Using ClassLink Alongside a Learning Management System
For decades, Learning Management Systems (LMS’s) have helped transform colleges and universities from exclusively face-to-face learning environments to blended and online learning experiences. A similar transformation is occurring in K12, accelerated by LMS adoptions during COVID-19 related school closures. LMS’s help organize a variety of typical instructional resources and workflows, including curriculum, lesson content, discussions, assignments, assessments, grades, and progress reporting. Good LMS’s dedicate themselves to handling these essential workflows in learning, yet these are not the sum total of all the experiences and operations in a school.
Ask any seasoned educator... What is school for? And you’ll get a list that extends well beyond instructional processes. Schools are dynamic institutions that provide a variety of services, including development, nutrition, social, emotional, safety, extramural, and more. A typical school system has a substantial organizational structure supporting many employees and is responsible for coordinating their activities and personal development. Schools operate significant finances, infrastructure, facilities, and numerous assets for stakeholders throughout the community. Add to that the tremendous requirements for communication and coordination among all school participants and stakeholders... and at times, it feels like there is no end to the various software systems needed for a school to operate effectively.
Schools need more than an LMS to serve as the hub of all these different software systems, especially the multitude of non-instructional systems. Successful schools use ClassLink to bring together this great variety of software systems, providing personalized single sign-on experiences for students, teachers, administrators, and parents. At the same time, they rely on ClassLink software to securely automate the transmission of user lists between these various systems, making sure online resources are always instantly ready to use as needed.
Don’t use a hammer to drive a screw, is an old carpenter’s adage about using the right tool for the right situation. An LMS can be critically important to provide blended and online instruction, and ClassLink is essential to the effective running of a school organization.