Proposal
Greg Campbell
Business Education Teacher SD41
Community and Continuing Education
3920 Delbrook Ave,
North Van, BC, V7N 3Z8
September 30, 2012
Keith Chong
District Principal SD41
Community and Continuing Education
5325 Kincaid Street
Burnaby, BC V5G 1W2
Re: Project proposal for the trial development of a
distributed online Planning 10 course to be delivered
via the Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle
Dear Keith,
Having worked in Community and Continuing education since 2007 I have noticed that the learning needs of many of the students are changing. More and more students are becoming technologically savvy and “evidence is mounting to support technology advocates’ claims that 21st-century information and communication tools as well as more traditional computer-assisted instructional applications can positively influence student learning” (Cradler, McNabb, Freeman and Burchett , 2002).
As you are aware a large number of the adult learners are enrolled in the high school completion program and are taking courses in the evening as they have family commitments and are working part or full time. I have noticed over the past 2 years that enrolment in many courses is starting to decrease as more adults need to commit to full time work in order to get by due to the current economic state.
As outlined on Burnaby’s Community and Continuing Education website “since 1928 the District has offered Community & Continuing Education programs that evolve to meet the learning needs and interests of Burnaby’s residents” (Burnaby Community and Continuing Education, 2012). In order to continue to meet the evolving needs of Burnaby’s learners I am proposing the development of a trial Planning 10 online distributed learning course delivered through the LMS Moodle which would combine engaging teaching practices and provide students the flexibility to learn at their own pace (LearnNowBC, 2012)
What is an LMS & the Evaluation Process
A LMS “ enable’s teachers to easily post assignments, lesson plans, announcements and course documents [and] they allow students to participate in online discussions and chats and turn in assignments online” (Perkins & Pfaffman, 2006). Therefore, in order to offer a distributed online Planning 10 course a LMS is required. With this in mind I reviewed three well known LMS platforms that are in use by various K-12 and higher education institutes by visiting their respective websites and by using (Edutools 2012) to do product comparisons.
- Blackboard – http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Learn/Overview.aspx
- Desire2Learn – http://www.desire2learn.com/
- Moodle – http://moodle.org/
After completing my initial review I learnt that Moodle is “currently, the most popular open source course management system” (Zafer and Aslihan, 2011. P.65) and has many of the same features built into its platform as Blackboard and Desire2Learn. However, unlike Blackboard and Desire2Learn who charge a licensing fee based on full time equivalent (FTE) students, Moodle is a free to download open source software program that “comes with installers for MAC OS X and Windows that include…the web server (Apache) and database (MySQL) applications” (Perkins & Pfaffman, 2006). I decided to explore Moodle’s demonstration site (Moodle, 2012) and found that it appeared to be very user friendly, easy to navigate and contained all the communication features that would be necessary to host an engaging online course.
I am aware that educational budgets for spending on new projects are extremely tight and so learning that Moodle is free was very appealing and made me want to review the platform in greater detail before recommending it to you. I decided to use Bates and Pooles (2003) Section Model to help me determine if Moodle would be a good fit for Burnaby’s Community and Continuing Education Program.
| S -Students: | The adult students enrolling in planning 10 will be looking to gain employment skills. Using Moodle 21st century communication tools (chat, email, whiteboard etc, video) students will gain valuable experience using industry standard technologies. |
| E – Ease of use and reliability | Once installed on the districts web server Moodle will be available 365 days a year 24/7. Moodle is a very stable program mostly free of glitches or errors and was “specifically designed with educators in mind, allowing for easy setup and maintenance” (Driscoll). As long as the district server in functioning the Planning 10 course will be available to the enrolling students.Assignments can be uploaded and time stamped and students can easily navigate the site. |
| C – Cost: | Moodle is open source and free to download. We would require support from a network specialist in order to initially set up Moodle on the districts server and troubleshoot any firewall issues. |
| T – Teaching and Learning | Moodle comes with many standard modules such as a course calendar, assignment area, glossary, forum, chat, workshop, wiki, quiz, survey, resource, and lesson areas and 3rd party modules can be downloaded (Driscoll).Moodle’s platform allows teachers to create assignments and course content that applies to the diverse learning styles and needs of the Community and Continuing Education students. |
| I – Interactivity: | Moodle is extremely interactive and allows for the use of forms, chat, email , discussion threads , video, flash, PPT , MP3/4 files, peer assessment of documents and much more. |
| O – Organizational issues : | Moodle is easy to install, however, it will require a network technician at the district level to help initially deal with firewall issues and setting up the web server . |
| N – Novelty: | Moodle has been successfully used by many educational institutions and as new technologies and modules are developed Moodle’s platforms allows for their incorporation. |
| S – Speed : | Moodle allows students to interact, communicate and learn in a timely fashion using numerous tools. |
Estimated Cost and Recommendation
As mentioned above Moodle is free to download and open source. As I am eager to pilot and teach this course I am offering to develop the course material and populate the site free of charge. Additional costs would be associated with the need for technical support from Community and Continuing Educations network specialist in order to initially set up Moodle on the districts server, maintain and host it and trouble shoot any firewall issues. In order to better understand what this cost would look like I called Lambda Solutions of Vancouver @ 604 687-2444 (http://www.lambdasolutions.net/) who is a respected Moodle Partner that provides site development, branding, hosting, and technical support. I was told that their smallest package costs $6000 per year and includes site branding, development, support, hosting and can handle up to 1000 students.
The Planning 10 course I am proposing would have a maximum of 30 students enrolled, however, in order to be conservative I have used $6000 as the cost to initially setup, host and maintain the course for the first year. To better understand this cost I would like to sit down with Community and Continuing Educations technical team to discuss this.
In closing, with your support and cooperation of Burnaby’s Community and Continuing Education network specialist I believe that we could have our first distributed online course ready for student enrollment for September 2013. If successful the opportunity exists to develop additional online and distributed learning courses that would meet the needs of Burnaby’s adult learners.
Regards,
Greg Campbell, Business Education Teacher
Community and Continuing Education SD 41
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
Burnaby Community and Continuing Education. (2012) About. Retrieved from:
http://www.burnabycce.ca/about_us.php
Cradler, J.,McNab, M., Freeman, M., & Burchett, R. (2002). How does technology influence student learning? Learning & Leading with Technology (29), 46-56. Retrieved June 16, 2012 from: http://dixiesd.marin.k12.ca.us/dixieschool/Dixie%20Tech%20Plan/ResearchCradler.pdf
EduTools, (2012) Course Management System Comparisons – Reborn. Retrieved September 20, 2012 from: http://www.edutools.com/static.jsp?pj=4&page=HOME
LearNowBC, (2012) What is Distributed Learning. Retrieved from: http://www.learnnowbc.ca/information/what_is_dl/default.aspx
Moodle, 2012. Moodle Demonstration site. Retrieved from http://demo.moodle.net/
Perkins, M. & Pfaffman, J. (2006). Using a Course Management System to Improve Classroom Communication. Science Teacher, 73(7), 33-37
Retrieved September 24, 2012 from:
http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=7a92eab6-c134-461d-9d00-5b273d467a77%40sessionmgr113&vid=2&hid=105
Review of Moodle Course Management System. Retrieved from:
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/Web_2_0_Reviews/Moodle_Driscoll/index.html
Zafer, U. & Aslihan, U. (2011). Pre-service Teachers’ First Time Experiences With A New Course Management System. International Journal of Management and Information Systems (15. 2) 65-70.
Retrieved September 20, 2012 from: http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/864899625