In this week's instructor's notes, I would like to reflect on our Assignment 2 and 3, and our lesson discussion in general to your further learning.
Assignment 2: LMS
By gaining in-depth knowledge of LMS in Assignment 2 would help you to prepare Assignment 3 which is due this Sunday.
Google Docs Sharing: Many of you share your Google Docs with "Anyone at NAU with the link," or with your teammates. For the assignment purpose, the best is to share with me only since your Google Docs assignments contain private information. If you want to share it with your teammates later, you can copy/paste and share the specific sections without my comments and grades. For more information see: https://sites.google.com/site/etcnle/google-docs-sharing
Challenging Assignment: Most of you found this Assignment 2 extremely challenging. It is. Here are my reflections that I shared with a few of our classmates.
Most of us are not used to analyzing learning systems; therefore, we are not confident to approach the criteria. The criteria engage us in fact finding, professional opinion, creative design ideas etc. This is not an assignment that we can fully complete with one attempt. The best way to approach this assignment is to plan ahead to analyze it. Some students, in fact, contact system vendors for further information and contact institutions' IT staff to obtain relevant information may be needed. Most importantly, we need to learn how to analyze learning systems. In the future, you would have a better knowledge and skills of evaluating LMS. In a real work case, as instructional designers, you may coordinate and collaborate with your professional team members to accomplish such tasks. Your team members may have instructional designers, IT technicians/professionals, graphic designers, teachers, students, administrators etc. It is impossible for us to know everything in all aspects of the LMS. More importantly, it is critical to learn "how to assess and to evaluate any LMS."
Large Scale: When reviewing LMS, we tend to set the context on a small scale, such as for a class or a few users. There is a time we need to evaluate LMS on a larger scale for hundreds or thousands of users. In other words, your evaluations should be scalable.
Rationale for selecting certain LMS tools: Many of us justified the selected LMS tools for your final PD was based on "I know the tool," "It is easy for me to use," "It's free," or "I like it" etc. These rationales were ok but not professional enough. As graduate students and experts in educational technology, we should be able to provide more professional analyses from the perspectives of instructional design rather than just "personal" preferences. Instructional designers may not use LMS to teach at all.
Q: May I have your permission to adopt the template to evaluate other online learning tools/systems?
A: Yes. Please feel free to do so. As an educational technology leader/specialist, you may need to evaluate different learning tools/systems in the future. Many ETC graduates use this template to evaluate tools. Just be sure to provide the source/credit when you use it. For example: Source: ETC655, NAU: Online Delivery Technology Evaluation, Rational, & Report, 2022.
Accessibility
One of our classmates has conducted panoptic analysis of accessibility. With permission, to share here with you. LMS Accessibility Evaluation on Google Classroom.
Extra Credit Activity: Evaluate one Adaptive Learning System (ALS)
I am pleased to see we had a few students complete the extra credit activity. These evaluations were trenchant and comprehensive. Congratulations on their accomplishments.
Assignment 3
Your design and ideas for Assignment 3 can be applied to your group final professional development if you and your group members coordinate them.
This is an "Individual" assignment that should reflect your own ideas and design to carry the creativity and originality.
You may find Assignment 3 is challenging. You should start preparing for this assignment as early as possible. In addition, this assignment requires you to have good knowledge and the selected LMS because you need to know any particular features that may support your OCoP design ideas, such as analytic tools and features etc.
Be sure to read Harasim's Chapter 9. You will have a better understanding of the terminologies used in the template.
Q: How can I address #9: Assessing Technological Indicators?
A: In this section, how do we know if a certain tool in the LMS is an effective one to integrate in your unit or should I consider different ones?? Ask yourself, how can we find the answer for this question? For example, how do we know the discussion board in Canvas is effective?
Are the targeted audiences capable of assessing the delivered technology? If not, who else? Could it be other fellow teachers and/or instructional designers who have knowledge in online technology?
After identifying the evaluators, we can decide what assessment methods, survey, interview, rubrics, learning analytics, or others? It is plausible to have more than one stakeholder to evaluate the integrated technologies.
One key question to ask ourselves is: How do I know integrated technology is effective? Does XXX tool work well? Or should I consider different technologies?
Next Week: Lesson 6 Discussions
I would like to inform you in advance of the different participation instructions for next week's Lesson 6 discussions. The rationale is to support Team 5 to facilitate our highly interactive and connective discussion activities. We will conduct a "student-based thread" format rather than "topic-based thread." After Lesson 6, we will resume a "topic-based thread" for the remaining discussion activities, unless specified.
Student-based thread format requires each individual student to have his/her own thread. I have created 15 threads with each student's name. You will reply to your own thread with three separated responses to address the THREE key questions respectively in the 1st posting period.
The "Subject" field of each response to the key question should be labeled clearly in a meaningful fashion. For example:
- K1-CoI: Applying theory & Pedagogy
- K2: Quality of Online Education: QM Compare & Contrast
- K3: SP, SEL, & CRT: Socio-Cultural Learning
See the example thread at: EXAMPLE: TU, Chih
Responding to the classmates' postings remains the same as we conduct a "topic-based thread."
The two-posting period and total six postings remain essentially unchanged.
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