Assignment 3: Content Module Project Documentation
Brendan Clark
ETEC 565
University of British Columbia
Course Prototype Unit:
For assignment three I will be submitting the first content module of the course which will follow the introductory module. The module is titled “Module One: Primary and Secondary Sources” and contains three activities. Learners will have two weeks to complete the module’s activities which are intended to build some foundational skills for online learning and historical research which will be utilized throughout the course. The module is intended to encourage learners to brainstorm about the value of historical research methods as well as begin using digital tools to share their ideas and start designing their first assignment.
Organization and Target Audience:
This course is designed to be delivered in a public organization, or more specifically, a secondary school in a British Columbia school district. The course targets the grade 10 and grade 11 audience and covers B.C social studies curriculum.
Functionality, Affordances and Limitations of the Primary LMS and other Platforms used in the Module Design:
Module One of the course relies mainly on the Moodle platform for the delivery of instructions, content, and activities. Because the organization intended to deliver the course would privately host the Moodle platform, the main advantage of the LMS is that it provides a level of security needed when dealing with secondary aged learners. Learners who log in to the Moodle site can be sure that their identity and private information will not be shared with any public online community. In order to complete the module’s activities, learners will have to choose and utilize additional tools outside of Moodle, however, learners will have options which do not require private information and student work is not required to be shared publicly. Because many external web-hosted tools which are available to students require users to create accounts and join user communities, there are some security risks involved and some amount of private information is typically required. Many of these tools however, offer accounts designed to be used in educational settings where the facilitator can create accounts for students which do not require them to provide private information. Ideally, the course will include a few of the more secure education account options but as these tools change rapidly, and new tools become available, the facilitator will have to make some decisions and help learners make informed choices.
Moodle’s discussion pages are another advantage of the platform but do have some limitations. The forum pages allow the instructor to link discussion questions to any aspect of the overall design of the course and contain settings which control who can create and contribute to each discussion thread. This allows the facilitator to moderate discussion and encourage the sharing of ideas as well as assess the level of participation from each learner. The first module of the course asks students to participate in two separate discussion forums with related topics but separate activities. The forum tools allow students to upload images or link to external videos and web pages. This is useful when asking students to support their views with resources they have found, or to share digital objects as items for discussion. Sharing sources may create some risk and require the facilitator to monitor what is be shared and to ensure that sources are cited properly. The main drawback with the forum pages is the limited amount of flexibility the instructor has to present the discussion visually. The forum pages use a vertical design where an initial thread is presented at the top and replies and comments are added below chronologically. Each thread is presented as a vertical list which users must return to in order to move from topic to topic. This design does not allow users to easily view and assess how different discussion threads are interconnected. I would like to have the flexibility to design a discussion forum which does a better job of visually representing a group dialogue. There are external tools that attempt to achieve this, Google Plus Communities or Padlet for example, but privacy and security become a greater issue for the facilitator and they may not be appropriate for the public organization and intended audience.
To complete the first assignment of the course, which learners begin working on in Module One, a variety of external digital tools are available and acceptable. The Moodle LMS does not contain an appropriate tool to create their assignment but does include the tools necessary to share and submit their work. The first assignment of the course requires students to use what they have learned from Module One to create a digital poster or collage which presents analysis of both primary and secondary sources; Module One requires learners to create a proposal for the first assignment and select the digital tool they will be using to create their poster. Because there are so many tools available to produce media presentations it will be challenging for both the learners and the facilitator. The timing of the course schedule does not allow the facilitator to discuss each possible tool, its limitations and affordances, as well as provide technical support. Because of the age and demographics of the learners there is likely to be a wide range of experience as well as accessibility to these tools. To address these challenges, the course introduction may need to be adjusted to include a brainstorming activity which involves analyzing some of the available media tools, or the facilitator may wish to limit the tools allowed to complete the assignment. To follow with the course design which is structured with social constructivist pedagogy in mind, asking students to review and discuss the available tools may be the more valuable option, but the timing of the course means that adding this activity may take away from the time needed to achieve the other course objectives.
