OLTD 504 - Learning systems
OLTD 504 provided me with many opportunities to practice and reflect on curriculum development in an online environment and to reflect on, evaluate and practice the use of tools to enhance online learning. Before OLTD, the only LMS that I had worked with was Blackboard Learn and only without the benefit of the Blackboard Collaborate tool. Most of my experience with the LMS was as a student; however, last semester in my work with North Island College, I built a Blackboard site as a supplement to my F2F English course. This work improved my opportunity for success in OLTD 504. However, the biggest revelations for me in OLTD were regarding the limitations of an LMS, how non-LMS tools can be integrated with an LMS and how an LMS can be built using complementary LMS tools to provide structured, yet personalized learning for students and effective management for the instructor.
OLTD Learning Outcome: Critically assess and evaluate resources for best practice in online learningEvidence: The piece of evidence that I've chosen to reflect my learning of assessing and evaluating resources for best practice in online learning is my contribution to Cohort 3's non-LMS wiki. My assessment of resources began by considering non-LMS tools that would be effective for post-secondary learners. This presented the first challenge because there appear to be more non-LMS tools available for K-12 learning. I decided upon a tool called "Activate Instruction", and my review is below. My review includes a screencast of me working with the tool, which gave me additional practice with another tool, "Camtasia".
Context of the Evidence in Relation to the Outcome: Although Activate Instruction is considered a K-12 resource by its creators, I saw its potential for use as a supplementary tool in my post-secondary English course. I appreciate the potential of managing learning of concepts and skills through the use of playlists. The review of the resource opened me up to the possibility of supplementing Blackboard Learn (the LMS that my college uses) with some tools to personalize the learning for students. For instance, I could create playlists of grammar activities for students who require more support in that area. Employing additional resources beyond the LMS adds flexibility for me and the students. One of the strengths of the evidence that I've chosen is the use of Camtasia to display part of my review. It allowed me to practice screencasting with Camtasia and provided me with more practice with and evaluation of this tool. I have appreciated the guidance in OLTD 504 in evaluating tools for use in online teaching and learning. There are so many tools available now and that will continue to be developed; one challenge is to remain current, another challenge is to be discerning regarding choices of tools, and another challenge is to find the time to learn to use the tools you choose. Context of the Outcome in Relation to my Practice: The non-LMS review wiki helped me to clarify the criteria I would use to narrow my options of choices of non-LMS tools. This is helpful for me in managing instruction and for optimizing the learning for the students. Textbook publishers - Nelson, Pearson, Oxford - send me and my colleagues English textbooks twice a year with the hope that we'll adopt them for our courses. For 20 years, I've critiqued and assessed textbooks for content relevancy, level of engagement, visual appeal, organization, the way it addresses course outcomes ... I am used to this type of resource assessment and confident with it. Until OLTD 504, I had very little experience assessing online learning tools and considering them as they would relate to the courses I teach. I gained some confidence in my ability to be discerning with resources by focussing on the criteria including my ability to learn to use the tool, its relevance to the learning outcomes of the subject, its accessibility for students to learn and use, my ability to integrate the tool within a LMS I will use, its level of appeal and its potential to engage students. Activate Instruction has been developed by a non-profit organization in the US. It is a free online tool specifically created to personalize the learning for K - 12 students. A teacher with an Activate Instruction account creates content playlists of resources around a particular theme and set of objectives. Playlists can be adjusted and individualized to meet the needs of weaker and stronger students. There is a wealth of resources (documents, activities, videos, audio files) and playlists that teachers have contributed to the Activate Instruction site, which are freely available for other teachers to use and/or modify and for students to access The Activate Instruction site has an informative introductory video: http://www.activateinstruction.org/about/ Ed Tech Review has described Activate Instruction in unambiguously positive terms: http://edtechreview.in/news/528-free-online-tool-to-personalize-learning “It is an open platform where teachers can browse, search, rate, add, share and organize their favorite common-core aligned resources and put them together for their students to access. Parents and students can also use the teacher prescribed set of resources or search for them on their own, with the platform’s inbuilt search feature.” Specially made for K-12 students, and including all of the core