At the start of the course, I wrote my Flight Plan in which I described my course goals of gaining knowledge on the evaluations of LMSs, gaining more technical expertise and expanding my knowledge of LMSs. Through this course, I have developed a deeper knowledge of LMSs through the course readings.
For my second assignment, my group completed an evaluation of a LMS for a smaller university. Through this evaluation, we referenced Tony Bates’ (2015) research-based SECTIONS framework. This assignment taught me how to evaluate an individual LMS. I feel using Bates’ framework for looking at LMSs.
As I’ve mentioned before, I work in Medical Education where we use the CanMeds framework. The education structure will also be evolving to a competency-based module in the near future, which will impact our future educational systems and will be essential for evaluating LMSs. I believe combining the SECTIONS framework with CanMeds will help us identify what functions and/or applications we need.
During the second and third assignment, I became quite familiar with the functionality of Moodle, this helped me develop my technical skills. Before this assignment, I had never developed a course, or course module before. Through this assignment I became familiar with a developing course and assessment tools.
The second and third assignments gave me a taste for what it might be like being an Instructional Designer (which is something I would like to peruse in the future). It has also shown be the importance of including an instructional designer with a subject matter expert to develop a well-structured, well-run course. After developing a small section of a course, I know appreciate the amount of work that goes into developing a course on-line.
Overall, the quality of my learning experience has been quite high. I have met most of my learning objectives. I would have liked to have an opportunity to go more in-depth with the LMS evaluation i.e. an environmental scan and a gap analysis as these are skills that would help me in my current position. Though I do realize that these are specific actives that would benefit me personally and maybe not the entire course.
I’m not sure if having an Open Access WordPress version of the ETEC 565a in addition to the password protected discussions and assignment submission benefited my experience in this course, rather I would say it had no impact. Personally, I would prefer to have all of my course information and actives located in one place. Otherwise I think there is an increased possibility that information could ‘slip through the cracks’.
Bates, T. (2015). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from