Moodle’s built in layout and design features are another advantage of the platform. Creating headings, pages, labels and links is easy. This means that designing a Module which communicates content through text, images and video can be done efficiently. This also means that the module can be designed with a high degree of usability where learners can easily navigate through content, discussions and activities. Modifications can also be done quite easily by facilitators who may want to update the course later on.
Finally, Moodle provides a few different assessment tools which provide valuable options for both formative and summative assessment. Module One of the course prototype mainly uses formative assessment strategies since the main assessment goal is to ensure that students are participating and getting off to a successful start of the course. Most feedback from the facilitator for Module One would be provided through the forum page discussions using the monitoring options available. Private communication is also available through Moodle platform if the facilitator needs to provide some individual feedback. The final activity of Module one requires students to hand-in their assignment proposals by using Moodle’s assignment tool which allows learners to see assignment requirements and allows the facilitator to provide summative feedback after the assignment is evaluated. To complete Module One, learners are required to complete a quick survey using Moodle’s survey tool which will serve as a quick reflective activity to see if all tasks have been completed and to check to see if there are any issues that need addressed.
Course Design and Stakeholder Requirements and Values:
The design of the Module, as well as the course, is influenced largely by constructivist, learner-centred, and participatory educational theory. The layout of the Moodle pages associated with the module are designed to allow learners to easily navigate and communicate in order to construct their own knowledge by participating in designing, sharing and assessing digital artifacts and presentations. This approach places the learner as the highest priority with the goal of creating an engaging and valuable learning experience. Because learners may choose a wide variety of tools, topics and approaches to completing the course activities, the amount of facilitator presence and support may prove to be challenging. Ideally, some learner support will be provided by the learners themselves by creating an effective online community which can call upon its own knowledge base to solve some course issues. This strategy is limited however due to the target audience which would be expected to include mainly inexperienced online learners.
From the view of the public organization offering the course, the main goal is to allow educators to offer courses that they are passionate about and allow learners to enrol in courses which do not typically fit in a traditional course calendar. This course addresses these goals as it creates an opportunity for learners to try something new which also reflects the organization’s evolution towards offering more online and blended delivery courses with a high degree of learner choice. The organization also requires the course to be low in cost because it would be offered in addition to its regular courses. The courses financial impact would depend on the level of enrollment and could potentially impact the load on the organization’s IT support but would not require any significant funding for materials or experiences.
The first module’s activities and the course design highlight the growing dilemma that exists in public education when course design includes participatory theory in student activities. Participating in public discourse has never been as accessible as it is today and many young learners are already doing it. This course does not ask learners to share private information but it does ask to share what they have learned by using online tools which could require some public participation where security and privacy cannot be ensured. This risk is necessary in order to prepare students for online learning and participation which will undoubtedly be a component of both formal and informal learning for the foreseeable future. Deciding if it is ethical for a public organization to ask learners to take this risk has yet to be resolved.
References
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Kafai, Y. & Peppler, K. (2011). Youth, Technology, and DIY: Developing Participatory Competencies in Creative Media Production. In V. L. Gadsden, S. Wortham, and R. Lukose (Eds.), Youth Cultures, Language and Literacy. Review of Research in Education, Volume 34
Koohang, A., Riley, L., Smith, T. (2009). E-Learning and Constructivism: From Theory to Application.
Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Objects. Volume 5.
Mahmud, A. a. (2013). Constructivism and reflectivism as the logical counterparts in tesol: Learning theory versus teaching methodology. TEFLIN Journal, 24(2), 237-257.
Online Course Layout: Navigation, Structure, Look and Feel | GW Libraries. (n.d.). Retrieved October 08, 2016, from https://library.gwu.edu/utlc/teaching/online-course-layout-navigation-structure-look-and-feel