subject areas, Activate Instruction helps students and teachers by connecting them with each other and with the learning resources. Features of Activate Instruction are: •Search - Find resources to create playlists, access ready-made playlists and search by grade level, and topic •Organize - Collect resource materials from a variety of sources, create and store all in one place and save for re-use, access everything from any device; computer, tablet or Smartphone. •Customize - Create playlists based on specific topics or for particular students. •Share - Share resources with colleagues, students, parents and others. Social sharing includes following teachers, liking and rating playlists Easy to Use Activate Instruction is easy to learn and to use. To demonstrate its ease, I created a short screencast of a partial tour and a simple playlist that I had created: http://www.screencast.com/t/EeMNWFAWltvx Negatives? Activate Instruction has a formative assessment component but it can only be utilized if your school and/or district has aligned its assessment process with Activate Instruction. I wouldn’t say that it’s a negative if you are planning to use Activate Instruction to deliver content to students. The content you prepare will still presumably prepare students for their assessments. Conclusion: I like this tool so well that I will use it as a supplement to my f2f, and I will try out a couple of playlists with my students in an online course delivery I’m offering in May/June. |
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OLTD Learning Outcome: Select strategies and resources appropriate for environment, learners and learning outcomes
Evidence: My OLTD 504 evidence choice for this learning outcome is my non-LMS LMS build in which I researched and chose non-LMS tools that I think will complement each other for the purpose of building an online post-secondary English writing course.
Context of Evidence Relation to the Outcome: Work on this assignment was work in discovery. I found it to be a revelation, and I am appreciative of instructor Avi Luxenburg’s choice of assignment and guidance during the completion of it, and I am appreciative of my peers’ reviews and explanations of the non-LMS tools. Of the 24 members of my OLTD cohort, I believe that there are just two of us who are not teaching K-12. I haven’t felt left out in any way during OLTD because almost all of the theory and practice of online teaching and using educational technology is applicable to all levels of students. Also, a lot of the educational issues encountered at the high school level have some relation to post-secondary education. In order to build a LMS for a post-secondary English course, I had to consider very carefully the learning needs of my students (adult students). I know that this is true for every one of us in OLTD 504, but what I mean is that, in my case, I loved many of apps that my cohort colleagues chose but couldn’t use them in my build because they were more appropriate for a K-12 build.
Context of Outcome in Relation to my Practice: Since my college uses Blackboard Learn as an LMS for our courses (and I like it for the “business” of the course – eg. gradebook) I was interested in apps that would supplement the LMS, making the online learning more interesting, engaging and interactive. Since many students at my college already use Google docs, I think the Google education suite offers a lot that I can complement an LMS course with. My college does not have a license for Collaborate, an application that I think is very effective for community building, collaboration and synchronous lesson presentation. I’m not sure why we don’t. Perhaps the most significant consequence of my learning in OLTD 504 is that I’ve asked the head of IT at my college and the faculty coordinator of distance learning to meet with me to discuss the options and possibilities for supporting synchronous web conferencing in courses. It might not seem like a significant request to those who have experience teaching online, but for me it’s huge. Before OLTD 504, I wouldn’t have asked for a meeting because I wouldn’t have been able to articulate what learning experiences I’d like to use a tool like Collaborate for. Now I can, and they have agreed to meet with me next Friday.
Context of Evidence Relation to the Outcome: Work on this assignment was work in discovery. I found it to be a revelation, and I am appreciative of instructor Avi Luxenburg’s choice of assignment and guidance during the completion of it, and I am appreciative of my peers’ reviews and explanations of the non-LMS tools. Of the 24 members of my OLTD cohort, I believe that there are just two of us who are not teaching K-12. I haven’t felt left out in any way during OLTD because almost all of the theory and practice of online teaching and using educational technology is applicable to all levels of students. Also, a lot of the educational issues encountered at the high school level have some relation to post-secondary education. In order to build a LMS for a post-secondary English course, I had to consider very carefully the learning needs of my students (adult students). I know that this is true for every one of us in OLTD 504, but what I mean is that, in my case, I loved many of apps that my cohort colleagues chose but couldn’t use them in my build because they were more appropriate for a K-12 build.
