Platform Evaluation for Eliademy in Secondary Schools
Baljeet Gill
Brendan Clark
Faryal Akbar
Sarah Neal
Vibhu Vashisht
ETEC 565A
Professor Tatiana Bourlova
University of British Columbia
Section A: Description of the Organization’s Structure and Goals
The organization we will be discussing while evaluating the Eliademy LMS platform is a public secondary school located in British Columbia. The school is considering adopting the Eliademy LMS platform as a tool for educators to offer online and blended courses. Public secondary schools are regulated by the provincial government and operated by local school districts. The goals and values of the public secondary school are closely tied with those of the local district as well as those determined by provincial law and the Ministry of Education. The British Columbia Ministry of Education (2016) states that “The purpose of the British Columbia school system is to enable the approximately 553,000 public school students, 81,000 independent school students, and over 2,200 home-schooled children enrolled each school year, to develop their individual potential and to acquire the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to contribute to a healthy society and a prosperous and sustainable economy”(p.4). The broad goal of the B.C. Ministry of Education is to provide courses and programs to the diverse group of learners that make up B.C and enable them to develop and prepare for the future. The main goal of the secondary school is to offer full time, part time, blended and distance learning courses to create more options for students, both in terms of content and delivery. Students will gain access to educators for help and assessment, to other students for collaboration and discussion, and to support staff for technical solutions. Online and blended courses cater to home-based learners, those who need out-of-school support, travellers, and those who need to work at their own pace. This public online school values student and parent choice, and personalized learning. Eliademy is being considered to deliver material, allow the creation of learner communities, and allow instructors to deliver support, comments and assessments both in real-time and asynchronously, giving students the best opportunity to succeed.
Section B: Functionality of Eliademy
Eliademy provides multiple functionalities and affordances that could support our organization’s goals. On a broad level, the ultimate goal of both the Ministry of Education and our secondary school is for students to learn successfully. Eliademy can be accessed from a range of devices, including mobile, which is particularly fitting for secondary students. The ease of and round-the-clock access to cloud-based Eliademy is crucial, particularly in a geographic area which hosts some isolated areas and smaller schools. As we wish for our students to become lifelong learners, the Open Educational Resource bank Eliademy has become is both a gateway and testament to the spirit of learning. The primary goal of our secondary school is to offer options within program delivery and as such, blended and distance learning are critical aspects to provide more flexibility. Features such as the ability to organize webinars, offer discussion boards, and proffer assessment opportunities, promote learning both inside and outside the paradigm of a classroom setting.
Eliademy’s functionalities and affordances from both the educator and student perspectives are an integral part of considering Eliademy to deliver course material, create learner communities, deliver support, provide comments and assessments both in real-time and asynchronous environments. First, these affordances will be discussed from the educator’s perspective, followed by the student’s perspective.
Eliademy is marketed as an easy to use Learning Management System (LMS) and as such, the educator does not require advanced working knowledge of Information Technology (IT). Any educator can easily setup a course and deliver it as “[one doesn’t] need to be limited by their IT department” (Eliademy Features, 2016). Courses can be set to either self-paced or timed. This allows the educator to deliver the course asynchronously with the self-paced option or synchronously with fixed start and end date along detailed schedules via the Calendar feature. To support the synchronous model further, Eliademy has a Webinar feature that allows the educator to setup a live class with audio and video to ‘meet’ face to face with students. The Webinar functionality along with inserting videos into content allows the educator to provide blended learning as well. The freedom to choose a full time, part time, blended, or distance learning course suggests Eliademy is an excellent candidate for LMS consideration. Eliademy affords the creation of tasks, quizzes, and interactive discussions, as well as consists of a dedicated Gradebook. These become valuable in providing assessment to students and create an opportunity to develop a community of learners. Furthermore, in an effort to keep the educator well informed of the course progress, there are notifications for important items like a new discussion posted, new student enrolled, or a task submitted by the student. Thus, Eliademy supports the educator’s goals of delivering a course in a variety of ways along with providing robust features to support feedback, assessment and establishing a learning community.
When looking at Eliademy, or any other LMS, from a student’s perspective a number of different factors need to be considered. According to McTigue & March (2015), more technology is not the answer to a blended learning environment and that educators should always attempt start with their learning goals; this is important when evaluating the appropriateness of an LMS. Further, a study of the effectiveness of an LMS in an online environment conducted by Weaver, Spratt and Nair (2008) revealed that sound educational design, timely feedback and interaction with their educators was the determining factor if students had a positive experience with the technology.
