Situation:
Yukon Education Student Network (YESNet) and Yukon First Nations Programs & Partnerships Unit of the Yukon’s Ministry of Education want to develop blended secondary courses that are relevant from an Aboriginal perspective.
The Na Cho Nyak Dun First Nation has agreed to pilot the program, but there are concerns about bandwidth and reliability of internet access in their traditional, unceded territories: many of its members rely on 3G technology, for example. If the pilot goes well the program will be rolled out across the Yukon’s other 12 First Nations.
Task:
As members of YESNet’s Learning Technologies Advisory Committee (LTAC) you have been tasked with developing an evaluation rubric to decide which LMS would best suit YESNet’s overall needs, given both current usage and possible upcoming expansion.
Process:
Our group decided to use Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS model as a framework for the rubric due to its inclusion of a broad rage of factors that would need to be considered in choosing appropriate technology for learning environments. Although some of the consideration within the SECTIONS model seemed to more directly apply to post-secondary education contexts, the framework was flexible enough to adapt to a K-12 9and in the case of our scenario 8-12) context. In deciding on which questions to include we wanted to look closely at the information provided in the precis and ensure that the rubric was going to include criteria that would help address both the explicitly stated needs (i.e. bandwidth, reliability of internet access) and the implicit needs (i.e. what factors might need to be taken into consideration when implementing in unceded First Nations communities).
Our LMS evaluation rubric and paragraph summary was posted by Meghan here.
Reflection:
The process of determining what would be included in the rubric was collaborative in nature; we each provide initial draft content for specific sections of the rubric and then worked together to adapt and refine as necessary. In my estimation, what was built was more complete than what would have been developed if we had each worked individually. During the process I also came to focus on two ideas:
- It is important to fully understand the context an LMS will be used in, especially if that context differs from our own. What might be relevant or suitable for some contexts, may be less useful in others. In the case of this scenario, I wanted to help ensure that we were paying attention to the specific context of YESNet’s mandate, where the LMS would be implemented, and who (both teachers and students) would be using it. Understanding this (which in the case of this assignment was helped by doing some additional simple research) helps ensure that a rubric for evaluating a potential LMS for this context would be as useful as possible.
- Related to the previous idea is the understanding that some parts of an evaluation rubric for an LMS might have more weight than other aspects for evaluators. When I look at the factors (or considerations) we decided were necessary to include, I wonder if some of them might be more important than others during an actual evaluation. For example, what (if any) might be the primary drivers? Costs? Ease of Use? Adaptability? Perhaps in a real situation these (and other) factors might be given equal weight. But there is also the potential that the people making the final decisions might place more weight on some factors than on others. It is helpful to know about, and discuss these potential factors.
The process of collaboratively developing the rubric underscored the following for me:
Trying to choose the best LMS for a specific situation can be a challenging process, but it is helped by:
- As much as possible, comprehensive knowledge of the learners/teachers and learning contexts
- A group process of evaluation, as each member is able to bring different perspectives and help the other think about and question our own assumptions.
Reference:
Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage