This is a project proposal which will give you a clear understanding of the software selection as well as technical and budgetary requirements required to deliver pre-arrival content and skills to international students participating in our Business and Culture in Canada Co-op (BC3) programme. It will show why an open source Learning Management System (LMS) software programme called Moodle should be adopted as the vehicle through which this material will be deployed.
Motivation
Additional interview preparation practice: While students arriving to the BC3 program participate have found the one day workshop on interview skills that both introduces them to and prepares them for internship interviews with their potential host companies extremely helpful but still require more time to digest the content, practice their skills and prepare for specific interviews. Scheduling, staffing and budgetary constraints do not allow for more classroom time being dedicated to interview training/practice or for content review and many students have interviews scheduled in the first week of the BC3 programme, often one to two days following the face-2-face (f2f) interview workshop.
Project Summary
This project will provide an LMS platform, Moodle, through which the interview skills workshop content will be expanded, enhanced and delivered to our students prior to their arrival in Canada which could be further expanded to become part of a pre-arrival orientation programme to increase participants’ preparation and ultimately their success in their co-op placements.
Method of LMS evaluation
Based primarily on Bates & Poole’s (2003) SECTIONS framework for selecting and using technology as it applies to this specific situation, the LMS needs to address:
Students: Demographics: 3rd or 4th year multidisciplinary international undergraduate students holding a high level of communicative competence (TOEFL IBT 65) in English.
Ease of use: Computer and information technology literacy are not a major issue for students or instructors but because English is the students’ second language, the technology should be highly intuitive regardless of language skills. Cost and support must be kept to a minimum so both software and server must be reliable. Online support from the software designer would be ideal.
Costs: Minimal; including technical support.
Teaching & learning: The technology needs to support a variety of types of content deployment and skills practice including audio and video, graphics and images.
Interaction & Interactivity: Technology must support asynchronous and asynchronous peer to peer, student to content, as well as student to instructor interaction both textually as well as audio and visually so interview practice can be conducted.
Organizational Issues: From the perspective of both cost and reliability, the technology should require minimal technical support from the university.
Novelty Not currently applicable.
Speed Target to launch the pre-arrival programme is for the January 2011 enrolment.
Why Moodle
While numerous software programmes exist that would meet/exceed the evaluation criteria, the proposed software directly offers the following benefits:
1. Lower cost of software, set-up, support: Moodle setup costs are nominal unless the University would like to host the programme on its own server (our company currently hosts Moodle – see point #2) and there appears little difference in integrity with proprietary LMSs (Inversini, et. al. 2006). That said, IT support from the University would still be minimal (Klaus, 2005) as an extended support community exists that includes both programmers and users. Content has been prepared but must be re-tooled for the LMS. As well, teacher/teaching time must be negotiated. Cost recovery is being discussed with the partner universities as the length of the program will be increased and this should be reflected in student tuition.
2. Familiarity –During their co-op placement all students will be participating in an online academic programme that enhances their internship experience. This programme is currently being deployed via Moodle. By introducing students to Moodle prior to their arrival in Canada, the transition to the LMS at the start of their placement will be much smoother. Several instructors are currently using Moodle to deploy various aspects of their current courses so transitioning the current materials to the Moodle server should be less complex than learning a new LMS.
References
(2004) LMS Evaluation Tool User Guide. 3waynet Inc. and the Commonwealth of Learning.I Retrieved 25 January 2010 from: http://www.oerafrica.org/ResourceDownload.aspx?id=36821&userid=-1
Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.
Brandl, K. (2005), Are You Ready to Moodle? Language Learning & Technology Volume 9, Number 2 (pp. 16-23). Retrieved 4 February 2010 from: http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num2/pdf/review1.pdf
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 10 January 2010 from: http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples.htm
Inversini, A., Botturi, L. & Triacca, L. (2006). Evaluating LMS Usability for Enhanced eLearning Experience. In E. Pearson & P. Bohman (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2006 (pp. 595-601). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved 25 January 2010 from http://www.editlib.org/p/23070.
Rentróia-Bonito, M. A., Guerreiro, T, Martins, A, Fernandes, V. & Jorge, J. (2008) Evaluating Learning Support Systems Usability: An Empirical Approach. 3rd E-Learning Conference, Coimbra, Portugal, 7 – 8 September 2006 (pp. 183-188). Retrieved 25 January 2010 from: http://elconf06.dei.uc.pt/pdfs/paper29.pdf
Wyles, R. (2004). Evaluation of Learning Management System software: Part I of LMS Evaluation. Open Source e-Learning Environment and Community Platform Project. Retrieved 25 January 2010 from: http://www.eduforge.org/docman/view.php/7/7/Shortlisting%20of%20LMS.pdf
Wyles, R. (2004). Evaluation of Learning Management System software: Part II of LMS Evaluation. Open Source e-Learning Environment and Community Platform Project. Retrieved 25 January 2010 from: http://www.eduforge.org/docman/view.php/7/7/Shortlisting%20of%20LMS.pdf