In the third of our four-part series of articles on learning management systems, Sean Aiken Head of Basis Independent School in McLean and Dr Daniel Usera from Arkansas State University talk about e-learning platforms in their institutes.
Also read:     – Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 1

          – Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 2

 

Software simply cannot replace the dynamic, co-creative classroom interaction between teacher and student. Technology is one of many tools available to teachers to inspire students to take ownership over their learning. But there is no replacement for a genuine relationship – you will always remember your favorite teacher more fondly than your favorite computer.

At BASIS Independent, our approach to the use of technology in education is highly focused: we use technology to help us solve problems of scale, as the connective tissue that joins an international network of PreK-12 schools. Most learning platforms are designed to displace the teacher or compensate for weak pedagogical talent. Our platform by contrast is designed to give full control to trusted educators and their unique styles and goals to strengthen and enhance our services over time.
BASISedLink and Assessment our curricular management system, was created to address the challenging balance of accountability and autonomy in the classroom. It’s an example of expertly curated crowd sourcing for instructional design and quality control, to ensure that crucial decisions are made by master teachers and not top-down, centralized bureaucracies.
With BASISedLink and Assessment (BELA), our teachers capture, organize, and share their innovative lesson designs, topic sequencing, time allocation, best practices, and desired outcomes – all in real time. Each topic is linked to assessment tools of varying form, depth, and complexity, like simulations, or short answer, and yes even multiple choice. We want to expose students to diverse avenues in which they can demonstrate success and then let expert teachers determine the best course of action. This intersection of teacher agency and student performance produces useful data to inform the path they will walk together.
BASISedLink and Assessment’s planning and review features help teachers analyze what their kids have actually mastered, not just what they’ve completed. Students benefit from adaptable, authentic learning experiences that align to what’s actually happening in their classrooms. We expect teachers to diverge from a syllabus when the needs of their students call for it, and that flexibility is vital to their lifelong engagement.
The science and art of learning is extraordinarily complex. When we consider the course of technological progress, we should be cautious about those ‘advancements’ that further diminish the role of teaching as an actual profession. Rather than pitching technology against teachers, tools like BASISedLink and Assessment help energize and empower us to create richly-layered and highly interactive learning experiences for all our students.

Arkansas State University uses a very popular LMS. I think it definitely has advantages. It acts as a central hub where students can turn in all of their assignments in one place, and they can see their grade progress without having to send an e-mail. It makes keeping track of student assignments way easier.
The LMS has a ton of features like plagiarism detection, creating forums, and blog posting. With students being more computer-savvy these days, I think they enjoy the convenience of accessing course material and their grades at the click of a few buttons.
There are a few disadvantages, however. Some students (especially non-traditional) are not as computer literate, so they will often e-mail me asking how to do basic tasks. Every once in a while, a student will use the LMS malfunctioning as an excuse for turning in a late assignment (e.g. “the LMS wasn’t working” or “I tried turning it into the LMS but it kept getting an error.”) And at my university, the IT people often have to do “maintenance” on the LMS, which requires it to go down for periods of time. And if you don’t like reading off screens, grading assignments can be a strain on the eyes after a while (so I have to take breaks).
So that’s my experience.

This is the second of our four-part post on learning management systems. Read Learning Management Systems: Your Opinion – Part 1, where Donna Lubrano from the Northeastern University in Boston shares her opinion with our readers.

In this post, Kathy Walter, Educator and CEO at Nsoma, reveals her thoughts on Learning Platforms and their contribution to student learning.

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are used in a number of schools to deliver online learning content in a structured way. As opposed to gather random search content from search engines, learning management systems do just that – they manage learning based on the subject, teacher and curricula being taught. Like all technology, they work only as well as the people or person loading them with content. Most technology solutions for learning do not come with content and those that do need to have that content licensed separately.

Learning Management Systems are great for delivering content to students for a number of reasons.
1. Different paces, steering together: because you can control what content students see, but students do not necessarily know where other students are in their learning path. So, for instance, one student may be far ahead in a lesson and another may be far behind, but unless the lesson plans for them working together on a topic, each student proceeds at their own pace.
2. Anytime, Anywhere: LMS allows students to log in at school or at home. So if they are sick or miss an assignment, want to review for the day ahead or want to go back and review a concept they did not understand, it’s all possible.
3. Flexible Delivery: Most LMS render on a computer or laptop, but also on mobile phones and tablets. So it does not matter what device a student has, they can learn from anything.
4. Special Needs Handled: When students require additional mechanics like braille readers, color blind screen adaptors, text readout, etc, many LMSs link with other technology tools to help all learners.
As with any technology, there are also drawbacks:
1. Training: LMSs are more prevalent these days, but many schools and teachers still have not learned to use them. And schools may change their LMSs as contracts expire and new bids have to be issued. It takes a long time to train staff and students to use them when it’s not something they are familiar with.
2. Let me in! LMSs require logins and when they are not sync’d with other login systems and a student forgets a password, it takes valuable learning time to get them up and running
3. Technology changes: LMS companies deliver a lot of technology changes each year, but not all LMSs have the same functionality. Some can vary widely. And some functionality works more intuitively than others. This can be frustrating for users when they expect to do something quickly and wind up with more work – for instance, teachers trying to load in lessons and assessments. People usually adapt well, but when a new round of changes comes out, companies still have a habit of not always understanding classroom and school processes, and it can lead to user frustration. Too much user frustration, particularly by teachers means some will stop using a system all together.

