Learning Management System Platform

Evaluation and Proposal for Pacific High School

Prepared by:  Craig Brumwell, Shafali Hamir, Jason Harbor, Lorn Kennedy, Sylvain Menard

Introduction

Pacific High School is a small public school in British Columbia facing cutbacks and challenges similar to other school across the province and across the country.  This school’s enrollment has declined over the past five years and is projected to continue to decrease over the next decade.  Not only is their already small budget shrinking, but declining enrollment is making it difficult to hire trained staff to teach specialized upper level subjects such as math, science, and languages.  Because of these realities, more flexible learning models need to be utilized to maintain the viability of the school and to maintain a variety of courses for its students.  The school is seeking to maintain and enhance its viability by offering courses using online tools.  It is not only seeking to survive but it is also hoping to thrive with these new models.  The school’s mission includes providing diverse and enriching experiences for the student community through both accessible and flexible learning environments. The school’s goals include the following: create online learning spaces to facilitate a shift to more Constructivist models and 21st century learning pedagogies; increase enrollment by providing viable, quality online and blended course options to maximize student options; and to develop engaging e-learning spaces that provide a range of interactive functionalities well positioned for future integrations, interoperability and migration potentials that improve ease of use, convenience, and usefulness.

The school in question has reliable access to high speed internet, a sufficient number and variety of in-house devices for student use, and approximately 50% of the students have an adequate personal device to use.  As with all other schools in the district, there are IT support personnel in place (based out of central office, but deployed to schools as needed) and the school already has an always-on data server for existing and future technological needs.

Moodle proposal

As part of the desire to maintain high quality education in the face of declining resources, Pacific High School must maintain and enhance its already quality instructional practices and pedagogical techniques.  The school is actively seeking authentic ways to engage and retain its students through Constructivist methods and the use of 21st century learning tools.   Moodle is an excellent tool to do this as both Martinez & Jagannathan (2008) and Muljadi (2011) found that Moodle was built on not just a Constructivist philosophy but a Social- Constructionist philosophy as well. As Denton (2012) observed, “the features of Constructivism and cooperative learning are enhanced with cloud-based technologies” (p. 35).  Moodle can emphasizes “that learners (and not just teachers) can contribute to the educational experience” (“Moodle”, 2015).  As well, choosing Moodle allows efficient use of resources as it can be hosted using the school’s existing data server and maintained by current IT personnel.  Moodle is open source software; that is, Moodle’s full source code is made available for all users for modification or enhancement (“What Is Open Source Software”, n.d.).  As such, it can be managed by local IT personnel and is available at no cost to all schools, a huge advantage when facing shrinking budgets.  Being open source, add-on modules can be incorporated into the base distribution of Moodle for specialized needs of individual instructors.  We believe that based on these goals and needs that Moodle is the best choice for Pacific High School.

Evaluation

Learning Management Systems have developed by leaps and bounds in the last few years (Sharma, 2015).  In fact, the term “Management” can be misleading because today’s LMS can do a lot more than just organize the delivery of content and the administration of students’ records.  Some LMS can now afford us the ability to create new online learning spaces and activities.  Most LMS offer a common range of tools with similar affordances (Pappas, 2013).  The sheer number of technical features and the speed at which new products hit the market make it practically impossible to evaluate LMS solely on the basis of their technical features, especially considering their commonality between the main LMS.  Also, as Coates, James, & Baldwin (2005) observed “A recurrent message arising from the study of educational technologies, however, is that it is not the provision of features but their uptake and use that really determines their educational value” (p.27).

While technical features are important, there are more global/basic attributes to consider: the cost, the overall functionality, the adaptability, and the support available, among others.  Our approach in selecting a LMS for Pacific High School is to give more importance to the global/basic attributes while ensuring that it offers a good variety and quality of learning tools.

The goals embedded in Pacific High School’s mission statement focus on developing diverse learning experiences and environments.  Achieving these goals entails a gradual shift from a single traditional objectivist delivery model in the face-to-face classrooms to an assortment of more flexible models which includes blended and fully online learning spaces.  These learning spaces need to accommodate the design and delivery of Constructivist learning strategies which are supporting the goals of 21st century learning.  The school has identified the most important elements of 21st century learning as the ability to collaborate, communicate, think critically, solve problems, and navigate the digital world.

