Category Archives: CS1: Aspen Group

Efficiency for Benoit

For Benoit, one of the key questions that will need to be considered is centered around the issue of efficiency of teaching, as discussed by Coates (2005). In particular, how much time does Benoit feel he can afford to apply to the development of his online course, and how much time does he envision his students spending on learning within his chosen LMS? With his prior familiarity and experience in WebCT Vista, Benoit would likely spend less time on developing his online course through Blackboard Learn, and therefore require less support. He would be sacrificing some of affordances offered by Moodle in terms of controlling the flexibility and customizability of the learning environment, but his proficiency with Web CT Vista might lead to the development of a better constructed LMS initially in Blackboard Learn.

Benoit should weigh the benefits of Blackboard Learn and Moodle by speaking with colleagues who have had some experience, both positive and negative, with both LMS before determining how these may or may not match the learning goals that he’s established for the students in his business writing course. In terms of efficiency, will the students be as familiar with working in Moodle as they would be working in Blackboard Learn, and how might this impact the quality of time they are able to devote to the writing course? According to Bates (2014), “it is not only students though who may need prior preparation. Technology can be too seductive. You can start using it without fully understanding its structure or how it works.” In this case, is Benoit’s goal for himself, and his students, more concerned with the learning of the LMS itself, or engaging with the course content?

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how much time Benoit would need to devote to developing his business writing course. With at least some of the content already in place from the lecture notes and readings from his face-to-face course, Benoit seems to have a solid starting point, as well as having prior experience with WebCT Vista. If he’s going with his estimate of 5 hours per week, it would seem that Benoit will require 2-3 weeks to experiment with his chosen LMS and learn about the tools and possibilities before spending another 3-4 weeks developing the course itself in time to launch for the upcoming semester. This might be a conservative estimate if Benoit choses to work within Blackboard Learn, and he may require additional time if he choses to develop with Moodle, depending on how he choses to develop his writing course to best meet the learning goals for his students.

 

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a Digital Age. http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/(Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)

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

 

Neither, Either or Both

“LMS are not pedagogically neutral technologies, but rather, through their very design, they influence and guide teaching. As the systems become more incorporated into everyday academic practices, they will work to shape and even define teachers’ imaginations…”

— Coates, 2005, p. 27

I think one question Benoît needs to ask himself before deciding to go with Moodle or Blackboard Learn is how much influence on the  actual content of his course by the LMS is he willing to accept? As mentioned in the A Critical Examination of the Fffects of Learning Management Systems on University Teaching and Learning article by Coates, technology is not neutral and will inevitably have some influence on teaching and learning. In the 2005 article by Coates, he does mention that there has not been much research in that area. LMS’s provide structure to the learning content, and they lends themselves to institute wide standardization. Even if Benoît uses Moodle, which is less standardized in his case, this can both be a good thing or bad, depending on what is valued by the institute, his faculty instructors and himself.

If I was in Benoît’s position, I would consider the past, in order to make some decisions about how to move forward. His institute had previously used WebCT, and many of his colleague didn’t not feel the move to Blackboard Learn provided the functionality that WebCT did. It seems that using the LMS to deliver the actual content was not the issue, but rather the dependency on the LMS functionality.

I personally think Benoît should design his course for online, and not design it for a particular LMS. I think Benoit’s approach on storing the content on the FTP server is a good start and good way to centrally store the actual course content, regardless of his LMS selection.  As far as the LMS functionality, he should design the course to rely on LMS functionality as little as possible, so that he is able to “control” the content, and be able to adapt to LMS upgrades or migrations more easily in the future. For example, he could limit LMS use to assignment submissions only, and use tools like “the social web [which] has been offering myriad tools that support everyday communication, productivity and collaboration” (Porto, 2015) . Often those tools are more intuitive to use, are of better quality and functionality when compared to those previously found exclusively inside the LMS (Porto, 2015).

Use this approach will greatly reduce development time. Benoît will not need to learn the intricacies of either LMS. He would not have to write content to include for the discussions or testing areas in the LMS. This will save time in the future as far as edits to content, as the content is centralized on the FTP server, and not repeated or broken up into the different LMS areas.

A far as giving a total completion time, is is hard to predict given how little we know about Benoît’s current training materials. He already have his face-to-face materials prepared, but we don’t know what they are (PowerPoints, readings, lectures, etc) and nor do we know how he is grading the students. Whether he would like to include his lectures in video or animated graphics is not mentioned.  We don’t know if the text is used, and if that text book has a publisher’s companion site with interactive features already existing for student use. In fact, we know nothing about the students demographics, preferences, etc.  So as far as the design of the course content, and development, it is hard to accurately gauge.

 

 

Works Cited

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

Porto, S. (2015). The uncertain future of Learning Management Systems. The Evolllution: Illuminating the Lifelong Learning Movement. Retrieved from http://www.evolllution.com/opinions/uncertain-future-learning-management-systems/

Thoughts for Benoit

I suppose it is slightly skirting the scenario but I think Benoit should first ask himself if his Business Writing course is appropriate to be run online. By that I mean, will the learners reap the same benefits (or more) from the online version of his course that they do from the face to face version? Coates, James & Baldwin (2005) mentioned in their article that a lot of educational institutions have been drawn in by the allure of Learning Management Systems as they allow for more efficient regulated teaching. However, it has yet to be fully proven if online mediums positively or negatively affect student learning (Coates, James & Baldwin, 2005). Just because Benoit can put his course online does not mean he should put it online. Benoit must balance the aspirations of the university to reach a larger audience with student expectations and course goals/ desired outcomes.

I do not have experience developing online courses so I am not positive how much time Benoit will need to put his course online. With that said, I think he would have to work through the following steps:

  • Determine if Business Writing should be offered online
  • Research possible platforms (Moodle and Blackboard Learn)
  • Experiment with online technologies
  • Alter/develop content for an online medium
  • Have a trial run of the course
  • Adjust the course based on the trial run
  • Go live with the course

References

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

Suggestions for Benoît

Benoît surely has a difficult task ahead of him. He needs to make a decision, that not only needs to suit him and his abilities, but must also be able to fit his teaching style. Benoît’s background and motivation is going to be very important in making this decision. A big part of the choice is going to be how comfortable he is in using an LMS system to achieve his goals.

His experience is limited, he used WebCT to disseminate notes, which is a very simplistic use or the platform. He has also coded a website but again this is not very challenging and doesn’t necessarily apply to LMS.

Having support will be very important for him, however it doesn’t necessarily need to come from the help desk, which is slow anyway. Lots of people in his faculty are using Moodle over WebCT despite its lack of support. It would be key for Benoît to ask his colleagues about their choice, reasoning, and decision. Particularly he should find colleagues from similar backgrounds with little experience and really discuss how they are adapting and if they might be willing to help him should the need arise.

He needs to make this decision carefully it should be about understanding enough about the system to be able to use it to achieve what he wants in teaching so that the system itself doesn’t dictate the way he teaches. After talking with colleagues it would be helpful for him to try each system and get a feel for them before making his final decision.
Q: After discussing and sampling both systems, which one do you feel more comfortable with/ excited by?

This question is important because regardless of his decision, he is going to have to spend a significant amount of time learning to use it, creating a course on it and he will need to have a passion for what he is doing to motivate himself to finish.

Benoît has said that he could spend an five hours a week working on the course to go live the next semester. I really don’t feel able to say if this is enough without knowing more details. How long is left until the next semester? Is he simply going to be transferring existing materials? Or developing new parts to the course? How was his course organized before? Test based courses would be easier to transfer. How quickly does he adapt to using new technology? Is he good at working productively or does he become distracted? I think he needs to start transferring the course, being sure to ask these question, and see how long it takes him to accomplish the first couple of units, then a progress check could be used to see if he is on track for finishing in the set time.

My hat’s off to you, Ben!

In my mind, the question Benoit must ask himself is: How will I redesign this course?

He has taken on a great challenge by offering to put his course online. However, as we all know, it will not be as simple as posting his lecture notes and assigned readings. As Coates, James and Baldwin (2005) point out, using an LMS “is associated with the promise of enriched student learning” (p.24). Students will begin the course with certain expectations in terms of technology, and their expectations “need to be matched or exceeded” (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005, p. 24).

