Background
ACI is an independent, English speaking K-12 school located in Beijing, China. This is their first year of operation. The teaching staff is small and funds limited, therefore the course choices are restricted. In addition to being a small school, it is also located a fair distance from the city where most of the students live. The administration would like to provide a consistent platform of student/teacher communication, provide parents with a window into their child’s learning, and offer more course choices.
To Mr. Ben Norton, Headmaster, ACI, Beijing China
From: Joy Penner, Consultant
Recommendations
After consideration of key factors, I would like to recommend that ACI adopt the open source Learning Management System (LMS), Moodle. With a focus on education, Moodle is an ideal platform to support the needs of ACI. It is suitable for a small institution, but equally viable for future growth. Moodle is able to address the needs and constraints of ACI.
Evaluation Process
Because, “most vendor and open source platforms now support a reasonably similar set of features and functionalities,” (ETEC565/Elearning Toolkit, 2012), ACI must first identify its specific needs when considering an LMS.
Requirements
A platform for:
- online courses to supplement current offerings
- teacher/student communication, with parent access
- blended learning opportunities
Constraints
- Cost
- Some sites are inaccessible in China
- Many parents do not speak English
- Many teachers are not adept with technology
Since the primary constraint is cost, this rules out Vendor-based products (Panettieri, 2007), leaving free, open source platforms. An examination of 11 open source designs (Sampson, 2009), revealed that most targeted business or higher education. Some were only free for the very basic services.
Moodle is an “open source software program that not only provides a set of features similar to those of its proprietary competitors but is often easier to use” (Perkins & Pfaffman, 2006, p. 34). According to Moodle’s own website, it is a “Free Web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites” (Moodle, 2012). Moodle supports large or small groups, fully online courses, or blended learning situations. It offers multiple tools for a collaborative (social constructivist) learning environment, but can also be used to offer content, and deliver assessment through assignments and quizzes. It is known that Moodle works in China and is successfully used by other international schools.
The SECTIONS model (Bates & Poole, 2003) provided a framework to further evaluate the critical areas associated with an LMS decision.
| Students | The student population is 50% Korean. Most of the Korean parents do not speak English. All students attend IT classes and have at least one computer at home with high-speed internet. A computer lab is available.
Moodle can be accessed from any Internet-connected computer. With over 70 languages (Cole & Foster, 2008), the user can select a language for labels and instructions, and multi-language content is supported |
| Ease of Use | ACI has a dedicated IT teacher. Many teachers use the computer only for basic administrative ends. There is another school nearby that uses Moodle extensively.
After some initial training, Moodle will be relatively easy to use. The WYSIWYG editor offers familiarity and drop down menus facilitate adding content. Moodle offers multiple ways to access help within the site and on the Moodle homepage, such as an extensive user manual, videos, and discussion forums. |
| Cost | ACI has a limited budget. They have their own server and use Windows as their operating system. Costs for training and design are absorbed within teacher’s contract salaries. Designed courses can be used from year-to-year with minimal tweaking. Student/teacher ratios are small, making the workload manageable.Moodle is free to users and can be hosted on an institutions’ own server. Moodle supports Windows. |
| Teaching and Learning | Some teachers are traditional in their approach, while others prefer constructivist methods. Not all Internet tools such as Google Docs are accessible in China. Chinese is one of the courses offered.
Moodle provides a rich variety of user-friendly collaborative communication tools that enable “faculty and students [to] use technologies efficiently and effectively (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996). Moodle’s supports multi-lingual content making it ideal for language teachers. |
| Interactivity | With the addition of fully online courses, teachers are concerned about the workload involved in assessment.
Gradebook and reporting capabilities allow teachers to view reports and track student involvement. The system supports self-assessment and can automatically mark many types of answers, offering remedial work as needed. Students may also track their own progress. |
| Organizational Issues | Administration is supportive. The IT staff member knows how to run and maintain a server. He is responsible to train students and staff.
Moodle is free and easy to install. It can be set up in about 15 minutes. (Perkins & Pfaffman, 2006, p. 37). Moodle offers users multiple vehicles of support that can augment training. |
| Novelty | ACI staff members are not strongly technological therefore they need something that has been tested, is reliable and stable.
Moodle has existed for 10-years, has 63,000,000 users using 67,000+ registered sites, in 220 countries (Moodle, 2012). |
| Speed | Courses at the high school level will need to be reviewed each year. Classroom and course communication with students will change on a week-to-week or daily basis.
Moodle supports roles within the software. Teachers have direct access to their own class sites or courses from any Internet enabled computer, facilitating timely changes and autonomy. |
Identified Barriers
- While Moodle is reliable, Internet access in China is not always. This will at times cause frustration on the part of all parties
- Strong support is needed for teachers to be successful
Resources Needed
Other than downloading the software, ACI currently has all the physical resources needed to implement Moodle. It is imperative, that the staff is given initial hands-on, step-by-step training. To ensure continued success and full use of the Moodle’s capabilities, it is recommended that ACI hire one additional IT person to focus on the implementation of Moodle. The cost of one additional IT teacher will be approximately US$25,000 per year, less if it is a local hire.
References
1 Response to Moodle Proposal