Unbolting the Chairs: Making Learning Management Systems More Flexible

"We contend that the current technical design philosophy of today's Learning Management Systems is substantially retarding progress toward the kind of flexible virtual classrooms that teachers need to provide quality education. In order to have substantial development of specialized teaching tools at an acceptable rate, LMSs need to be designed from the ground up to make development and integration of new tools as easy as possible. In this article, we will make the case that specialized teaching tool development is, in fact, radically slower than it ought to be. We will propose reasons for this evolutionary logjam, suggest LMS design qualities that would break it, and provide guidelines that technical and non-technical stakeholders within an organization can use together to help select an LMS that is designed for a future in which the virtual chairs are unbolted and teachers have control over their teaching environments again."