Assignment 1 of ETEC 524 66B was designed to have a team analyze and argue an optimal LMS that supports a fictional education scenario. For our scenario, the context was established quite quickly and as a team, we often agreed on variables of the context in an efficient manner. 

Over the three synchronous group meetings for Assignment 1, we delegated roles through our areas of strengths and experiences of LMSs. Each meeting worked on a different aspect of the assignment and every member was present throughout. Communication between the meetings were minimal but it was due to the fact that everyone was on the same page and there was little to no need for clarification during our own self-directed times to work on the assignment. Collectively, we agreed this team worked quite efficiently throughout the assignment.

For our first synchronous meeting, we began to brainstorm the rubric design as well as which LMSs to explore and rank. We decided to utilize elements of the SECTIONS framework (Bates, 2014) based on our readings and reliability of Bates philosophy . As a team, we collaborated and edited the rubric prior to our second meeting. As well, we dove into each chosen LMS to deepen our understanding and objectively score the LMS afterwards based on our developed rubric. The top two choices of LMS (Microsoft Teams and Edsby) were quite close however with a two point difference, we went with Edsby

As a first time user, I was personally quite excited to explore and argue for Edsby as our chosen LMS. Although the scoring was close, Edsby felt like a more complete package for myself. The rationale for Edsby over Teams was the superiority of three vital components in an LMS for our scenario; Interface, Integration and Educational Features. The user-friendly interface of Edsby was evident as a brand new user of Edsby for this assignment. The platform offers intuitive features and the design was detailed yet easy to navigate. There was no learning curve evident for educators, students or parents. The needs of all stakeholders at GSS will be met with Edsby. 

With integration, Edsby is able to integrate with other school systems, syncing marks and due dates with other student information systems. The integration can streamline administrative tasks and the margin for error is reduced as information input is standardized. Finally, the overall functions of Edsby has a focus on education while Microsoft Teams is purposed for a collaboration platform among a variety of industries. The needs of every educator is different, however for our scenario, the streamline connections and overall ease of use through functionalities and interface supported our strong choice of Edsby over Microsoft Teams. 

Through this assignment, I gained knowledge and experience through exploring new LMS’s that I have never heard of, collaborated with educators from different provinces, developed a comprehensive rubric to determine an optimal LMS and I broadened my perspective of how LMS’s can interact in a classroom and a school system.

References:

Bates, T. (2014). Choosing and using media in education: The SECTIONS model. In Teaching in digital age.