By Sophie Albertie
How have instructors adjusted to the shift from Moodle to Brightspace?
SUNY Plattsburgh has used Brightspace as their primary learning system for two years. The transition from Moodle has been swift for some faculty, others struggle with the new program. Take Greta Hoffman, a Plattsburgh Math professor, who said she found Moodle quite useful before everyone switched over.
“It was nicer to put stuff up somewhere students could get to for the whole semester, now things just get lost in an email. I also can’t add students who may be taking my class as an independent study,” Hoffman said. “Tutors from the learning center used to have access to my material in order to help students of mine who came to them, I think getting rid of that is a major drawback.”
Where some instructors struggle with function, others struggle with what the system means for students to receive the proper knowledge for their classes. Adjunct lecturer Tim Branfalt has been teaching communications for 12 years and using content management systems the whole time, but said he prefers to give feedback by hand, which has been lost in the era of CMS. Branfalt also leaned towards previous systems.
“Moodle was intuitive, it was easy to set up, it was easy for students, it was easy for us. I dont love Brightspace, I think it’s a waste of money. I think that paying someone to administer it is a waste of money,” Branfalt said. “I just want to put this out there, the whole website redesign is one of the dumbest, most unintuitive things that I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”
Is there anything that can be said for the efficiency of learning systems? Indifference is found in the most unexpected of places. Steven Maynard has been teaching expeditionary studies for 20 years at SUNY Plattsburgh, he’s seen it all.
“When I first got here, there was a house system called Angel, which then went to Moodle and then to Brightspace. For the way I use it, I’m not sure there’s much difference between all three. I think from an environmental point of view, I’d rather save a few trees than print rooms of paper. On Brightspace, students should be able to find pretty much anything.” Maynard said.
In the digital age, an adjustment is definitely in order for those who refuse to learn the system at all. Then again, an adjustment is in order for learning anything new. As long as students can easily access assignments, and faculty can balance between hands-on learning and remote instruction, the label of the management system doesn’t matter as much.
