District Proposal for Learning Management System (Moodle).
To: Mr. Ray Somebody
Delta Secondary School
4615 – 51st street
Delta, B.C.
V4K 2V8
From: David De Pieri
Teacher: Delta Secondary
Dear Mr Somebody,
In this economic down turn, many School Districts are looking for ways to squeeze a dollar from already shrinking budgets. I know at our last staff meeting, you were open to suggestions on saving money from staff members and support staff. I having been teaching Business Education 10 with the Delta School District for 7 years now, and see a huge potential in cost savings with the implementation of an LMS (Learning Management System) that is easily adoptable in many courses at our school. I am also aware that I am considered a teacher with vision and focus on effective learning strategies, something you once told me after I was hired. My attitude toward kids and education has not changed. I still find teaching as invigorating today as 18 years ago, but have come to realize, there are more effective ways of accomplishing certain tasks. I would like to take this moment to introduce to you an idea where using a LMS is definitely to our educational communities advantage.
The Proposal
My proposal is a move from the expensive and time consuming traditional method of photocopy and distribute to a completely paperless, online learning style. At recent staff meetings, indicators are that a staff our size is consuming far too many paper resources and photocopying rates are escalating. The last figure you threw out was an annual $67,000 of photocopier fees including paper, rental of four machines, repair bills and ink. That amount I find staggering and have ways of reducing overall photocopying costs. The Business programs at our school are conducive to my proposal as we are in four labs that are LMS ready.
What exactly is an LMS?
An independent software system which delivers, manages and follows progress in education and training. An LMS can distribute courses via the Internet or stand alone computer and offer synchronous and asynchronous communication. Record keeping, registration, data management, grading, assessment, discussion threads, mail and collaborative learning are only a few of the features of a good LMS. Most LMS’s are Web-based to facilitate access to learning and administration of course ware. Educational institutes now have the ability to offer teaching and courses to larger population of learners around world. As an example, our biology program thrives because we are near the Pacific Ocean. Now we can invite the world to our back door and in doing so, increase International exposure to the Delta School District through the use of an organized and thoughtful Learning Management System.
The Learning Management System of Choice
Through our Local Specialists Association (LSA), I have contacted teachers in neighbouring districts regarding LMS’s and there are a great number of teachers who have already adopted and created their own unique learning environments using a robust and fully customizable Open Source LMS, more specifically, they are using Moodle. Moodle is a completely customizable Learning Management System which has functionality that surpasses much of what we need at this point in time. Authors, Perkins and Pfaffman describe Moodle as, “a free, open-source software program that not only provides a set of features similar to those of its proprietary competitors but is easier to use. Moodle has improved and enhanced student performance by promoting and organizing communication among parents, students, teachers, administrators and the community.” (Perkin & Pfaffman 2006). Certainly these words are a strong indicator that Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is the LMS of choice. Parents will finally get a chance to track their children’s progress.
Benefits
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Teacher assume incorrectly that Learning Management Systems are like maintaining websites, they are not. Traditional websites were designed using clunky HTML code, less user friendly for the content designer and considered a one way path to knowledge transition. Cascading Style Sheets and WYSIWYG software packages like DreamWeaver created the notion of a more manageable client-side editors, but are still applications that require many hours of time and energy to perfect and maintain.
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First and foremost, Moodle is quite intuitive. Before anything, teachers need to feel comfortable and confident using software that is, to a degree, replacing the Face to Face correspondence in teaching. An LMS can be an extension of current teaching practices with no limitation to depth of LMS engagement.
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Authors Chickering and Gamson believe that prompt feedback is one of the essential elements in their Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. “Knowing what you know and don’t know, focuses learning.” Using an LMS, students and teachers can log on from any location at anytime and complete an exercise or mark an assignments as they choose. As daytime teachers, we are no longer tied to our desks after 3:00pm and gripe about being stuck in rush hour traffic on the ride home.