Technical Features

With its discussion forums, wikis, blog spaces, text based chat rooms, integrated email system, video conferencing and screen sharing applications, Moodle can afford its users a great variety of synchronous and asynchronous forms of communication.  These collaborative tools facilitate the construction of meaning and artifacts between classmates and group members.  Konstantinidis et al., (2011) also observed that the automated mailing list functions in Moodle enhanced communication between instructors and students, particularly through automated emailing lists (p. 27).  While some other LMS’ may offer more intuitive interface for some specific tools, we believe that Moodle is still the best choice because its community of developers continually work toward improving existing applications and developing new ones (Gartner, 2015).  Also important is the fact that the main philosophy behind the Moodle movement aligns with the school goals in shifting towards a Constructivist model. Moodle has been a major player in the development of innovative online learning resources since version 1.0 was released in 2002. (“Moodle”, 2015).

The Open Source Factor

The implications of choosing an open source product have some advantages and disadvantages.  One of the main disadvantages is the level of expertise required to make it work.  Given that the school has access to the district’s IT team, this disadvantage is not an issue.  On the other hand, Moodle’s free and open source philosophy makes it accessible, flexible and adaptable.  For example, servers, thirds party installers and front end content management systems, like Joomla and Mahara, integrate with Moodle to meet the specific needs of teachers (“Integrations,” n.d.).  Both Microsoft and Google have developed plugins that integrate with Moodle directly (Delinger & Boora, 2010).  Its interoperability optimizes it for migration to future LMS options.  Eliademy is an example of a recent cloud-based LMS start-up organization that contributes to the Moodle code base to facilitate migration.  This affordance and addition to its quickly evolving product upgrades, positions institutions and instructors using Moodle to take advantage new flexible and developing educational technology initiatives.

The Support Factor

The ease with which students interact with an LMS and access support will have an impact on the success of e-learning courses.  Hsu and Chang (2013) studied the impacts of convenience on acceptance and use of Moodle as an extension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).  They identified perceived ease of use as the most significant determinant of attitude for students working with Moodle, and perceived convenience as having a strong bearing on how useful students assessed it (p. 215).  Mobile access to activities and resources may be important factors to LMS acceptance.  Access ranges from the official App (My Moodle available for iOS devices from the Apple App Store), which requires version 2.1 or later, to native Apps like MBot, Droodle (Android client for version 2.1) or browser access to the Moodle site (“Mobile Moodle FAQ,” n.d.).  The availability of timely support is related to convenience and user satisfaction.  Moodle has a wide and growing online support system.  Delinger and Boora (2010) identify it as having “impressively high support:user ratio” (p.7).  They concluded that this affordance was equally important to other factors ranging from interface to pedagogy among users (p.8).

Sustainability

As mentioned above, Moodle is an Open-source software (OSS) which can be downloaded for free (https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/About_Moodle).  As there are no licensing costs to set up a Moodle server, the only requirement would be to have a web server, which Pacific High already has.  The biggest requirement will be time from teachers to upload their courses online.  This is a time consuming process; however, once the initial setup is done, their time commitment will only be to facilitate their class and update their site as needed.  Teachers will need to be aware that the initial setup will likely take approximately 4 months to develop.  We estimate 2-4 weeks to learn the Moodle basics from school professional development sessions as well as personal experimentation, 4-6 weeks uploading content, 2-4 weeks to ensure their site running with no issues, and 2-4 weeks to make final changes.  Some teachers may be more proficient than others so this time will vary extensively and we feel a maximum of 4 months is required for those teachers who need extra time to feel comfortable in using the software.

