Authored by:   Pamela Jones, Melissa Lavoie, Jenny Lee, Chris Quarrie, Stephen Sweet

As schools continue the transition to technology-supported learning environments, they have the challenging task of deciding which technologies to adopt. Primary characteristics that emphasize the pedagogical aspects of a technology need to be considered. Who are the learners, and what is the best tool to facilitate learning? From accessibility to feedback and data analysis, what do teachers need to best help their students? In addition, secondary characteristics like cost, infrastructure and support need to be factored into the decision (Nel, Dreyer & Carstens, 2010).

The organization we have chosen to investigate is a high school (Grades 9-12) that has a BYOL (bring your own laptop) policy on campus. Many schools are adopting BYOD initiatives, as this allows cost savings to schools and families and allows students to use a device that they are already familiar with. Our chosen school is an international school attended by expatriate families who have access to technologies at home and can afford to purchase their own device for the school. Where this is not possible, the school provides laptops that students can sign out and use. Many students will have more than one device, one being a laptop, the other a smartphone or tablet.

The school uses a blended learning environment, meaning face-to-face interactions are supported by technology that can allow for asynchronous communication. We are interested in a platform that offers students and teachers the ability to collaborate, access resources, communicate, and journal asynchronously. We need an LMS that offers a suitable and reliable interface for multiple operating systems and devices, and is straightforward for both teachers and students to use and troubleshoot. Additionally, with widespread smartphone and tablet use, having an LMS that is available by way of a mobile app allows for multiple modes of accessibility.

An examination of Moodle’s accessibility, usability and ability to work within the landscape of other Web 2.0 tools will highlight its usefulness as an LMS at an international secondary school. A short literature review explores what might identify an LMS as being successful, and a careful exploration of Moodle’s features, affordances, accessibility and adaptability as an application will follow.

Literature Review

A learning management system (LMS) is an application built from an integrated suite of tools that ideally affords participants synchronous and asynchronous opportunities to:
– communicate with one another (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005)
– collaborate in knowledge-building endeavours (Lonn & Teasley, 2009)
– curate and access resources (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005)
– explore relevant analytics to assess learning and course effectiveness and to (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005; Porto, n.d.)
– provide a system for academic administration (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005; Porto n.d.)

LMSs can be used in a variety of ways that reflect a continuum of integration with teaching and learning. LMS usage in K-12 institutions has been shown to improve critical thinking and writing skills: “The process of text-based online discussion in the forum had the potential to enhance the students’ writing skills, encourage their critical thinking, and help them write more systematically” (Wichadee, 2014). AKM and Azad (2015) note that at the most basic level, LMSs can supplement a face-to-face course environment, can support a blended learning environment or can provide distance education for online courses (p. 109). De Smet, Bourgonjon, De Wever, Schellens and Valcke (2012) support this continuum further by noting that the informational use of an LMS is found to be a precursor, or necessary building block, for the communicational use of an LMS (p.694). As such, an instructor would typically master the skills necessary to transmit content prior to building opportunities for student discussion and collaboration. Simply put, a teacher would need to learn incrementally how to access and implement the affordances of an LMS. Schoonenboom (2014) further investigated why some LMS tools are targeted by educators for adoption more than others. She generalized four instructor profiles that demonstrate increasingly complex use of an LMS for instruction. Although these profiles can be identified (in increasing complexity) as undertaking “information transfer, concept clarification, idea development, and collaboration,” (Schoonenboom, 2014, p.253) these are not the only factors that identify the degree to which an instructor will maximize the options within an LMS. Schoonenboom also highlights the importance of identifying the instructional relevance of the various tool, task and interface combinations. Lonn and Teasley (2009) explore student and instructor use of LMS’s for both efficient communication and innovation in learning. Seemingly, “instructors and students value tools and activities for efficient communication more than interactive tools for innovating existing practices” (Lonn & Teasley, 2009, p. 686.)

LMS systems can be proprietary, open-source, or cloud-based (Wright, Lopes, Montgomerie, Reju & Schmoller, 2014). Each classification has a variety of advantages and disadvantages relating to cost, consistency and ease of implementation, adaptability of the underlying code (and thus the application itself), availability of technical support, security and privacy settings, licensing agreements, and platform familiarity. (Wright, Lopes, Montgomerie, Reju & Schmoller, 2014).