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Bates and Poole contend that the decision making in choosing an LMS technology should consider the “differences in how students learn.” With an increasing diverse student population like we experience here in Delta, many unique learning possibilities must be made available for student success. The rate of learning from one group to another present challenges for instructors whereas LMS stations allow multiple viewings of the same material. It is safe to say that learners can repeat exercises that may be somewhat more difficult and challenging to understand at their own rate and time of day.
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Visit the Website, http://www.slideshare.net/nosh0502/why-moodle for a comprehensive explanation of Why Moodle?
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As well, check out the Moodleman at: http://www.moodleman.net/archives/49 A great informative video by Tomaz Lasic, ICT Integrator and Moodle Administrator.
Timeline
I believe, already having content to Business Ed programs in digital format, I could transition an LMS as approximately 40 to 50% of my teaching course load in the first year. I would consider approximately six weeks during the summer to make the transition to this load. As time progresses however, Moodle would make up a larger portion of my content manager. Remember, Moodle is supporting education, not replacing the teacher.
As teachers are always looking for good Pro-D opportunities, I would be more than willing to run Moodle workshops throughout the school year for those interested. As a teacher with vision and focus, this is my commitment to harnessing Moodle as the LMS of choice. It just makes sense.
Support
In my Master of Educational Technology program at UBC, one of our exercises was to do a comprehensive check of several LMS’s and Moodle came out as the winner. Our rubric, designed by five members of our ETEC 565 course who are all secondary level teachers, found that Moodle would best fit our needs. One area we were concerned with was continued technical support and Moodle had its bases covered. One of our group members already uses Moodle, and she gave us a virtual tour of Moodle robust features. I was especially intrigued with its grading system.
Interestingly enough, the Delta School District is behind with regards to this technology. Soccer parents I have spoken with in Richmond and Surrey indicate their children are already using Moodle at the grade 6 / 7 level and have been for quite sometime. These parents are very happy with the ability to “watch over” their kids and as I mentioned earlier, through our Local Specialists Association, we have help right next door. If support is an issue, we have our bases covered.
Access
Access to Moodle through servers are 24/7. If student can log on to their Delta account, then they can certainly access Moodle as it is a Web based application. Perkins and Pfaffman indicate that “Moodle gives parents access to lesson plans, slide show presentations, assignments, and due dates.” Students are now completely accountable for their school work and gone are the farcical attempts that, “My dog ate it.” I think parents are at least smart enough to know whether or not they have a dog? Yes, Moodle is completely accessible “in one’s own home.”
Concluding Remarks
There is a growing International level of contributors to the Moodle platform indicating confidence in the system which bodes well for Moodle and Moodle users. I am very happy with the rich set of resources and activity creation tools, the cohesiveness of the design and implementation, the availability of 3rd party modules to extend the student experience and more specifically, ease of use for system administration, application developers, course designers, faculty, and students .
Ray, I am asking for a SEI grant of $18,000 to implement Moodle at our school. I will begin in my own Business Education 10 classes, then incorporate into other programs where teachers are interested. The entire Business department wants in, not just me. Grant money will cover several Moodle workshops I wish to attend over the next two years , in lieu of days, substitute teacher expenses, travel, accommodations, parking, ferry costs and lastly, a few minor computer upgrades. I have a detailed list of expenses that is available to you, the PAC committee and district personnel.
I thank you to your time to this initiative. I know it will help reduce expenditures in the firsy year and more as time progresses. September of 2009 is the projected start up day with implementation of Moodle in my lab room 2705. Below is a list of references for your viewing.
Thank you very much Ray, looking forward to speaking with you.
Regards, David De Pieri
Teacher, Delta Secondary School
References:
Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003) Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. New York: Wiley, John & sons, Inc.
Chichering, W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987) Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. AAHE Bulletin
Perkins, M. & Pfaffman, J. (2006) Using a course Management System to Improve Classroom Communication. The Science Teacher 73 no7 33-7 O http://www.nsta.org/highschool