The following proposal has been developed for a mock situation and non-existent company called Mocke Health Corporation.

Executive Summary

Mocke Health Corporation is seeking an online training solution to support over 3000 employees in 26 locations worldwide. To meet Mocke’s needs for a stable and secure online learning management system (LMS) that can be globally accessed, the proposed LMS for use is WebCT Vista. From an operational standpoint, WebCT Vista provides adequate technical support and secure server hosting that a large corporation like Mocke requires. Consequently, from an educational perspective, WebCT Vista offers a system that includes features such as asynchronous and synchronous communication (i.e., discussion forums, live chat, email to other users or trainers), assessments, feedback, content placement, and file uploads/downloads.

Background

For over 30 years, Mocke Health Corporation specializes in providing products and services to healthcare professionals worldwide. As Mocke Health continues to expand its offerings, the company is in need of an online learning system that can accommodate over 3000 employees who work in departments relating to corporate development, health services, research and development, and sales.  The learning management system must also be available to a wide variety of clients including healthcare professionals and their colleagues.

LMS Selection: Why WebCT Vista?

According to Bates and Poole (2000), the SECTIONS framework helps facilitate the organizational decision for choosing suitable learning technology. The following uses the SECTIONS framework to consider the implementation of WebCT Vista:

•    Students and Organizational Issues: The individuals using Vista are mainly employees located in various parts of the world including the Americas, Asia, Europe and Australia. Therefore, it is important that the users have an LMS that is conveniently accessible from various locations, even if they are employees on a business trip who would like to login to their online course at any time of day during the week or have materials readily available. Vista offers secure access that is available any day of the week at any time. Additionally, students are not expected to have advanced technical skills to use the LMS and can work on the courses at their own pace.
•    Ease of use and Speed: As mentioned in the previous section, even novice students can use Vista for their courses. They are not expected to be experts in using the technology. The same holds true for trainers and course developers. Vista supports trainers, instructors and students with orientation sessions to help them get acquainted with the system. As well, the interface design is relatively easy to navigate and content, if organized in a meaningful manner, can prove useful for the users. Vista’s most important feature in terms of Mocke’s needs is its reliability. As a commercially available LMS used by other institutions and organizations, Vista servers are reliable with few technical-related issues (Bates & Poole, ). While version upgrades may affect costs and time, Mocke has a strong IT department that can provide adequate technical and professional support to its employees.
•    Costs: The approximate cost to Mocke for the use of Vista would include licensing, training plus hosting in the first year. Costs for this would initially run at around $20,000. While some training is available for free, the costs of additional significant training have been included in the start-up costs. These costs are expected to be slightly lower in subsequent years since training will not likely be necessary and can be performed by existing Mocke staff in the future. Future costs would be more focused on licensing and hosting. The advantage to hosting with Blackboard, the company that runs WebCT Vista, is cost-effectiveness. Having Blackboard as a server host, at least in the first year, would remove responsibility that the IT department has towards network outages and data security (Blackboard, 2009). The estimated cost for placing and delivering materials online would be around $50,000 in a two-year time period. Because most materials are already electronically distributed, this would save time and costs. The return on investment can be measured by 1) the effectiveness of the courses in the first year and 2) whether the courses have had an impact on employee performance (Accenture, 2008).
•    Teaching and Learning: Vista accommodates a variety of learning styles and can support different types of media. Learners can be assessed in discussion forums and through quizzes and assignments. Each trainer or course developer can customize the course as appropriate for the subject matter. In conjunction with the National Educational Technology Standards set by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, 2008), teachers should “engage in professional growth and leadership” by helping improve student learning as well as developing leadership and technology skills (p. 1). Using Vista as an LMS can help teachers and instructors do this.
•    Interaction and Interactivity: The Vista LMS maximizes the opportunities for interaction and interactivity since it allows learners to globally access the courses and have discussions with one another. Synchronous communication platforms such as live chat can prove advantageous.
•    Novelty: Vista has been compared with other LMS platforms and proves to be the best solution for Mocke. Upon consultation with other employees and directors of Mocke, Vista is a solution that will provide significant return on investment in the long-run.

References

Accenture. (2006). Return on learning, part 3: Measuring the return on investment in training. Retrieved June 7, 2009 from http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/Outlook/By_Subject/Human_Resource_Mgmt/ReturnLearningPart3.htm

Bates, A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A framework for selecting and using technology. In Effective teaching with technology in higher education: Foundations for success. New York: Wiley, John & Sons. Retrieved June 6, 2009 from UBC WebCT Vista: ETEC 565A.

Blackboard. (2009). Blackboard managed hosting. Retrieved June 7, 2009 from http://www.blackboard.com

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National educational technology standards and performance indicators for teachers. Retrieved June 7, 2009 from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

I found myself conflicted as to which LMS to choose for the proposal. Currently, I am in the middle of a job shift, I did not have to think about the institutional context until recently. Having worked as a graphic designer in a corporate environment that was not heavily involved in creating instructional modules aside from those authored in PowerPoint, a) it was not my decision to make and b) the company was not looking for an alternative at the time. On Monday, I start a new job at UBC as a Grad Assistant and, while UBC has the Vista platform available, this particular department is looking for open source alternatives. So why am I not choosing Moodle?