Choosing an effective LMS for a particular context is a significant undertaking. The different tools, affordances, characteristics and constraints can make selecting the best possible LMS a challenge that requires a team of individuals to work through a lengthy process of research, debate, and selection. Building on a construct known as the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989, in De Smet et al, 2012) to predict LMS acceptance, De Smet et al (2012) identified that perceived ease of use (of the LMS), perceived usefulness (of the LMS), and subjective norm (the opinions of others) were found to have a strong effect on the informational use (p.694) of an LMS.

While many criteria in several different frameworks have been created to assess the efficacy of an LMS, the most prominent indicator of success is continued use. Naveh, Tubin, and Pliskin (2010) identify student use and student satisfaction with an LMS to be the main indicators of the success of an LMS and the researchers encourage instructors to post rich content on course websites to maintain and enhance student engagement (p. 133.)

On the whole, both students’ and instructors’ perceptions of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, subjective norm and overall satisfaction seem to dictate whether an LMS can be considered effective. As always, with all things technology-related, the specific context for each different LMS implementation will dictate different relevant criteria.

Moodle

Usability
Moodle is our chosen LMS due to its flexibility, and its ‘open-source’ philosophy: “In contrast to Blackboard, which has licensing payments for its proprietary software, Moodle is an “open source” LMS which means that it is free and available for download without license payments or other proprietary obligations. Ellis defines Moodle as a ‘course management system’ (CMS) used by educators rather than as a LMS for training and human resource management applications” (Lawler, 2011). This makes Moodle better suited to educational environments and course delivery. Lawler found a contributing factor to Moodle’s success in schools was in its implementation. Moodle focuses on the needs of the users: teachers and students. It has teachers, students and educators in mind as its priority, making it ideal in a high school (grades 9-12) environment (Lawler, 2011).

An online LMS allows flexibility for students. While significant learning happens during collaborative class activities, in an international setting, families are often transient and can be absent for a period of time. Using an LMS such as Moodle means that students can keep up to date with their studies while away and arrive back to class without significant learning gaps. There are also more variables that affect schools in an international setting. The LMS would become the primary learning platform in the event of a natural disaster or civil unrest that closes the school and would mean that students would still be able to learn and continue their education.

In an international school, teacher turnover can be significant. One study puts teacher turnover rates at approximately 14.4% per year in international schools (Henley, 2006). Many teachers enjoy the opportunity to see different parts of the world and only stay a few years in any one location. For these teachers, having the ability to access their resources in a virtual ‘suitcase’ is advantageous, and even a necessity. Moodle allows the export of resources and pages for import into a new school system later, provided the new school also uses Moodle.
The ability to control release dates (stagger the access of particular resources, assignments, ‘drop-boxes’, files, etc) makes pre-organizing a course easier for teachers. Students can access the materials when they are meant to, which will ease anxiety. Students can also access course calendars to plan ahead for due dates (assignments, tests, etc). These calendars can be external, such as Google Calendar, but Moodle also supports a native calendar. When students open Moodle all assignments are shown for all teachers who post on the calendar. Grouping by classes is an advantage as well. This can be done at any grade level. This makes it easy to organize units of study and to link related resources and websites. Events can be added to a calendar so that all or students in the course can see, or only students in a particular group can see the event. In that way, students only see homework or upcoming events relevant to them.
Students can write journals online, and will find links to collaborative online documents such as Google Docs and Google Drawings. There are ‘Dropboxes’ for assignments, so students can submit their assignments electronically.
The website is closed and only available to students in the course so privacy is not an issue. Students are able to give feedback to teachers through the forums, and ask questions on discussion forums so that others who may share their thoughts/concerns/questions can see the questions and answers being asked by others in the course. Links to various course documents (class PowerPoints, Ministry documents, online textbooks, Google documents with vocabulary,
links to online animations that many schools have access to, such as BrainPOP) can be provided in one centralized location. Students need to only bookmark one site, and can access all course materials from one place, which supports student organization. Units of study are broken down into sections on the Moodle site so it is clearly organized. Lab documents for science classes can be accessed from one page. Having course materials online saves paper and cuts printing costs.