Even with these time consuming components, there are some efficiencies built into Moodle to make the teacher’s work easier.  For example, Moodle can import question banks from a multitude of sources including Blackboard, Examview, Hot Potatoes, WebCT, and others (moodle.org).  Many teacher resources come with Examview test banks which many teachers already use.  By importing the questions directly into Moodle much time can be saved in creating assessments.  Creating users in Moodle is also made easier by integration with Microsoft’s Active Directory. Active Directory is an integrated component of Windows Server, which commands a 75% market share. (“Microsoft by the Numbers”, 2014)  Active Directory contains all the information about objects on the network, including users. (“Active Directory”, 2015).  As such, this list of users can be uploaded into Moodle. (Macartney, 2012).  Though this requires a certain level of technical expertise, district IT personnel should be well equipped to handle this process.  Not only does the integration of Active Directory make user creation in Moodle easier, it allows users to have the same login credentials for both their computer and for Moodle.  Users will not have to remember multiple sets of usernames and passwords, as Active Directory will automatically make these updates to Moodle.

For teachers wishing to add Moodle to their practice mid-course, Moodle also contains a built in importer for grades contained in an Excel spreadsheet.  Teachers must simply format the spreadsheet and then upload it into Moodle. (“Importing Grades into Moodle from Excel”, n.d.)  The time that has already been spent entering grades can be conserved when migrating to Moodle.

As Pacific High wants to shift towards a more constructivist approach, collaborative learning and knowledge building are both critical components of constructivism (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994), and Moodle’s design around the belief that people learn best when they are together (Dougiamas, 2014) fits in perfectly with this approach.  Once teachers become more confident in using Moodle, they have more opportunity to innovate over time.  Paynter (2012), observed that Moodle was used initially as a repository of course information for students and shifted towards a more collaborative space where students shared their learning through forums.

In terms of professional development, Moodle has an excellent community support on their website as well as self-help video tutorials and documentation in the Resources section (https://docs.moodle.org/23/en/Resources).  Moodle offers online help services where teachers can connect with experts for specific issues and will respond within a given timeframe.  There are also numerous tutorial videos online through YouTube for teachers to access and troubleshoot as issues arise.

As Coates, et al. (2005) note: “institutional leaders need to develop support for the staff who use LMS by, for example, developing best practice models and setting up fora in which staff can share ideas and discuss their experience with the systems” (p. 33), it is important a team is set up to ensure this happens.  We recognize that Pacific High has a core technology team consisting of school administration, technology lead teachers, and a local IT support person who can all be instrumental in providing this support.  This team will be critical in the implementation of Moodle from start to finish, as well as help with customizing the site to meet specific needs of the school, especially in terms of assessment and reporting. Eventually, we see a future possibility of marketing courses to out of district students to create more revenue for your school.

Future Directions

Moodle’s open source philosophy not only encourages developers to design integrations like plugins, but stimulates creative innovation in its own field.  The case of the upstart Edison-award winning LMS, Eliademy, from Finland is a good example. Its parent company, CBTec contributes to Moodle’s code base, from which they have removed the non-core functionalities to create a simpler, modular design.  Their mission is to democratize education with technology; as such they offer this service free for everybody.  One of their goals is to make migration from Moodle to Eliademy easy.  This is an attractive option in the future for the school, especially because the budget is unpredictable.  Currently, Moodle is the only platform that does not contravene British Columbia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA), which states that public bodies like schools must ensure that private information is not stored or accessed from servers outside of Canada (British Columbia Government, 2015), Eliademy’s servers are based in Europe, making it an ineligible choice for the school.  The legislation is scheduled for review in 2016. Moodle is the best LMS for the present, and offers the flexibility for migration to cloud-based options like Eliademy in the future.

Conclusion

The school’s goals of implementing constructivist techniques and 21st century pedagogies align well with the choice of Moodle as LMS.  Moodle not only provides robust features that align with these goals, but it does so with an uncomplicated user interface.  Its open source approach also creates third party functionalities possible going forward.  Through these features, quality course options can be created and the e-learning spaces developed will have interactivity and community at their forefront.  The school staff, administrators and IT technicians must also invest in a realistic program of teacher training, support for expansion, infrastructure and resources support to achieve the goals of introducing Moodle as the school LMS (Gagnon, 2012).

References

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