Session 2 - Beam me up Scotty! Scotty?!?!

ETEC  674 – Blog 2

1. Central to our investigation of eLearning Technologies and Methods is gaining an understanding of Learning Management Systems (LMS) sometimes also called Course Management System (CMS) software. Chapter 1 of our text discusses the functionality of typical LMS/CMS, identifying four major categories. What are those categories?

         The four categories of LMS/CMS functionality as described by our text are: 1) distribution of course information, 2) student-instructor and student-student communications, 3) student interaction with course resources and 4) online testing and grading.

2. Use the Internet to find three different course management systems. Provide the name, a URL and a brief discussion of what you can find out about the similarities and differences between the three that you find.

Moodle: https://moodle.org

         According to their website, this Australian company has more than 65 million users and is the world’s most widely used learning platform. Their development was guided by social constructionist pedagogy to deliver a “powerful set of learner-centric tools and collaborative learning environments that empower both teaching and learning.” Moodle is an open source software. This means, in short, that Moodle is free and anyone can adapt, extend, or modify it for commercial or non-commercial projects. Their CMS offers collaborative tools (forums, wikis, glossaries, database activities, etc.), all-in-one calendar(keeps track of academic calendar, course deadlines, group meetings, etc.), file management (from skydrive, dropbox, and google drive), text editor, notifications from teachers and others, the ability to track student progress through the course and more.

Blackboard: http://www.blackboard.com

         Blackboard is a course management system like Moodle. It offers many of the same features, though it does have a more nested file system for management of courses. In comparing the opening log on screen to Moodle, course work and documents can be far more buried in the Blackboard file system. The other big contrast to Moodle is that while it is a pay system, this payment comes with more support for individual company/university support as a group works to navigate, customize and upgrade from version to version over time. Additionally, through it’s “pay to play” style, Blackboard has worked to build up its line of products to include other style products such as Blackboard Engage, a K-12 webhosting community management system of which I’m sure Captain Picard would approve.

 

Sakai: https://sakaiproject.org

         Like Moodle, Sakai is an open source community LMS. Unlike Moodle which was originally developed by a single individual, Sakai was put together by the following five universities: Michigan, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, and Indiana. It was created based on existing tools that were contributed by each of the founding universities and while not as well known as Moodle, it has a reputation for higher-end features, scalability and security, features which Moodle has but it has been found that much more work on the part of the adopting group is required. Finally, it has been found that it can be more challenging to integrate Sakai with other software systems than Moodle and that as it is more complex, it also takes more time to install and set up, making it less compelling for projects that are looking to quickly begin.

3. If you were going to create an online class right now, what LMS/CMS software would you use? Explain what you know about your system's functionality in each of the four areas identified by the book. (If you don't have access to LMS/CMS software just use Blackboard for your discussion in this area.)

If I were to create an online class right now, I’d probably use schoology. First and foremost, it is free and that is about how much money my site would be able to commit to my online course LMS at this time.

1)   distribution of course information

Schoology is set up to have an interface similar to facebook. As facebook is an interface that most of my students are familiar with navigating, building off of this pre-existing knowledge to engage students more readily seems a no brainer. The sooner I can get them comfortable navigating, the more that I can do with the course and the students over time. I can update my students with posts, like on Facebook, that will show up on their homepage.  I can upload documents of various file types easily for students to access from their homepages.

2)   student-instructor and student-student communications

I can easily email/message the whole class and they have easy immediate access to me through email/messages as well. While it is not ideal to have to moderate student-student communication (as slowing the student communication process prevents them from engaging with each other and the material), high school students are not always them most considerate or thoughtful and educators at the high school level are responsible for what goes on in their online classroom environments as well. Schoology allows me to moderate student comments to prevent anything from getting out of hand like it might in a freer environment. Finally, Schoology has an app, that once again, has an interface similar to that of Facebook that would allow my students to get on and get going with course material right away.

3)   student interaction with course resources

Schoology does not have anything in particular that encourages student interaction with course resources, but it provides storage for various file types and easy access from students through the Internet and/or through their app. Moreover, through the message or update option, students can be invited to participate in online field trips or experiments or given links to access additional supports as they traverse the murky, eel-infested waters of an online math course. :-D

4)   online testing and grading

Schoology allows for assignments varying from multiple-choice quizzes/tests to essays to be completed through the LMS and aligned with K-12 standards. In the case of multiple-choice items, Schoology will automatically grade the item and input the score into the grades management system. Moreover, this system also allows for time constraints to be set and for the instructor to allow students as many or few retakes as they’d like. This would make for very nice self-quizzes for students as they work to master material (and get feedback!) before a large exam. (Unfortunately, I would not be completely free to use this even in a completely online course as all grades through the district must go through our attendance/grades management system, Synergy, and it links up with no LMS of which I am aware.)

3. Chapter 1 of our text identifies six steps for getting started with eLearning. Discuss each step and use each step as a springboard for discussing what you want to do with eLearning either now or in the future.