Context of Outcome in Relation to my Practice: Since my college uses Blackboard Learn as an LMS for our courses (and I like it for the “business” of the course – eg. gradebook) I was interested in apps that would supplement the LMS, making the online learning more interesting, engaging and interactive. Since many students at my college already use Google docs, I think the Google education suite offers a lot that I can complement an LMS course with. My college does not have a license for Collaborate, an application that I think is very effective for community building, collaboration and synchronous lesson presentation. I’m not sure why we don’t. Perhaps the most significant consequence of my learning in OLTD 504 is that I’ve asked the head of IT at my college and the faculty coordinator of distance learning to meet with me to discuss the options and possibilities for supporting synchronous web conferencing in courses. It might not seem like a significant request to those who have experience teaching online, but for me it’s huge. Before OLTD 504, I wouldn’t have asked for a meeting because I wouldn’t have been able to articulate what learning experiences I’d like to use a tool like Collaborate for. Now I can, and they have agreed to meet with me next Friday.
Non-LMS Tool-kit Build for
Post-secondary English Course
I had been a Mac user for so long that I had become closed minded about many other platforms, formats and apps. However, using a work-provided Windows laptop for the past 18 months, and all that I’ve been learning in OLTD has opened me up to many new possibilities. I have based my non-LMS LMS build on what would be applicable for a post-secondary English course, which led me to rule out some applications such as Edmodo; although, Edmodo looks like a comprehensively useful K-12 educational app. I have recently become a fan of Google’s education tools, so that bias is reflected in my build. And I have rounded out my build with a couple of apps I newly discovered in OLTD 504 and with a favourite for community-building: Collaborate.
Dashboard and Content
I like the look and functionality of the OLTD Resources/Wiki site, so, in my opinion, Google Sites works well as a dashboard. It is free and relatively easy to create because there are several appealing templates to use. The site can be created and edited collaboratively by students and teachers, but it is teacher-controlled. Many add-ons from the Sites directory can enhance the options. Other useful Google tools such as Docs, Calendar and Presentations integrate seamlessly with Sites, which is another reason why Google Sites would be an excellent choice for housing content, including lessons. You can type content directly onto the template or easily upload text, video and photo files.
Another tool that I would like use for content building, particularly for unit and lesson creation is Activate Instruction, http://www.activateinstruction.org/
Activate Instruction has been developed by a non-profit organization in the US. It is a free online tool specifically created to personalize the learning for students. A teacher with an Activate Instruction account creates content playlists of resources around a particular theme and set of objectives. Playlists can be adjusted and individualized to meet the needs of weaker and stronger students. There is a wealth of resources (documents, activities, videos, audio files) and playlists that teachers have contributed to the Activate Instruction site, which are freely available for other teachers to use and/or modify, and for students to access.
Calendar
Google Calendar is an advantageous time management tool, particularly if you are integrating it with other Google educations apps. Students and teachers can view, add, and drag-and-drop from one date to another, and changes are immediately visible to all users. Students are able to have their own calendar and class calendars are in sync with individual ones. Colour-coding helps to visually organize. Homework assignments can contain links, and the calendar can be embedded on the course/class website.
Gradebook
The one iTunes education I am adding to the course build is not a free app. It is GradeBook Pro, which costs $9.99. But it appears to be worth the price. The one gradebook that I am familiar with is in the LMS Blackboard Learn, and Gradebook Pro seems to be as comprehensive as Blackboard Learn’s. Here’s what Gradebook Pro includes:
· Roster creation, including emails
· Attendance interface, including “present”, “absent” and “late” and the ability to comment
· Attendance tracking and reports
· Create assignments with standard grading scales or weighted ones
· Ability to add notes to assignments and exams
· Allows you to see how students are doing through the semester
· Locates missing grades and calculates class averages on assignments
· Allows you to email students individually or as a class
· Syncs with Dropbox so you can back-up your files
Collaboration and Group Work
I have enjoyed using Google Docs to collaborate with group members during OLTD. You can create and edit documents with other users live online. Google Docs is free and can be accessed anytime from any location. Google Docs is useful when doing group work because it allows students to collaborate at all stages of the project from brainstorming to final copy. Resources can be posted, writing edited, and documents created by all students involved, and the teacher is able to be part of the process as well. There is also a chat feature allowing students to converse during the document creation.
