For Assignment 1: LE Evaluation rubric, our group agreed to approach the project through the lens of a school board. After considering numerous variables, such as urban or rural settings, socio-economic demographics and geographical locations, we agreed on using a scenario that was based on a district-wide LMS implementation in a small rural school district. As a teacher working in Vancouver, which is a quite different setting than the one in our scenario, I needed to consider challenges that I had never considered prior to this assignment. Viewing the situation from the perspective of a school board, rather than a teacher, allowed for more freedom, but also more responsibility.

After creating our scenario, we set out to investigate numerous different learning management systems. Conveniently, our group members are spread across Canada and have had first hand experience with a multitude of LMS’ which have been implemented into schools on a provincial level. Working in British Columbia, the province chose to use Microsoft 365 as a platform. I used these personal experiences, along with research studies such as Ousmanova, K. (2022), to help build an initial structure for our rubric.

We began the creation of the rubric with a very practical approach to figuring the needs and focuses of our criteria. Creating a set of categories based on our group members own experiences paired with technology evaluation frameworks outlined in Osterweil, S., et al. (2015) and the SECTIONS Model in Bates, T. (2014). We first listed issues we were experiencing within our own practices. The initial brainstorming of categories drew on experiences we had encountered in our own practices. When focusing on the Teacher’s Ease of Use section, I couldn’t help but remember the rollout of an LMS in my own school district during the start of Covid and the implementation of online and hybrid learning environments. In particular, how teachers refused to implement the platforms into their classes because the LMS was not easy to use and no training was provided.

We placed a greater emphasis on the accessibility of and access to content due to our school division’s goals and needs. Accessibility due to our diverse learning needs and access to course learning materials given our demographic’s attendance barriers were strong influencers for our rubric’s incentives. In addition to considering our scenario’s existing resources and infrastructure, we analyzed these qualities and focused on which features would  best utilize our assets for the stakeholders. We feel this rubric would effectively guide our school district in making the most informed decision.

References:

Bates, T. (2014). Choosing and using media in education: The SECTIONS model. In Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/9-pedagogical-differences-between-media/

Osterweil, S., Shah, P., Allen, S., Groff, J., & Sai Kodidala, P., & Schoenfeld, I. (2015). Summary report: A framework for evaluating appropriateness of educational technology use in global development programs. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts & The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. Retrieved from https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/115340/Summary%20Report_A%20Framework%20for%20Evaluating%20Appropriateness%20of%20Educational%20Technology%20Use%20in%20Global%20Development%20Programs.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Ousmanova , K. (2022, April 18). The Pros and cons of Microsoft teams. Vacation Tracker. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://vacationtracker.io/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-microsoft-teams