Benoit appears to have some technological expertise which will serve him well but he must now prepare himself for a more diverse group of learners because having his course online will increase access, bringing in a wider student population. In addition, the use of an LMS comes with some expectation of students progressing at their own pace. So, his course materials have to be organized, uploaded, and tested long before what would normally be the day of the lecture, in a face-to-face delivery format.

My guestimate is that he would need to devote 5-8 weeks to this course conversion, depending on the complexity of his learning resources. (I am basing this number on my own limit experience with content conversion, so I will readily concede my timeframe to someone who better knows what they are talking about. LOL!)

I would think that conceptualizing the redesign would take a full week. Only once that is done, could he begin to consider which platform to use. As a designer, I wouldn’t want the platform to dictate my design from the start. I would like to imagine how I would like the course to operate and then take a look at the two platforms to see what tools each has available to make my design come to life. I would risk poor IST support and/or give the unsupported platform a try if it meant keeping closer to my initial design concept.

Reference:

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.

Quite the Benoit’s Choice

I think Benoit needs to take a step back and outline how he wants his course to look online compared to an in person course.  Assuming his face to face course is successful he then needs to choose the best way to recreate the experience for the online environment.

The big question is what functionality does he need in order to present his materials, and in order to deliver his course?   It is a difficult question for anyone, but it sounds like he has no experience in delivering a class online, so I’m not sure he even knows what functionality he would need.

Looking at the Two Solutions

From the description Blackboard Learn doesn’t sound like a great option for a few different reasons.  A big one is limited functionality.  If Benoit isn’t quite sure how he wants his final product to be this could be helpful as it would limit the choices that he has to make to deliver the experience.  The issue however, is the help desk.  Benoit already has the content, he’s just changing the way it’s delivered.  If he gets stuck and needs assistance from the help desk he may be waiting a while before he gets any help.  There is also an assumption that the issue will be resolved on the first try.

Moodle being an open source product has a lot of flexibility and add-ons that can really add to the course experiences.  From the description it sounds like this tool is sanctioned by the university and Benoit doesn’t need to administer the LMS, just the course.  This opens up a great deal of functionality in terms of the activities and enhancements that can be made to engage students, such as digital badging.  It is also important to note that although there is no official help desk, there is a community of users that he is able to tap into for assistance. This exists both in his faculty and in a thriving online Moodle community.

Course Development

Development time is a little tougher as without knowing the course material and the functionality he needs, it is impossible to know how far down the development rabbit hole he is planning to go.  If he keeps things simple it would benefit him as he already has the course material developed, but for the benefit of the students he may want to augment his existing content.  A minimum effort on his part, he could have his course up and running within just a couple of weeks, again he already has the content. It would only benefit him, and his students in the long run to them rework the course week by week to add in interacting and engaging content.

Looking at how much time he has budgeted to create this course, I would be nervous. Yes, he already has content and some of the instructional design which is roughly 35% of the work completed.   There is a good chart from the Association of Talent Development that outlines how long it takes to create training.  I think Benoit is going to have to rethink his time otherwise his students are going to be very disappointed in him next semester.

 

Reference:

Kapp, K. M., & Defelice, R. A. (2009, August 31). Time to Develop One Hour of Training. Retrieved January 21, 2016, from https://www.td.org/Publications/Newsletters/Learning-Circuits/Learning-Circuits-Archives/2009/08/Time-to-Develop-One-Hour-of-Training

Inside the mind of Benoit….

The question that I feel that Benoit should be asking himself is the following:
Based on my own experience with web design, content development and technical skills with learning technologies what level of IT support do I need?

Importance: This question will allow him to determine whether his 5 hours per week that he can commit to making the online course will be able to used most effectively. If he does not need to rely on much IT support than each hour he works on the course should be an efficient use of his time but if he requires more IT support and historically the Help Desk is difficult to reach and he is always having to wait for email responses than his time is being wasted.

In terms of how much development time Benoit would need to develop the Business Writing online version I am not particularly sure how to allocate time for each tasks. I can start by identify tasks that need to be completed and defer to my group members for their insights. Benoit will need to:
– transfer the content from the old shell of WebCT Vista
– review the learning objectives of course
– decide the interactions that are most appropriate to develop the skills outline in learning objectives
– create the activities, discussion spaces and assessment tools
– review site for ease of use

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