Quizzes can also be created within Moodle, and can utilize both closed- and open-ended responses, and multiple-choice questions can provide automated marking. The data can be kept and stored, or deleted at the end of each term if desired.

Analytics
Long and Siemens (2011) define Learning Analytics (LA) as “the use of intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections, and to predict and advise on learning.” This, in theory, will help teachers to deliver differentiated instruction based on the evaluation of this data. Moodle has developed a “Learning Analytics Enriched Rubric” (LAe-R) tool as a plugin, which is available on versions 2.2 and above in order to help educators evaluate student achievement based on a number of learning competencies, when learning within a virtual learning environment (VLE). For example, when assessing students’ performance with regards to “collaboration”, the tool analyzes and visualizes data such as forum posts (new or reply messages), chat messages and number of files attached to forum post messages. This plugin allows the teacher to assess students based on the criterion he/she chooses, and provides quantitative, as well as qualitative, data. In usability tests, the LAe-R scored very well, and despite the fact that it is an advanced assessment tool with a large amount of customization options, educators adopted it quite readily and happily.

Accessibility
The IMS Accessibility SIG defines ‘accessibility’ as the ability of the learning environment to adjust to the needs of all learners (IMS Global Learning Consortium, 2002). According to Cooper, Colwell and Jelfs (2007), steady progress is being made on making Moodle more accessible, although there still are accessibility issues. Based on said criticisms, developers continue to strive for a solution that will work best with Moodle, and provide an optimal reading experience for students with learning disabilities. Moodle has even started an online collaboration community to improve the accessibility/usability of its system, which can be found here: http://collaborate.athenpro.org/group/moodle. Screen readers, NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access (open-source screen reader), and Jaws are both compatible with the Windows 8 operating system, and are supported by both Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers when used within Moodle.

Moodle also strives to make its system truly accessible to all by offering over 100 language packs to learners. The online discussion forums currently support over 25 languages. The administrator of the site will be able to install the desired language from Site Administration for educators’ courses.

When evaluating Moodle from a financial standpoint and keeping to the constraints of school budgets, should the school host Moodle on its own, there would be no costs to upgrade from one version to the next. If there are more than 500 active users, then the school would simply need to upgrade the amount of RAM installed on the server. There is also no limit as to the number of accounts a school can hold. If a school self-hosts, this will also alleviate concerns about student data security. The overall concern of student data sitting within a hosted solution always exists as the school has no control over the host and who has access to it. If the school hosts internally, they can control access to student data and backups.

More than 40 million users around the world use Google Apps for Education, and Moodle has worked in collaboration with Google to leverage this user base and to build in integration. It now provides the potential for automatic login to Google Apps when a student logs in to Moodle, and it prompts a single sign-on for learners from Moodle to Google. This is important for navigation purposes, and increases the efficiency and eases frustration levels of students having to login multiple times.

Summary
Some in the industry predict the continuing evolution and even demise of the current learning management systems as we know it today. Porto (2014) describes how social media and other online tools have evolved to offer better communication, productivity, and collaboration for online learning. No longer are tools contained in the LMS, but,

current trends in the LMS landscape include: expansion to mobile platforms; connection with existing social networks and information streams; tools for course development; diagnostics and adaptive learning systems based on learning analytics; and personalized interfaces and instruction. (Porto, para. 3)

The trend in e-learning is now less about the tools available within traditional LMS platforms but increasingly about the personalization of learning. As outlined in this report, Moodle is accessible, customizable and integrates with other online tools useful for learning, such as course calendars, quizzes, and Google apps. Williams (2015) describes how, “by adjusting the pace of instruction, leveraging student interests, letting learners to choose their own learning path and adjusting content presentation by choosing text, images or videos, instructors will be able to deliver their coursework in more efficient ways”. As an open-source learning platform, Moodle maximizes the instructor’s freedom in creating their course as they choose.

Moodle fits well with our international school’s current practice of allowing students to bring their laptops and goals of integrating technology effectively into classroom instruction. It is a platform that enables students and teachers alike to collaborate, communicate, and access resources more effectively. As well, students are able to access resources easily in one location outside of school. Parents who are interested in their child’s progress can also monitor from home as well as seeing what homework is posted. As smartphones become more sophisticated, mobile apps are also becoming popular. Moodle’s mobile application “Moodle Mobile” is available for both Android and iOS. Though it does have room to improve, its mobile platform is being updated continually, and will provide even more flexibility to its users who want to access the LMS through various means.

