In the general course area (not defined as a ‘Topic’) of my Moodle course, I included a number of opportunities for the students to participate in discussions with the instructor and also with their fellow classmates via asynchronous features within the Moodle platform. I included two general discussion forum areas titled ‘Useful Websites and Interesting Online Resources’ and ‘Course Questions and Technical Support.’ I chose to include these two discussion areas in order to serve as a means for students to quickly communicate any course queries in a learning area that was accessible by both the teacher and the students. This will enable students to read and respond to all of the questions that may arise as the course proceeds and may also reduce the number of repeated questions asked since the students will all be able access the posted inquiries at any time. As the Trinh case study under discussion this week and the Anderson (2008) chapter reinforced in my thinking, having open and transparent discussion areas such as these is critical for the establishment of a positive learning community from an early stage in the course. It can also serve to increase student involvement, accountability and consequently help the students to develop an increased feeling of ownership over their own learning. If students are able to provide support to their classmates, it will lighten the load placed upon the teacher and allow the teacher to take a step back and act more as a facilitator as the discourse unfolds.

In the introductory module that I created, I also included two discussion forums for the students to participate in. The first discussion area is titled ‘Introduction Activity’ and this is an area in which the students will be expected to introduce themselves, share a little bit of their background knowledge and areas of interest related to the unit of study. The students are expected to read and respond to the posts of their classmates. My hope in adding the additional KWL style introductory activity into the discussion area was to enable students to make connections with their classmates early on. The students may also make an effort to initiate relationships based on common areas of interest that could be used later on in the course for collaborative project work. The second discussion forum is titled ‘Human Body Basics’ and the rationale for the inclusion of this forum is twofold. As stated above, this discussion area can serve to help create the close-knit community of learners that I am hoping for, but it also serves a purpose for me as the teacher too. This is essentially the students’ first ‘assignment’ of sorts, as they are responding to a specific content related question to conclude the first module. The student discourse that comes out of this particular discussion area will tell me if the students have a good understanding of the big ideas shared thus far and I can then gage if there is any need to facilitate additional supportive activities on the topic prior to moving on to the first real content module; the digestive system. I am not sure as to whether or not this counts as communication as it is one sided in nature, but I have also included a questionnaire in the introductory module to gather information about the students’ comfort level with the learning platform. Information gathered through this activity will shape my support as we continue on in the course. If the majority of the students are feeling uncomfortable with the navigation within the site, I may need to offer a synchronous support session in which the students can ask their questions directly to me and receive information immediately in order to increase their comfort level with Moodle at an early stage in the learning.

Not being overly familiar with Moodle prior to this assignment, I did some investigating as to what synchronous and asynchronous supports that it offers and I found the information shared on this Moodle support site quite helpful (http://www.howtomoodle.com/about-us/about-moodle/communication/). Although I am not sure if I will keep it as a part of the first content module or not, I did set up a chat activity to assess background knowledge in regard to the first body system that will be covered; the digestive system. I also noticed that there is an area titled ‘Recent Activity’ within Moodle and when I go into that area it lists all of the various discussion forums, as well as the questionnaire that I created. I am assuming that this would enable a teacher to quickly view the recent student activity. Having these interactive tasks all connected in one area ‘behind the scenes’ could be a real time saver and would allow me to stay on top of the student activity and enable me to more readily jump into a discussion thread in order to model, redirect, or question the students as a means to push the collective learning further. The reports section under administration items also would be an advantageous source of information to the teacher as data in regard to things such as course participation and activity completion are available through these features. It is very interesting to be getting a behind the scenes look at course design and development and course management features in an LMS such as Moodle.

References:
Anderson, T. (2008b). Teaching in an online learning context. In Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/14_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

When we began to gather information to begin shaping our LMS rubric, we decided to start with a deeper analysis of the assignment scenario using Bates and Poole’s SECTIONS framework (2003). Although we used the information gathered for the ‘C’ and ‘T’ portions of the framework, we did not include this information directly in the submitted assignment, but instead used it to help establish the rubric itself and our rationale. I have included my research notes here for these two sections. The ‘S’ and the ‘E’ portions which I also took responsibility for were included in the assignment post preceding this one as a part of our submitted assignment.

Costs- When considering the costs of selecting an LMS, Athabasca University will need to consider the actual cost of the Learning Management System and weigh this against the costs that may potentially result from the losses that could occur should they invest in a poorly selected platform. If the management system fails to meet the needs of the students ‘fewer students might enroll, or alumni might reduce their donations if they do not view the institution as being innovative and competitive” (Wright et al., 2014). Beyond the actual cost of the platform software, assuming that an LMS that is not open source is selected, other costs that must be considered are things such as technological upgrades or necessary infrastructure changes that may be needed in order for the university to run or host the platform, as well as the wages of those individuals providing IT support for students and staff that will be using the LMS. Other aspects of cost that will need to be factored in are the possible costs that the university may incur from the necessary expenditures needed to provide training for staff if a new LMS is adopted and wages paid to staff that are responsible for creating and then maintaining the courses. There are far more budgetary issues to consider when making this type of decision apart from the actual cost of the platform itself.

Teaching and Learning- When evaluating the appropriateness of a potential LMS, Athabasca University will want to closely examine the affordances and features inherent in the learning platforms that they are considering. In order to adequately meet the needs of both the learners and the instructors, the LMS should contain feature such as:
– user friendly discussion forum areas in which students are able to post and reply via discussion threads
– internal and external communication features such as email applications for asynchronous communication, as well as opportunities for synchronous communication via live chat areas for both student to student discourse and student to instructor discourse as well
– organizational features such as message and announcement notifications, course calendars/schedules, and ‘drop box’ type areas in which students can submit their assignments for grading
– varied assessment format options, multi-medium course delivery options, and a private area in which instructors can post student grades and feedback while allowing students to view their course progress in a secure manner
– flexible lesson and interactivity options that would allow for the course content to be designed and delivered in a way that would appeal to a variety of learning styles. Due to the targeted region in this particular case, cultural differences may also need to be accounted for in the course design and delivery

Due to the nature of online learning, it would be in the best interests of Athabasca University to seek out an LMS that not only enables, but encourages student collaboration in order to create a learning community which will further serve to strengthen the students online learning experience and increase the chances of the students enrolling in additional classes with the university in the future.

References:

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In
Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Wright, C.R., Lopes V., Montgomerie C. T., Reju, S. A., Schmoller. S. (2014, April 21). EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/selecting-learning-management-system-advice-academic-perspective

This group project was a great experience. My group mates were keen to start the project promptly and we were quickly able to set a goal for our completion date that worked well for all three of us. We assigned roles and then conducted some research independently. We kept in steady communication with each other via email, google docs, and google hangouts too. It was a valuable learning experience in regard to both the research that I conducted for my portion of the framework analysis, as well as the contributions that were made by my fellow group members too. Here is a precis of our assigned scenario and the accompanying rubric and rationale.

Summary of our assigned scenario
You are an ad hoc committee made up of stakeholders at Athabasca University, one of the world’s leaders in distance-based learning. Competition for distance students at the undergraduate level in Canada (and the US) is increasingly competitive: to ensure sustainability in the long term, the Provost wants to market Athabasca programs overseas. South Asia, and its large English speaking population is to be a focus…but the reliability of internet connectivity can be a problem in the region. Thus the choice of delivery platform (specifically an LMS) is of critical importance.

Your team is tasked with developing an evaluation rubric to help the Provost to decide whether to keep the current LMS, select a new one, or perhaps run multiple systems. It should be noted that our research indicated that the current LMS used by Athabasca University at this time is Moodlle Continue reading →