Going through the process of this assignment brought to light the many challenges that must be overcome and factors to be considered in order to select an appropriate tool for a learning management system. As an elementary school teacher, all those decisions are already made for me and something I don’t really even contemplate when using the tool(s). The only categories of the Bates model that I would really concern myself with would be that of Students and Teaching Functions. While I would also want my students to have rich interactions, this decision would not necessarily be in my hands. When I consider the Students and Teaching Functions categories, I feel that the Chickering and Ehrmann model of the Seven Principles would be more applicable to me as an elementary school teacher. As we indicated in our concluding paragraph, this model appealed to us as having a more pedagogical approach and what I would have to consider using the platform to best suit my students’ needs.
I can see a parallel when I look at Teaching Functions from the Bates model and Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning from the Chickering and Ehrmann model. Both of these structures encourage opportunities for students to “show their talents and learn in ways that work for them” (Chickering and Ehrmann, p. 6) and encourage the use of multiple intelligences and universal design for learning if used correctly. This will allow students to work at their own pace, achieving their own level of success.
When completing the rubric, I found my section of the assignment somewhat challenging as I know very little about the hardware aspects of technology; software is more my area of expertise. While I didn’t find it frustrating I was concerned that I wasn’t providing specific enough information to support my team and did some further research outside of the readings to help guide me. When coming together to meet as a group, however, there was no lack of support or feedback and I felt from a collaborative point of view, this assignment worked very well. Group members were very amenable to try and meet at times that worked for all of us, as we had three time zones, and during our meetings there was easy cooperation and meaningful discussion. Team members willingly took on a role, meeting timelines that we all agreed to. We used Google Hangouts to meet and Google Docs to create our draft and final document. This type of synchronous communication was much more conducive to us completing our work in a timely manner and ensuring there were no misunderstandings.
References
Bates, A. (2015, April 05). Teaching in a Digital Age. Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-9-the-sections-model-speed-and-security/
Chetwynd, R. (n.d.). The State of Security in the LMS Industry. Retrieved January 22, 2018, from https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1962/the-state-of-security-in-the-lms-industry
Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S., C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Retrieved January 23, 2018, from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm