Photo credit: Entering the Yukon Territory of Canada by R. Martin (WikimediaCommons)
Our group (Group 3: YESNet: J. Chrona, M. Gallant, S. Turner, T. Walsh) created a rubric which would be used to select a learning management system (LMS) for the Yukon Ministry of Education which hopes to create blended-learning secondary courses that would serve the needs of First Nations’ communities.
We chose to use Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS framework as the basis for our rubric. I was familiar with Bates’ work having read Bates and Sangra (2011) “Managing Technology in Higher Education” for a summer course. Bates’ expertise really is on choosing technology for post-secondary institutions; however, his framework is broad enough to encompass the issues we thought were important, and it is flexible enough to be applied to any major investment in educational technology, regardless of the institution or educational level at which it is employed.
It was helpful to complete this project as a group because we could benefit from each other’s experience. We each drafted a couple of sections on our own, but then came together to review and fine-tune our rubric. Working it out together took longer than we expected, but still less time than it would have, had we reviewed our own projects individually.
We were lucky to have someone knowledgeable in First Nations culture who could ensure that we did not miss any important elements of Aboriginal educational values. However, every member of our team was committed to ensuring that we were developing a rubric that would be inclusive of diverse student needs and strengths. In other words, we all followed Chickering and Ehrmann’s (1996) description of the seventh principle of good practice in education, which is: respecting diverse talents and ways of learning.
Like Nel, Dreyer, and Carstens (2010) encourage, we focused on their ‘primary criteria’ (enhancing learner-centered educational principles) when deciding on our standards for our LMS. We hoped that the medium chosen would enable instructors to create an excellent learning experience for their students. Although, the Nel, Dreyer and Carstens (2010) study focused on the teaching of language, they point out that the ability of technology to provide “additional possibilities to receive input and produce output…can establish a rich context” for learning to occur (p. 242). Consequently, we wanted our LMS to be supportive of multi-media content both instructor- and student-generated.
It was also crucial that the LMS had networking capability because connection to community is an essential component of education for First Nations’ people (Chrona, 2015). This is, of course, a value that is not exclusive to Aboriginal cultures. Indeed, Porto (2013), describes the importance of social media in education for supporting communication and collaboration. When online instructors work to help their students form learning communities, they often turn to social media such as blogs, wikis and other networking sites (Porto, 2013).
The greatest obstacle that we faced was one of access. As Coates, James, and Baldwin (2005) point out, increasing access to education is a significant reason why educational institutions consider adopting an LMS. Presumably, providing access to quality education is a key reason why the Yukon Ministry of Education was interested in piloting its courses on an LMS for use on the Na Cho Nyak Dun First Nation. However, the nation’s citizens rely primarily on 3G technology, having otherwise only limited bandwidth and reliability when it comes to internet access. So, relying on an LMS may be a double-edged sword. Technology could truly improve access to quality education for First Nations’ people but for those living in remote areas technological disruptions may also hamper their success.
References:
Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. (Chapter 8). Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/
Bates, A. W., & Sangra, A. (2011). Managing Technology in Higher Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S. C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm
Chrona, J. (2015). First people’s principles of learning. Retrieved from https://firstpeoplesprinciplesoflearning.wordpress.com/
Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of Learning Management Systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11(1), 19-36. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11233-004-3567-9
Nel, C., Dreyer, C., & Carstens, W. A. M. (2010). Educational technologies: A classification and evaluation. Tydskrif vir letterkunde, 35(4), 238-258. Retrieved from http://www.ajol.info/index.php/tvl/article/download/53794/42346
Porto, S. (2013). The uncertain future of learning management systems. The Evolllution: Illuminating the Lifelong Learning Movement. Retrieved from http://evolllution.com/opinions/uncertain-future-learning-management-systems/