Building Community and Inspiring Discourse
During OLTD, I have enjoyed using Blackboard Collaborate for synchronous lessons, activities and community-building. Collaborate allows the combination of text, audio and visual media. Real-time conversations help to build community by encouraging interaction among course participants. Breakout rooms allow small groups of students to discuss topics. Collaborative writing by those present in the session can be done on a whiteboard, and slides can be saved and reviewed later. Sessions can also be recorded and, therefore, be available for additional viewings. There is a chat feature and students can be the moderators assisting classmates. A Collaborate room could be used by an instructor to meet with a student one-to-one for feedback or extra help.
For ongoing discourse, Google Plus is an excellent tool. Specifically, it is useful for developing a learning network, for discussion, and for peer mentoring. In Google Plus, different circles can be created for each class, and additional circles on specific topics can be created within class circles. It’s accessible from anywhere and is easy to upload and post.
Self-assessment and Quizzes
For self-evaluation and peer-evaluation, Google Forms is a suitable tool. Self-evaluations can be created easily in forms, and in a similar way basic quizzes can be created. It is also possible to use Google Forms as a sort of “dropbox” for student assignments. Students just need to complete a form with a link to their Google doc or assignment URL, and the instructor can give feedback directly on a Google doc.
Assessment and Reflection: ePortfolio
During OLTD, I have become sold on the power of ePortfolio as a vehicle for learning. ePortfolios are used as a collection for a student’s writing projects, photographs, videos, visual art, links and other course-related assignments. ePortfolios display learning over time and allow students a place to reflect upon their learning, particularly in a blog format. Teachers and peers can provide feedback in comments on blog posts.
My own ePortfolio is a Weebly, and therefore I think Weebly for Education is an excellent resource. It is a free resource. Instructors can create a class website on a Weebly. Students can create an e-Portfolio to display their course work online. An instructor could create up to 40 free student accounts without the need for personal emails. In this situation, blogs on the Weebly can be public or private, and the instructor has access to them all on their own dashboard. The drag-and-drop feature is easy to use. There are appealing multi-media features. The ePortfolio can be shared simply by using the personal website URL created by the student.
I had been a Mac user for so long that I had become closed minded about many other platforms, formats and apps. However, using a work-provided Windows laptop for the past 18 months, and all that I’ve been learning in OLTD has opened me up to many new possibilities. I have based my non-LMS LMS build on what would be applicable for a post-secondary English course, which led me to rule out some applications such as Edmodo; although, Edmodo looks like a comprehensively useful K-12 educational app. I have recently become a fan of Google’s education tools, so that bias is reflected in my build. And I have rounded out my build with a couple of apps I newly discovered in OLTD 504 and with a favourite for community-building: Collaborate.
Dashboard and Content
I like the look and functionality of the OLTD Resources/Wiki site, so, in my opinion, Google Sites works well as a dashboard. It is free and relatively easy to create because there are several appealing templates to use. The site can be created and edited collaboratively by students and teachers, but it is teacher-controlled. Many add-ons from the Sites directory can enhance the options. Other useful Google tools such as Docs, Calendar and Presentations integrate seamlessly with Sites, which is another reason why Google Sites would be an excellent choice for housing content, including lessons. You can type content directly onto the template or easily upload text, video and photo files.
