LMS Proposal
A learning management system to support the competitive cross country race community in Canada
The Need for a Learning Management System (LMS)
Training is provided to cross country ski officials through Cross Country Canada (CCC) and cross country ski coaches are trained through the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) through traditional face-to-face methods. There is a need to have a site to host these courses in partial or fully on-line formats. For example Official’s courses levels 1-5 are delivered on snow and face-to-face through lectures, PowerPoint presentations, discussions and by working through paper based materials. Assessments are a combination of paper based T/F and M/C, presentations and electronic submissions. These courses could be greatly enhanced if they were redesigned, hosted on a learning management system and delivered in blended or online formats.
The training and educational materials are updated on a regular basis to keep up with changes in International Ski Federation (FIS) standards, changes in coaching techniques, updates to Canada’s Long Term Athlete Development model and new advancements in technologies as they are integrated into Officials and Coaches roles. For example, Zone4 Systems now offers live lap and final results that Coaches can access on course through their mobile technologies. This same technology provides electronic live start lists and start times to start lines and live results at finish lines and other locations throughout the venue. Zone4 has also recently introduced a RapidCam photo finish camera that is changing the role of timing officials. As a result, there is a need to develop blended format training courses for volunteer timing officials who use specialized timing software developed by Zone4 and equipment provided by Summit Systems. Programs such as Fast and Female could benefit by having their educational materials and activities hosted in an e-format. Fast and Female is not just limited to cross country skiing as it supports 12 sports and their programs are delivered in both Canada and the United States. The delivery of any of these courses and programs could be improved if delivered in a blended F-2-F/eLearning format supported through a learning management system (LMS).
Learning Management System
A learning management system (LMS) is a software program used to manage and administer education and training programs and courses. For example an LMS can be used to host a course by providing the content, administer the assessments and grading, manage online discussions and provide a central location for managing resources. There are many learning management systems available; several are large enterprise scale systems such as WebCT/Blackboard or Desire to Learn used by post-secondary institutes and large school districts. These systems host hundreds or even thousands of courses. There are also open source systems available that are very cost effective for small companies and not-for profit organizations compared to the expensive enterprise systems. Moodle is an ideal open source LMS for managing and administering the training and education needs of the non-profit and small organizations of cross country ski support community. In addition, it has the capacity for the stakeholders to expand their reach beyond cross country skiing and to include course stakeholders from a variety of activities and interests.
Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment)
Moodle is the LMS selected for this proposal based on the SECTIONS framework for selecting and using technology by Bates and Poole (2003).
Students:
Students are teen and adult learners with a variety of interests from young aspiring athletes to Race Officials to coaches at all levels. In addition to traditional Face-2-Face delivery methods, Instructors can support their students through e-tools in Moodle for group work, community networking, portfolio development, chat and discussion forums and feedback.
Ease of Use and Reliability:
Moodle is ready to go once loaded on a server and is ready for course development. Moodle has documentation and support available online for course developers and system administrators.
Costs:
Moodle is an open source package so there are no purchase costs. It is proposed that the software be loaded and managed on a server provided by Zone4 Systems. Zone4 has the technical expertise to support the Moodle application through their experience in developing and managing the Zone4 registration and timing system. A monthly fee would need to be negotiated with Zone4 to host and provide technical support. The fee would depend on the number of courses hosted on their server and the number of students registered in courses.
Teaching and Learning:
Moodle is flexible enough to be customized to fit the different educational and training needs of the stakeholders. Tracking participant’s interactions for example can be accomplished through Moodle’s reporting capability to record and display number of times, dates and frequency of participant’s access to the different components of Moodle. Moodle has the capacity to act as a repository for training and educational objects and create and store templates. Moodle supports the multi-user course environment.
Interactivity:
Courses developed in Moodle can be as interactive as the instructor wants. Interactivity can occur between participants or between participants and content. Participants from different locations could collaborate and interact in the same course, for example allowing the coordinated delivery of an officials course in New Brunswick and Alberta to occur at the same time.
Organization:
Moodle can support tools to authenticate users: students, instructors and administrators, allow or restrict access to users depending on their roles and allow users from multiple organizations across Canada. Moodle is secure and stable. Technical support will be provided by Zone4 Systems.
Novelty:
Moodle is designed to support social constructionist education. Moodle is a novel technology for supporting the cross country race community. Web 2.0 applications could be used with Moodle to support the educational courses and training programs.
Speed:
Once installed on a server, the development of individual courses can be done quickly by the stakeholders. Changes to course material can be done quickly by the designer or instructor.
References
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.
Chavan, A., & Pavri, S. (2004). Open source learning management with moodle. Linux Journal. Retrieved February 1, 2012, from http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7478
MoodleDocs. (2011) Top 10 Moodle Myths. Retrieved February 1, 2012 from http://docs.moodle.org/en/Top_10_Moodle_Myths
Moodle. (2011). Philosophy. Retrieved February 1, 2012 from http://docs.moodle.org/en/Philosophy