Comparison of Moodle LMS and MS Teams for Online and Hybrid ESP Instruction: Lessons Learned

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic caused a sudden transition from traditional to Emergency Remote Teaching – ERT (Hodges, Moore, Locke et al. 2020), in which educational institutions around the world adopted online, blended and hybrid teaching models and implemented them using various learning management systems (LMSs) and/or complementary tools and similar platforms such as MS Office 365, Google Meet, Zoom, Webex, etc. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, adopted MS Teams platform as an optimal tool for the new and unexpected ERT situation. This, however, was not the first implementation of LMSs and similar learning environments at FOS, as several versions of Moodle LMS had been used even before and continued to be used in parallel with MS Teams for teaching content delivery in remote teaching study programs, testing and assessment in several courses at undergraduate level. This paper aims to comparatively analyze the use of Moodle LMS and MS Teams in the context of teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences (FOS), University of Belgrade, using the models of on1 jelena.plecas@fon.bg.ac.rs; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8286-1047 2 nikola.petrovic@fon.bg.ac.rs; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5977-7509 355 Chapter 24: Anđelković, Petrović line and blended learning and teaching. The platforms were compared according to the following criteria: 1) instructor – student communication and interaction, 2) delivery and management of educational content, 3) testing and assessment, 4) learning analytics, 5) user experience. The results of the analysis indicate that the two platforms have similar technical functionalities in terms of the second criterion. With the third, fourth and fifth criterion, Moodle LMS proved more useful in the given context, while MS Teams exceeded Moodle LMS regarding the first criterion. Overall, the results indicate that Moodle LMS is more expedient in the given context, especially with regard to learning analytics, as this functionality facilitates the improvement of the teaching process, and thus may lead better student achievement as the ultimate goal of teaching.