The integration of Moodle requires the entire school community to be on board – administrators, teachers, students, and parents – Moodle has proven it does this well because it focuses on the needs of the users (Lawler, 2011), flexible for teachers to design it as they see appropriate, and user-friendly for students.

References

AKM, N. I., & Azad, N. (2015). Satisfaction and continuance with a learning management
system. Int Jnl of Info and Learning Tech, 32(2), 109-123. doi:10.1108/IJILT-09-2014-0020

Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of learning
management systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11(1), 19-36. doi:10.1080/13583883.2005.9967137

Cooper, M., Colwell C., & Jelfs, A. (2007). Embedding accessibility and usability:
considerations for e-learning research and development projects. Research in Learning Technology, 15 (3), 893-896.

Dimopoulos, I., Petropoulou, O., Boloudakis, M., & Retalis, S. (2013). Using Learning Analytics
in Moodle for assessing students’ performance. In 2nd Moodle Research Conference.

Google for Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.google.com/edu/trust/

Henley, J. (2006). ECIS annual statistical survey 2006: Data summary. Petersfield: European
Council of International Schools and Council of International Schools.

Langtree, I. (2014, August 6). List of Computer Screen Readers for Visually Impaired. Retrieved
from http://www.disabled-world.com/assistivedevices/computer/screen-readers.php

Lawler, A. (2011). LMS Transitioning to “Moodle”: A Surprising Case of Successful, Emergent
Change Management. Australasian Journal Of Educational Technology, 27(7), 1111-1123.

Lonn, S., & Teasley, S. D. (2009). Saving time or innovating practice: Investigating perceptions
and uses of learning management systems. Computers & Education, 53(3), 686-694. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.04.008

Luck, J., Jones, D., McConachie, J. & Danaher, P. (2004). Challenging enterprises and
subcultures: Interrogating ‘best practice’ in Central Queensland University’s course management systems. Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development, 1(2), 19-31. Retrieved from http://sleid.cqu.edu.au/viewarticle.php?id=33

Moodle.org: Google Apps for Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Google_Apps_Integration

Moodle.org: Accessibility. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Accessibility

Moodle.org: Language Packs. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Language_packs

Naveh, G., Tubin, D., & Pliskin, N. (2010). Student LMS use and satisfaction in academic
institutions: The organizational perspective. The Internet and Higher Education, 13(3), 127-133. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2010.02.004

Nel, C., Dreyer, C., & Carstens, W. A.M. (2001). Educational technologies: A classification and
evaluation. Journal for Language Teaching, 35(4), 238-258.

Porto, S. (n.d.). The uncertain future of Learning Management Systems. Retrieved from
http://www.evolllution.com/opinions/uncertain-future-learning-management-systems/

Schoonenboom, J. (2014). Using an adapted, task-level technology acceptance model to explain
why instructors in higher education intend to use some learning management system tools
more than others. Computers & Education, 71, 247. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2013.09.016

Spiro, K. (2014, February 25). 5 elearning trends leading to the end of the Learning Management
Systems. Retrieved from http://elearningindustry.com/5-elearning-trends-leading-to-the-end-of-the-learning-management-system

Wichadee, S. (2014). Students’ learning behavior, motivation and critical thinking in learning
management systems. Journal of Educators Online, 11(3), 1-21.

Williams, Isabel. (2015, April 25). “7 Key eLearning Trends For 2016 – eLearning Industry.”
2015. 3 Jun. 2015 <http://elearningindustry.com/7-key-elearning-trends-for-2016>

Wright, C.R., Lopes, V., Montgomerie, T.C., Reju, S.A., and Schmoller S. (21 April, 2014).
Selecting a Learning Management System: Advice from an Academic Perspective.
Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/selecting-learning-management-system-advice-academic-perspective

Wyles, R. (2 January 2015). Learning Management System 2015 – 12 Trends to Watch.
Retrieved from: http://www.totaralms.com/blog/learning-management-systems-2015-12-trends-watch