Another tool that I would like use for content building, particularly for unit and lesson creation is Activate Instruction, http://www.activateinstruction.org/
Activate Instruction has been developed by a non-profit organization in the US. It is a free online tool specifically created to personalize the learning for students. A teacher with an Activate Instruction account creates content playlists of resources around a particular theme and set of objectives. Playlists can be adjusted and individualized to meet the needs of weaker and stronger students. There is a wealth of resources (documents, activities, videos, audio files) and playlists that teachers have contributed to the Activate Instruction site, which are freely available for other teachers to use and/or modify, and for students to access.
Calendar
Google Calendar is an advantageous time management tool, particularly if you are integrating it with other Google educations apps. Students and teachers can view, add, and drag-and-drop from one date to another, and changes are immediately visible to all users. Students are able to have their own calendar and class calendars are in sync with individual ones. Colour-coding helps to visually organize. Homework assignments can contain links, and the calendar can be embedded on the course/class website.
Gradebook
The one iTunes education I am adding to the course build is not a free app. It is GradeBook Pro, which costs $9.99. But it appears to be worth the price. The one gradebook that I am familiar with is in the LMS Blackboard Learn, and Gradebook Pro seems to be as comprehensive as Blackboard Learn’s. Here’s what Gradebook Pro includes:
· Roster creation, including emails
· Attendance interface, including “present”, “absent” and “late” and the ability to comment
· Attendance tracking and reports
· Create assignments with standard grading scales or weighted ones
· Ability to add notes to assignments and exams
· Allows you to see how students are doing through the semester
· Locates missing grades and calculates class averages on assignments
· Allows you to email students individually or as a class
· Syncs with Dropbox so you can back-up your files
Collaboration and Group Work
I have enjoyed using Google Docs to collaborate with group members during OLTD. You can create and edit documents with other users live online. Google Docs is free and can be accessed anytime from any location. Google Docs is useful when doing group work because it allows students to collaborate at all stages of the project from brainstorming to final copy. Resources can be posted, writing edited, and documents created by all students involved, and the teacher is able to be part of the process as well. There is also a chat feature allowing students to converse during the document creation.
Building Community and Inspiring Discourse
During OLTD, I have enjoyed using Blackboard Collaborate for synchronous lessons, activities and community-building. Collaborate allows the combination of text, audio and visual media. Real-time conversations help to build community by encouraging interaction among course participants. Breakout rooms allow small groups of students to discuss topics. Collaborative writing by those present in the session can be done on a whiteboard, and slides can be saved and reviewed later. Sessions can also be recorded and, therefore, be available for additional viewings. There is a chat feature and students can be the moderators assisting classmates. A Collaborate room could be used by an instructor to meet with a student one-to-one for feedback or extra help.
For ongoing discourse, Google Plus is an excellent tool. Specifically, it is useful for developing a learning network, for discussion, and for peer mentoring. In Google Plus, different circles can be created for each class, and additional circles on specific topics can be created within class circles. It’s accessible from anywhere and is easy to upload and post.
Self-assessment and Quizzes
For self-evaluation and peer-evaluation, Google Forms is a suitable tool. Self-evaluations can be created easily in forms, and in a similar way basic quizzes can be created. It is also possible to use Google Forms as a sort of “dropbox” for student assignments. Students just need to complete a form with a link to their Google doc or assignment URL, and the instructor can give feedback directly on a Google doc.
Assessment and Reflection: ePortfolio
During OLTD, I have become sold on the power of ePortfolio as a vehicle for learning. ePortfolios are used as a collection for a student’s writing projects, photographs, videos, visual art, links and other course-related assignments. ePortfolios display learning over time and allow students a place to reflect upon their learning, particularly in a blog format. Teachers and peers can provide feedback in comments on blog posts.
My own ePortfolio is a Weebly, and therefore I think Weebly for Education is an excellent resource. It is a free resource. Instructors can create a class website on a Weebly. Students can create an e-Portfolio to display their course work online. An instructor could create up to 40 free student accounts without the need for personal emails. In this situation, blogs on the Weebly can be public or private, and the instructor has access to them all on their own dashboard. The drag-and-drop feature is easy to use. There are appealing multi-media features. The ePortfolio can be shared simply by using the personal website URL created by the student.