Learning Management System

The IT Center currently has 30 computers for 30 participants for each session a week and volunteers choose which day of the week they want to attend mostly only attending 1 session a week. The computers in the center are networked and they have recently been provisioned with an Internet connection

The following problem areas where discovered during an ethnographic study conducted at the IT K2 Center:

• Since the participants share computers they have no area of securely saving the work they have done
• Too much time is spent by the students explaining to the tutor on that day what the last section they did and what they understood
• Too much time is spent with taking the attendance register of the participants and if the day co-ordinator does not show up, no one takes register for that day
• The volunteers attendance register is also not taken on a regular basis

From the problems identified above from the ethnographic study at the center, a decision was reached to provide the IT center with a Learning Management System (LMS). The following list of requirements were choosen after meetings with Jonathan Hoffenberg who is the education supervisor for SHAWCO:

• The use of the core functions of a LMS to store the resource material and the user data
• A Custom built attendance register module to plug into the LMS for tutors and participants
• A custom built bookmark feature for the students to keep track of work done and who helped them
• A custom built module for the LMS where all the students can save the work they are working on.
• All the modules had to be user friendly and easy to use

The primary research question of this project is whether LMS are easy to use and intuitive for inexperienced computer users? The other question which will be answered is can LMS be customized for inexperienced computer users. The questions will be tackled through the customization of a LMS for the SHAWCO K2 Center, which teaches basic computer skills to inexperienced users