About a year before the acquisition of WebCT by Blackboard in 2005 (Elearnity, 2008), I used WebCT to assist with some course development. Since starting the MET program, I quickly noticed the difference in the “look and feel” of the Vista version. In fact, I am not overly impressed by the user interface design and yet, I am choosing it as my primary learning management system (LMS) because I think it would be important for me to understand the pros and cons of using WebCT from a development and design standpoint. While I would have rather chosen Moodle as my LMS platform, I chose WebCT Vista instead because this may be one of the only opportunities I have to experiment with it. Honestly, it’s more of a “nice to have” experience. Another reason is that I have Moodle installed on my web server from a team project I worked on last term and there will be many more opportunities after this course for me to play around with it – benefits of open source. I believe most, if not all, of my group mates have chosen Moodle as their LMS and I would be more than happy to assist them as best I can. I think it will be very interesting to make the comparisons between WebCT and Moodle as I work on my project. From a user interaction perspective, I think it would also be interesting would be to develop the same course in Moodle and see which one would be easier to navigate around and use.

Yesterday, I attempted the toolkit tutorial for Vista and found it relatively straightforward and easy to follow. There were a few steps during the creation of the Assessments/Quiz that left me confused for about a minute or so because what I was instructed to look for did not exist. I remember when I first launched Moodle on my website, I must have driven my teammates crazy (my sincerest apologies to them!) because I was basically “winging it” with setting up accounts, administration and such. It was not until about a week or two later that I discovered the Moodle tutorial to clear the confusion. Not having set up the build for Vista, I am not sure how difficult it is. I was tempted to skip the toolkit tutorial to see if I could figure things out on my own as a course developer so I could make the comparison for ease of use with Moodle but I think the fear of messing things up and not knowing how to “reset to default” upon doing something incorrectly took precedence.

Reference
Elearnity Limited. (2008). “Blackboard acquires WebCT”. Retrieved May 31, 2008 from http://www.elearnity.com/EKCLoad.htm?load=ByKey/DWIN6H6CTB.

Background

I am Marjorie and I am currently a graphic designer. I hold a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from UBC and a Bachelor of Science in Interactive Arts from Simon Fraser University. Ever since I was a child, I have always been interested in stretching my imagination and finding any opportunity to be creative. Graphic and web design started out as a hobby when, during the late 90s, I began exploring the Internet and playing with applications such as Fireworks, Dreamweaver and Flash. In 2001, I finally decided to obtain formal education and training in interactive media arts and for five years now, I have been practicing graphic design professionally. During my studies, I worked part-time for two years at the Department of French at Simon Fraser University, where I had opportunities to assist with the redesign of their website and assist with some course development. Concurrently, in my final year of undergraduate studies, I explored topics in educational technology (i.e., ePortfolios and re-purposing games for use in education) as a Research Associate under the supervision of Dr. Griff Richards. Since then, I have always been intrigued by educational technology and instructional design. In a creative field where a career in design is competitive, I hope to set myself apart from the norm.

Objectives for ETEC 565A

In my research proposal and literature review for ETEC 500, I had the opportunity to explore pedagogical patterns in e-learning. One of the articles I found discussed the significance of experience (novice vs. expert) for instructional design. As a novice professional, I would like to learn more about the frameworks and models such as the ADDIE model, LAMS, SCORM, etc. that are used in conjunction with learning technologies. While learning more about the standards and models, I must also continue to implement interaction design principles with learning theories and pedagogical principles. In terms of educational technology, I am more familiar and confident with using technology than I am with applying learning theories and using pedagogical concepts. Thus far, while I have met instructional designers and curriculum developers in the program I have yet to discover another graphic designer by profession. In relation to the literature I had previously mentioned, there was one that posited the need for designers to understand pedagogical concepts in order to be able to communicate and address course development needs (Frizell & Hubscher, 2002; Goodyear, 2006).

As I journey through ETEC 565, I want to expand on my visual and instructional communication skills using Moodle, WebCT, and all the other technological goodies the web has to offer. More importantly, I want to focus on the synthesis of education and design to create unique and engaging learning experiences. This includes important principles covered by Chickering and Gameson’s framework of good practice as well as the SECTIONS model developed by Bates and Poole outlining key criteria about the selection and use of technologies (ETEC 565A, Module 1: Unit 2, 2009).

References

Frizell, S. S. & Hübscher, R. (2002). Aligning theory and web-based instructional design practice with design patterns. Retrieved April 24, 2009 from http://www.auburn.edu/~frizess/frizell-elearn.pdf

Goodyear, P. (2004). Patterns, pattern languages and educational design. In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds). Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 339-347). Perth, 5-8 December. Retrieved April 29, 2009 from http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/goodyear.html

Step 1
As a non-educator, I have not really had any formal teaching experience so this post will end up being more of a summary of how I apply five standards in NETS. Being a graphic designer, I believe my job requires the ability and the knowledge of informal teaching and learning. I have to know how to communicate information to different audiences whether it is abstract or straightforward. As well, I have to understand the impact of using different types of media to deliver a message such as how communicating on the web or using PowerPoint differs from communicating on print.

In actual workplace situations where colleagues need assistance, I take notice of how people learn and adjust to their learning needs. Instead of giving instructions, I work with the person so that they can figure (creatively, in some instances) out for themselves what to do, so they can ask their own questions and potentially reach their own solutions with the least amount of effort. Other instances of being able to understand and address different learning styles occurs when I am creating materials such as brochures or product labels where I must focus on the end-user. In a field where users and learners are mainly consumers, assessment usually comes in the form of feedback.

In relation to using technology to engage in professional growth and leadership and promote digital citizenship and responsibility, I believe that it is important to understand the functions, advantages and disadvantages of technology before applying it to a learning situation.

Step 2

While all the points in NETS are important, I would say that for this course, it is important for me to learn more about how to design, develop and evaluate authentic learning experience and assessments (#2) as well as engaging in professional growth and leadership (#5). Although it will be nice to experiment with the learning technologies, I think the assignments in this course will help me understand more about the teaching and learning processes involved with using technology. This would help me become more of a Digital Age Teaching Professional rather than just a Digital Age Professional.

*Originally posted in the ETEC 565A 66B Discussion Boards: May 12, 2009, 3:11PM.