How should Benoit Decide Which Platform to use?

The first step that Benoit needs to take when deciding whether to design his Business Writing course using moodle or Blackboard Learn is to evaluate these two options using a framework such as Bates and Poole’s SECTIONS framework. Designing an online course is quite an undertaking and he would want to be sure that the platform that he selects meets his needs as the course designer, possibly as the course instructor, as well as meeting the needs of the students enrolled in the course. Being a sessional instructor in the English department at the university should give Benoit some insight into what the potential students in the course may look like. Ease of use and the reliability of the e-learning delivery system must be considered as again, this is a critical factor for both the students and the creators/facilitators. The ‘C’ (cost) portion of the framework does not really need to be considered as the university has already made the decision to make Blackboard Learn its official LMS and moodle, being a free software e-learning platform, would not deter Benoit from selecting this platform over Blackboard Learn due to the cost factor. The ‘T’ and ‘I’ sections of the framework would require Benoit to take a very close look at the teaching and learning goals, the overall instructional approach that he would like to take with the course, as well as what level of interaction the technologies enable. After doing some additional reading about these two platforms, I concluded that they seem to offer many of the same affordances and features such as a personalized dashboard, collaborative tools and activities, calendar applications, and notifications and alerts for students, while providing teachers with the ability to embed external resources, incorporate multi-media elements, and create and grade assessments, just to name a few of the common features. When evaluating the novelty of the software, Benoit will need to look at the ‘track record’ of the two platforms before making his decision. He may be able to get some specific feedback in this regard from students and colleagues that have used these platforms in the past. The final ‘S’ (speed) in the framework will be completely dependent upon Benoit himself. Regardless of which of the two platforms he selects, this will be his first experience creating an online course and he will need to invest quite a bit of time creating and maintaining the course.

An Important Question?

One important question that I think Benoit needs to ask himself is how much time can he realistically dedicate to creating a well thought out, interactive and effective online course with sound pedagogy at its foundation while also fulfilling his current teaching duties? Being that this is an entirely new professional endeavour for Benoit, he will not only need to invest time in learning the software platform he selects, but also in revamping his face-to-face course to create an engaging and successful online learning experience. This is not as simple as copying and pasting his lecture slides and handouts into an e-learning environment. Benoit will need to redesign his lessons to suit this new delivery system and engage the students in a way that draws them into a community of learning. If Benoit bites off more than he can chew so to speak, and ends up rushing the course design he will not be able to produce an effective end product. The case study indicated that Benoit has a teaching load during the time frame in which he will be expected to be creating the online course, so balancing his time and not compromising either his face-to-face classes or the quality of the e-learning course that he creates, will be critical.

Blackboard or Moodle?

I would suggest that Benoit select Blackboard Learn instead of moodle to create his online Business Writing course for a number of reasons. Should he choose moodle as his platform, he would be essentially creating his e-learning environment from scratch. Having worked with WebCT Vista previously and knowing that Blackboard Learn is an enhanced version of this, Benoit would at least have some foundational knowledge of this software. Although moodle may offer Benoit more creative freedom, less paperwork and less red tape, it could potentially be the more problematic of the two platforms due to the fact that the university’s IT department supports Blackboard Learn and not moodle. There are support sites and a vast user community that could offer support if and when Benoit requires assistance with his site development if he chooses moodle, but this assistance may be more unreliable than the ‘slow’ help desk support that is available from the university for Blackboard Learn.

Time Frame:

As I have not done any e-learning course design myself, I was at quite a loss to come up with an estimated time frame as to how long this process would take for Benoit. When I began to do some investigating, I was shocked by some of the information that I discovered. According to Chapman Alliance the lowest range of e-learning material (that being material that is rapidly developed and quite simple in regard to content) the ratio of 22:1 is given. For an average or typical e-learning course that ratio rises to 43:1 (Chapman, 2010). This means that a course designer would need to spend 22 hours of time developing one hour of course instruction. If Benoit’s course consists of 35 hours of face-to-face class time, then using the lowest ratio provided by Chapman (22 hours x 35 hours) it would mean that Benoit would require 770 hours of time to create his course. If he can only devote 5 hours a week to the course development, that would mean that he would need 154 weeks to create his entire course. I am assuming that by choosing Blackboard Learn this time ratio would be considerably reduced as aspects such as the actual design of the site and much of the computer programming requirements would be eliminated from the equation due to the pre-established features inherent within the Blackboard Learn software. The writing course itself already exists and therefore Benoit would be spending most of his time entering the course content and altering the lessons to better fit an online learning audience. The fact that the course itself has already been created would also reduce the development hours to instructional hours ratio too. That being said, I would estimate that Benoit could have his course ready to ‘go live’ in 7-10 weeks, but the course would very likely still be a work in progress. Many of the sites that I visited when searching for information on this topic gave advice to course designers such as fully develop early lessons prior to the start of the course and revise and polish up the latter lessons as the term progresses. From what we are told in this case study, Benoit does not have this luxury and will need to complete his e-learning course by the beginning of the next term.

References:
Bates, A. W., & Poole, G. (2003). Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education:
Foundations for Success. (pp. 75 – 105) Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley.InterActivity- Establishing Presence Online

Websites used for background knowledge:
E-Learning, Moodle, Magento, Technical Writing and Training
http://williamriceinc.blogspot.ca/2009/02/developing-online-course-in-moodle-as.html

Moodledocs https://docs.moodle.org/27/en/Main_page

http://christytucker.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/time-estimates-for-e-learning-development/

Chapman Alliance (2010) http://www.chapmanalliance.com/howlong/