Overview
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- Assignment: Learning Environment Evaluation
- Group: Corporate, Private Enterprise Setting
- Group members: Sarah Ng, Quinn Pike, Nicole Kenny, Loveleen Reen, Jocelyn Chan
- PDF copy of submission: Assignment 1: Learning Environment Evaluation
Reflection
This assignment was very much a learning experience for me. I have some experience with technology implementations at different workplaces, and the way this assignment was structured is quite different from the approach I’m used to in evaluating technology.
For this post I will first summarize these differences, and then reflect on the benefits and drawbacks of the approach outlined in the assignment guidelines.
Differences
For context, focusing on the technology aspects only, in my past evaluations in real-life environments, we would start by gathering the requirements of each user group, typically in some form of a “user story” (Rehkopf, n.d.). We would then work with stakeholders to prioritize the requirements and tag each one as ‘must-have’ versus ‘nice-to-have’ so we can ensure alignment on expectations. Once the requirements are confirmed and we’ve identified potential platforms, we would send a RFI (request for information) to these vendors so they can confirm if or how exactly their platforms meet each of our needs. From there, we set up demos with the shortlisted vendors and try out the platforms in sandbox environments so we can identify the most fitting platform.
The primary differences for me were skipping past requirements-gathering and “[e]xplain[ing] the functionality … of the recommended LMS relevant to [the] context of [the] organization” (“Assignment 1: Guidelines,” 2022). I can understand skipping requirements-gathering for this assignment since that work is incredibly context-based, but validating the functionality of a specific LMS against the requirements is typically done by the vendor since they would be more informed on how their platform can be used to support our needs.
Benefits
I really appreciated the opportunity to work through the rationale considering “[my] own experiences and observations” and “peer-reviewed publications” (“Assignment 1: Guidelines,” 2022). Our group also decided to frame our assignment on Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS model, which helped ground the rubric in theory and sparked ideas on considerations. My favourite contribution to the assignment was this line, which took the context of the organization, translated into a criteria for the LMS, and then connected back to a benefit for the organization supported by theory: As DTI is growing rapidly, resourcing is limited as roles are continuously expanding. DTI is committed to ensuring sufficient resources for a successful implementation, but would ideally be looking for an LMS vendor that supports setup, change management, and troubleshooting to minimize “the need to reorgani[z]e and restructure … support services” internally (Bates, 2014). (Ng et al., 2022).
Drawbacks
I found the scoring of the rubric to be arbitrary, since the importance of each criteria is not considered as part of the assignment. For instance, our organization might believe that good interface design is less important than having multiple security features, but with this rubric the two would hold equal weight. Similarly, functionality may be connected, meaning the presence or lack of one functionality may increase or decrease the need for another. I think it is great to work through what might go into the scale, but I had trouble understanding the purpose of scoring.
References
“Assignment 1: Guidelines.” (2022). In ETEC 524 64C 2022W1 Learning Technologies: Selection, Design, and Application. The University of British Columbia.
Bates, T. (2014). Choosing and using media in education: The SECTIONS model. In Teaching in digital age. https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/9-pedagogical-differences-between-media/
Ng, S., Pike, Q., Kenny, N., Reen, L., & Chan, J. (2022). Learning Environment Evaluation: Corporate, Private Enterprise Setting [Unpublished paper]. Faculty of Education, The University of British Columbia.
Rehkopf, M. (n.d.). User stories with examples and a template. Atlassian. https://www.atlassian.com/agile/project-management/user-stories