When a student logs into Eliademy, the homepage shows all of the courses they are enrolled in. An especially informative function from this homepage is a progress bar. If there are outstanding assignments or quizzes that have been assigned but not yet completed, the progress bar reflects this, thus giving the student a quick snapshot of the course without having to click through. Full functionality was found on a mobile device as well and did not require the download of a dedicated app.
Students are presented with a clean interface with four distinct tabs for navigation: Content, Tasks, Discussions and Participants. The organization of tasks was very well laid out and much more user friendly than that of Google Classroom. All Tasks are shown in list form with two columns; tasks to be completed on the left and completed tasks on the right; tasks that are completed show the grade without having to click through with a comment bubble indicating the instructor provided feedback. The discussions tab appears to be a little cluttered at initial glance, but once one spends some time, it becomes easy to understand. All recent discussion posts, regardless of what forum they are posted in, show up chronologically in a news feed fashion. Students are able to start a new discussion in any of the premade forums and can add attachments such as videos, pictures and documents.
Section C: Sustainability of Eliademy in a Secondary School
Vota (2009) defined sustainability in this context as the “ability of an educational ecosystem to maintain scholastic processes, functions, diversity and productivity into the future” (as cited in Wilson, 2010). It involves providing sufficient support for Eliademy to continue as the school’s preferred LMS. Since Eliademy is a free platform, it will not strain the school’s financial resources. If the school board wanted to privatize access to staff and students only, then the nominal membership fee of five euros per month for premium membership can be easily sustained by the school (Eliademy, 2006).
Offering Eliademy as part of a blended program at the school, would help develop curiosity, networking and risk-taking from all participants, including staff and students. According to Hearn, Lennie, Simpson and Kimber (2005) these site-based actions can improve the overall skill set of the community they represent (p. 41). Research has shown that “connected learning environments are powerful and multi-dimensional offering broad opportunities for self directed learning, experimentation and development of deep and enduring understandings of complex processes” (Carr & O’Neill, 2006, p. 2). Eliademy has an easy-to-use and user-friendly interface, that would be manageable for even the most hesitant staff and students. Online courses offered by learning management systems are more efficient in delivering feedback, and this would also contribute to the sustainability of the LMS. Digital solutions that enhance skills and capabilities for today’s learner need to be timely, reflecting skills in current use in mainstream environments (Wilson, 2010, p. 42).
A number of researchers suggest that five broad markers are associated with achieving sustainable practice in a school context: 1) Networks– development of user networks and the collaborative actions that occur within the LMS 2) Adaptations – adaptations of practices that incorporate ICT of users involved in the use of this LMS 3) Scalability – the ability of the LMS to incorporate functions desired by participants and have the capacity to grow 4) Governance – the willingness of participants to undertake tasks or roles willingly supporting the development of the LMS 5) Site activity – usage of the LMS both during school time and out of school hours (Wilson, 2010). All of these markers are present in the assessment of Eliademy as the LMS for this school: Eliademy provides the opportunity to develop user networks and collaborative actions; adaptations and scalability could be achieved through purchasing the premium membership; governance and site activity could be monitored and assessed by the school administration.
Therefore, incorporating Eliademy as an LMS would be a sustainable option for the school. Although it might be challenging in the beginning, once the educators have established the courses, it would be relatively easy for them to modify and improve different aspects, to keep them dynamic and engaging.
References
British Columbia Ministry of Education (2016). 2016/2017-2017/2018 Service Plan. Retrieved from www.gov.bc.ca/bced.
Carr, J., & O’Neill, P. (2006). Connected learners: Implications for teaching in a connected world. Brisbane Education Queensland. Retrieved on March 12, 2007 from http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/pdfs/acer-connected-learners.pdf Eliademy Features. (2016). Retrieved September 30, 2016, from https://eliademy.com/en/features
Hearn, G., Lennie, J., Simpson, J., & Kimber, M., (2005). A way forward: Sustainable ICTs and regional sustainability. The Journal of Community Informatics, 1(2), 18-31. McTighe, J., & March, T. (2015). Choosing Apps by Design. Educational Leadership, 72(8), 36-41.
Weaver, D., Spratt, C., & Nair, C. S. (2008). Academic and student use of a learning management system: Implications for quality. Australasian journal of educational technology, 24(1), 30-41.
Wilson, G.P. (2010). Sustainable use of MOODLE as a learning management system within a school context. Retrieved from http://acquire.cqu.edu.au:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/cqu:6912