Step 1 – Ask Yourself Why

I would like to use eLearning more in the future to:

a)    Get my students used to being online and engaged in the learning process. My students will be expected to prove their understanding of their years of mathematical education through an online test provided by the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) and they are NOT used to doing math online in any way shape or form.

b)   Give my students more opportunities to self-reflect on where they are in the mastery of the course material. I am only able to give so many quizzes or tests in class. Engaging in the online environment would enable me to structure items so that the students can self-test their mastery more reliably before these in class items come available.

c)   Give my students more structured ways in which to interact with each around the course material. We work in cooperative groups in my classroom, but by extending the educational day into eLearning, students are able to interact with everybody, not just the other three people in their group.

Step 2 – Make a Commitment

I would like to commit to using Schoology next year to bring more self-evaluation tools to my students along with the aggregation of currently available online tools to help them practice, self-identify, or learn topics that they did not understand, missed, etc.

Step 3 – Develop a New Vision for Your Course and How You Teach

The biggest change I’d like to make in my teaching in the future is to have students quiz regarding certain topics far sooner than would be normal in my classroom. I would like to provide documents, quizzes, or links that will help them self-assess where they are at in their mastery of the standards and how they can make progress toward their ultimate goals for the course. All of my work will be focused toward that goal.

Step 4 – Determine the Resources Available to You

We have few resources dedicated toward improving eLearning opportunities at my site. My discussion with other colleagues using Schoology has been the sum total of my ability to find things available to myself that already exist, hence my previously stated preference.

Step 5 – Acquire New Technology Skills and Develop New Instructional Methods

I intend to bring about my new implementation when I have finished my course work in this program. As the author so pointedly states (several times, I might add) the most important thing for me to do is be sure that I have the time available to commit and until then, I do not.

Step 6 – Plan

I do my best long term planning over the summer and always set myself yearly goals for some new thing to incorporate in my teaching. When I move to implement Schoology in my classroom, I will spend a great part of the summer making sure that the classroom pages are all pre-set at least through the first quarter with things I know that I will want (self-quizzes, syllabus, projects, etc.) so that I am able to easily add the weekly things without becoming overwhelmed.

4. Chapter 4 of our text discusses the functionality of specific LMS/CMS tools in terms of being for one-way communication, two-way communication or for organization. Explain the key differences between one-way and two-way communication and identify the tools your LMS/CMS provides for each type of communication.

One-way communication: this is a form of communication in which information is sent to one party with no expectation of a reply. If Captain Kirk were to say, “Beam me up, Scotty” with no real intention of Scotty doing anything, as if he said it just for the fun of it.

Two-way communication: this is a form of communication in which information is sent to one party and the other party replies. If Captain Kirk were to say, “Beam me up, Scotty” and then Scotty actually beams him up.

Organizational: these tools allow you to constitute groups of course users with special privileges and to create a directory structure to organize eLearning resources on your coursesite.

One-way tools consist of announcements and documents created using the LMS, files uploaded from other software, gradebooks, email, calendars, homepages with listings of current information and external links. Schoology allows for announcements (like Facebook status updates), files uploaded from other software, a gradebook (though, as previously stated, my district requirements block its efficacy), the ability to message, a calendar for organization, external links reference and a homepage from which students can see all sorts of updates.

Two-way tools consist of discussion boards, online tests and a private storage space. Schoology has discussion boards available whose access can be customized by the instructor, online tests that can be scored by schoology (multiple choice) or scored by the instructor (free response) and they have a limited private storage for each user.

5. Consider how a CMS/LMS supports the three types of interaction (Student-Content, Student-Instructor, Student-Student) that were discussed in the first session 1 presentation. Specifically, list all of the tools or features that your CMS  (as discussed in question 3 above) offers. Then identify each type of interaction that each tool would support. Finally, explain what you know about the strengths and weaknesses of each tool to support the type of interaction you identify for it.

The one-way communication tools would support the following:

Announcements	Student-Instructor
Uploaded Documents	Student-Instructor, Student-Content
Gradebooks	Student-Instructor
Messages	Student-Instructor, Student-Student
Calendars	Student-Instructor
External Links	Student-Instructor, Student-Conten

Each of these one-way communication tools appears to most strongly support student-instructor interaction. This is information, whether it be an assignment coming in, instruction going out, or feedback being received, going from one party to another which is not really built upon a foundation of a dialogue. Their strengths are delivery of information but their weaknesses are in building new knowledge throughout the group.

The two-way communication tools would support the following:

Discussion Boards	Student-Student, Student-Instructor, Student-Content
Online Tests	Student-Content
Storage Space	Student-Student, Student-Instructor

Of the tools available in my LMS, it would seem that the most valuable for engaging in student-student interaction (one of my 3 goals for eLearning) is the discussion boards. And, as we have seen before, it is not enough that the boards exist, but the student population must be taken into account in the design of the required interactions or my most valuable resource is going to go to waste. Online tests will be incredibly helpful, again when structured with student population in mind, as I do want my students to be able to self-assess.