Getting The Most Out Of Your LMS

What is a Learning Management System used for?

• Administration
• Documentation
• Tracking and Reporting

Is that it? Not really .Most instances of the LMS are capable of a lot more than what they are currently utilized for. Let’s look at how you can exploit the capabilities of your LMS to the max.

‍MICRO-BLOGGING: Check if your LMS offers a Micro-blogging feature. The micro-blogging feature is a great way to build a network that can be used for varied types of learning. It allows users to create their own workspace, provides a quick ability to post status updates, customize feeds, search and follow new individuals and a lot more.

‍WIKI: Check if your LMS includes a Wiki. Wikis are simple, efficient tools for managing knowledge and collaborating. They're particularly convenient in today's busy and international workplace.

• They're easy to learn and use.
• With wikis, knowledge doesn't get buried in emails, locked into file systems, hard drives or servers, intranets or extranets, or closed in more specialized data management systems and knowledge management systems.
• Wikis are online so users can access, collaborate, and share content, knowledge and files anytime, anywhere.

You can read more about LMS Wikis here.

‍TWITTER INTEGRATION: Check if your LMS is capable of Twitter integration. Twitter is a fast growing and influential social networking service that is being leveraged as a great learning tool. Letting users create their own network, it makes information sharing across domains easier and faster. Integration with the Twitter web service will make it easy to share information across domains.

‍COMMUNITIES: One of the key features of social networks is the spontaneous forming of communities around shared interests and concerns. Check if your LMS gives users the ability to create and participate in such communities, letting users share their knowledge and expertise with others in their community. This sense and place of community is a powerful force that can drive learning in the enterprise. In the organizational context, knowledge is no longer contained in silos defined by geography, function or domain and can be shared and viewed transparently.Discussions and comments are a great place for information exchange and thus, the communities module effectively provides the enterprise with a tool to seed and grow communities and, impact learning positively.

‍RSS AGGREGATOR: Check if your LMS comes with a feed aggregator built-in to retrieve feeds from the internet and display the items within the LMS interface. RSS is rapidly becoming a popular way to access news and other information without having to reach out for it regularly

.DISCUSSION BOARD: Check if your LMS provides a Discussion Board feature. The discussion board serves as a forum for all users to interact, ask questions, post queries, get responses, and generally share information across the board.

‍The Growing Importance Of Social Learning

‍In an earlier post, Abhijit had remarked “That the LMS needs to incorporate social learning elements is no longer a point of debate but both a question of survival for the LMS itself and also a test of how the LMS handles the balance of both the elements of training and the ‘networkedness’ of social learning.” I firmly believe that Abhijit was spot-on when he said that.An LMS with inbuilt social media technology enables you to not only access learning content but also participate in surveys, polls and forums; network with friends and peers; seek answers from content experts; and much more. It also allows you to share photos and videos with other users leading to collaborative learning.If your LMS provides these features, utilize them to turbo-charge your LMS experience today!