Re: Recommendations of LMS

[Jonathan Sandoval]

Techela-emacs was a nice discovery and I'll surely give it a try. But, I
think it wouldn't be a good fit for our use case.

I think my message lacked some context. We're not a formal educational
institution. We're a community initiative. In an old house there was an
outdated healt post. Because of new regulations, it was too expensive
for the community to keep on mantaining that place, and there were other
options for them. It wasn't like that in the 90s when it was created.

So, the community decided to transform the place in a cultural house. A
couple of years ago we started to teach contemporary dance because a
volunteer teacher appeared. Then, other teacher approached to teach
colombian salsa, and then other teacher offered himself to teach guitar
and so on.

We now have spaces for dance, teather, guitar, a library, and some
computers were donated recently. I proposed them to use free software,
and talked to them about it and they agreed. I choose Trisquel and was
in the process. I started my own project too; a science club with kids.

Because of COVID-19, our activites halted. As I mentioned, the people of
the cultural house are a mix of academics from univerties, but common
people without formal education and not much knowledge on computing. We
have a teacher of agroecology who is knowleadgeable about that topic,
but not much in computers.

I taught them to use Jitsi Meet and BigBlueButton. It was not
easy. Jitsi was a little simpler, but not everyone could use BBB. I
suspect the reason is an old cellphone, but the preventive isolation
does not allow me to really diagnose the problem. It's an example. Other
guys have really slow computers and most of them have Windows. We're
just beginning with free software and I haven't had the opportunity to
make an installation festival. And other problems have arisen.

So, expecting them to learn emacs, in Windows and Git does not sound
like a very good idea. For them, accesing a site with their browsers is
more natural, because all of them at least have an e-mail account. I
doubt 30 minutes are enough for learning emacs (I recently tried to show
the basics to a friend who's a programmer and is used to VSCode and he
seemed really confused and kind of gave up).

The other reasons is that our focus are not assignments. We want to
create educational resources for our classes.

Thanks again for your suggestions and ideas.

Jean Louis writes:

> * Jonathan Sandoval <cloudneozero@gmail.com> [2020-08-07 18:43]:
>> Thanks everyone for your kind suggestions.
>>
>> Techela-emacs seems really interesting as an emacs user myself, but I
>> cannot expect the other teachers to learn emacs to use it.
>
> Sure I understand you don't agree and you will look into Moodle and
> Canvas. Let me just give few opinions.
>
> Learning Emacs basics is matter of 30 minutes, and every teacher
> should be able to learn just anything especially if preparing for the
> teaching program to teach other children, and if there is any software
> involved, teachers will take few days and learn how to use it and will
> collaborate with each other.
>
> Learning how to use basics of any particular software should not be
> more than 30 minutes. Moodle seem very simple made, it looks doable,
> but if I wish to compare it to Emacs, administrator would have to
> learn so much, just with any other software, yet teacher would need to
> learn so much less, and student would need to learn so much less.
>
> LMS system should be very very simple, so that there is no objection
> to the interface used, and interface should be usable from any device
> for the student, as it is all about receiving assignments and sending
> back the assignments or results, that is basic activity, it is basic
> communication between two parties. Interfaces could be CLI, mobile
> phone applications, mobile browsers, dedicated computer applications,
> including Emacs, anything. Background management can be done with any
> type of interface, dedicated, or Emacs, or browser, anything, all that
> is possible. There is no need to think in frames.
>
> Teachers can learn anything. I am speaking of situation that I have
> seen with my own eyes. Maybe teachers in third world countries would
> have difficulties, due to lack of computers, due to lack of general
> developments. Even they can learn how to use it.
>
> Do not expect neither teachers to know how to use a browser. Emacs is
> well self-documented, I did not see on browser that is self-documented
> enough, maybe Dillo, they are mostly not.
>
> I have seen a teacher who programmed all geometrical and mathematical
> lessons with computer, to teach children better.
>
> In my opinion, LMS should be just assignment giving and receiving
> software, yet what should be learned and how, should not be limited by
> the interface that is used for LMS. As teaching is not focused on the
> interface, it has no limits. For example limiting students to use
> browser only, or attempting to make every action of a student
> figurable or understandable through browser only is not point of
> teaching, as it is not widening the knowledge. Students should
> have liberties to use any tools that are suitable for learning.


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