The IT Buyer's Guide to Learning Management Systems

Choosing the right learning management system, whether you're selecting an option for a single school or an entire school district, is essential. You need to make sure that you're providing the resources that are most useful for the students and teachers in your district.

What should you look for? First, make sure you talk to your teachers to get a feel for the solutions they use the most often. Have they used an LMS in the past? Are there specific features that did work and that teachers want to keep? What about solutions or features that teachers feel are missing?

Over the past two years, many school districts have had the chance to try out learning technology at never before seen levels, leaving them with a deeper understanding of what tools they really need to accomplish those critical virtual and hybrid learning goals. Teachers often find that these resources and options can offer immense benefit in the classroom:

1. Integrations with the Platforms and Programs Your Teachers Already Use.

An LMS can seem like the perfect solution, but if it doesn't integrate well with the platforms teachers are already using in the classroom, it isn't going to work for your students.

Are students and teachers regularly using Google Docs, where many of their resources are already stored? You need an LMS with seamless integration. Do students in your district go through regular iReady testing? You may want your LMS to be able to integrate those scores or easily direct students to that platform. Talk to teachers across your district to learn what platforms they're already using and how they need to integrate with your LMS in order to be effective.

2. Online and Offline Learning Tracking.

Unless you have a school that is entirely virtual, chances are your students today are engaged in both online and offline learning. While not all of that offline learning will need to be transferred straight to your platform, you need an LMS that supports offline learning tracking to help support student progress and enrichment.

Students need features that will allow them to keep up with the progress they have made offline, then transfer seamlessly to the online environment as needed.

3. Adequate Data Storage for Students and Teachers.

Consider how students and teachers will actually be using your new learning management platform and what type of data storage they may need. Will students be coming back to the same learning management system year after year? Do they want to be able to access past content, from grading comments and other communication shared by the teacher to resources teachers may have shared with them in the past?

Take a look at how the LMS you're considering stores data and how much space students have. Also, determine whether student and teacher data is automatically deleted at the end of the school year—which would mean that students and teachers alike would need another solution for storing content from one year to the next—and how you can ensure that they will have access to the content they need when they need it. 

4. In-Platform Assessment Options.

An effective LMS will allow multiple assessment options that make it easy for teachers to keep up with student learning. That may be as simple as online quizzes, but it may also include more complicated assessments, gamification options, and progress checks that will make it easier for instructors to check in with how students are progressing through their content.

5. Alerts and Notification Settings That Can Help Keep Students on Track.

Students will often have a hard time keeping track of all the assignments they have due, especially as they move on to middle and high school and have to keep up with a more complex list of classes. Automated alerts and notifications can help highlight new assignments or course materials when teachers assign or share them and provide students with reminders when things are due. 

6. Security.

IT administrators know how critical security can be for a school district. In fact, cybersecurity challenges continue to rise for K-12 schools across the country. You need an LMS that will keep your students' data as secure as possible. Look for options like multi-factor authentication and secure cloud storage that can help you keep up with students' and teachers' security needs. 

7. Personalized Learning Options.

A learning management system should not provide the same educational experience for every student. Instead, it should offer personalized options that can provide students with the tools they need to excel regardless of their current academic capability.

You may want a learning management system that will provide students with teacher-created assignments and content based on their current level of learning, or you may need one that offers advanced features and will help push them to challenge themselves with increasingly more difficult questions, games, or assignments.

Furthermore, teachers may want a system that will allow students to "test out" of content that they already fully understand. This strategy will allow students to receive additional teacher-created instruction in the areas where they may need more support.

8. Intuitive Interfaces.

Whether you're considering your LMS from the perspective of a teacher or a student, the interface must be intuitive and easy to use. The LMS may need to cater to a wide range of users, including everyone from kindergarten students who are not yet familiar with technology to older teachers who haven't fully adapted to all the available technology in the classroom using these systems.

Ideally, you want a solution that is as simple to use as possible for the widest range of user experience and ability. If the LMS you're considering has complicated hidden menus and features, students and teachers may not be able to use it effectively.

9. Varied Reporting Tools.

Teachers need to be able to see student learning and progress in a variety of different ways. When looking at learning management systems, carefully consider how student progress is reported to instructors and what tools they can use to gauge student performance.

Look for a system that will offer multiple ways of tracking student progress and that offers assessment tools that will help teachers guide their students in their learning journeys. The right LMS will also offer options that allow parents, students, and teachers to all receive vital insights into student progress. 

10. Opportunities for Students to Connect and Collaborate.

Connection and collaboration are critical elements of the student learning experience. Many teachers want to allow their students to work together on their assignments to help improve their communication skills and give them the foundation they need to collaborate effectively with others in the future.

An effective LMS will make classroom collaboration much easier and more effective for students, including multiple options for sharing assignments and information with each other, discussion boards, easy emailing between participants, and other collaborative features.