner follows the educational information,
Reports at the end of the processes,
It saves time and cost.
In our country, some educators use various learning management systems such as Moodle, Edmodo, Easy Class (Whitepano), Its Learning, Thinkbinder, Google Classroom (Classroom) in order to monitor their students remotely and communicate effectively with them. In addition, various world universities providing Open Education and Distant Learning continue their education with LMS systems developed by professional companies, and in this way, many of their students receive certificates and diplomas.
As it is known, distant learning; It is a form of education in which students and faculty members are in different places, course materials are transferred, and interaction with students is carried out using various technologies. The distance education process can generally be carried out in two ways: synchronous or asynchronous.
When the instructor and the student interact at the same time, it is called synchronous distant learning. Synchronous broadcasting is similar to today's television broadcasting and occurs when the client catches the current broadcast on the computer. If there is a video or live broadcast on the selected channel, this broadcast can be watched on the client computer. In a synchronous environment, through a live connection (internet, satellite, etc.), simultaneously, users and the server (students and educators) are in the application interactively. In this application, students can ask questions, discuss with each other or solve tests. Synchronous education is the general character of classical face-to-face education.
The distance education method, which eliminates both time and space, is mostly achieved through asynchronous education. Asynchronous is distance education that is done asynchronously. In this education, the instructor and the student interact in different places (remotely) and at different times (asynchronous).
Students can access course content whenever and wherever they want, as long as they need it, through the LMS used. In this type of distance education, student-content interaction comes to the fore, and student-teacher interaction occurs with a delay. The student submits his questions about the content to the teacher via e-mail or forum, and the answers to these questions, which are answered at certain intervals, are conveyed to the students by the same means.