Bottom line: every school should have an LMS. The types and cost vary widely, but technology runs our world. Not introducing our school kids to technology in all aspects puts them at a severe disadvantage. It’s worth the time and effort to deliver at least part of their education via online content.

Kathy Walter, CEO at Nsoma, is responsible for conceiving and delivering innovative solutions that support the instructional and educational agendas of school districts and edTech companies. She recently served as the Executive Director, Product Strategy & Innovation at the NYC Department of Education and prior to that as Director, Product Development at a start-up online learning solution.
Kathy has a BA in Applied Math from Union College, an MBA From NYU’s Stern School of Business, and a Graduate Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). She’s currently completing her JD at Fordham Law School in Education and IP law. Kathy has been an ESL Educator at Northeastern University and Cambridge Learning Center; an ESL curriculum consultant with the YearUp program in Boston; and a program developer for several teaching projects in Uganda.

We’ve asked education experts about learning management systems in their organisations, how they benefit their students and if they see any disadvantages or problems in using them. As the replies we received were numerous, we’ll be posting a four-part series of articles, where education experts give their opinion on learning management systems. This is the first part of that series.

The first opinion comes from Donna Lubrano at the Northeastern University in Boston:

Learning Management Systems are fantastic tools for the instructor as well as the students. For the professor it provides a repository for all the learning materials to be used for the course, a systematic approach to the course development, and learning tools to make multimedia presentations, such as podcasts, videos exams and quizzes.

The classroom is a new entity where the majority of learning comes from the students preparation for the physical classroom experience. The LMS provides the delivery of those tools that can be used outside of the classroom in preparation. It allows the professor to curate the material and provide his/her perspective on the subject/material. This is especially helpful for remote learning, hybrid and full online learning environments.
For the student it’s fantastic. They have a clear path to the material and a dynamic learning environment using many of the mediums which are part of their everyday experience. Listening to podcasts and viewing videos can be done on their smartphones while traveling or even in a coffee shop.
The multimedia nature of the tools and resources accommodates the many different types of learners and provides an opportunity to even have some fun with tools such as Quizlet to take quizzes, research tools and other materials.
Learning is no longer confined to the classroom; Harvard Professor, Eric Mazur and his concept of Peer Instruction and the flipped classroom support this idea for course management software. It has helped re-engineer the instructor’s role from “sage on stage” (not my words!) to “guide on the side”. The LMS helps the professor “curate” the material for the student to help guide them through the subject. In the curation the student gets to understand the professor’s perspective as well.
A notable disadvantage is that the student has to be technically savvy, have reliable internet access and a computer, iPad, or phone. Without those tools they cannot do the work. So in lower-income areas or schools, these tools may not be readily available to all students and will put them at a disadvantage in regards to other students.
For older students, especially those who are returning to school via online programs, learning the LMS toolset can be a barrier in and of itself. Especially if they are exclusively online and may need in-person help to learn the systems. Professors need to set clear office hours to help students over some of those barriers and to provide alternatives for students who don’t have reliable access to computers and the internet. This can be done with more flexible deadlines and options to hand in homework the old-fashioned way, via paper.
The benefit to the student is tremendous; it is 24 hours a day access to the classroom requirements; especially for those students who work to pay for their education – it allows them to work on their reading and assignments, before or after work. Because learning is a very collaborative environment, the LMS has incredible collaboration tools that don’t require students to be in the same room together. A classroom in Dubai can work on a project with a classroom in US using tools like video conferencing etc. These tools are game changers and continue to change the role of the professor and the way classrooms are designed.
Donna Lubrano is an adjunct faculty with a Master’s degree in International Business from Boston University. She has experience in a broad range of commercial endeavors including, health and fitness, international education, event and conference planning, healthcare, and corporate training. She has worked with students from around the globe, in Leadership and Entrepreneurship. She is a frequent contributor to on-line articles, is a business mentor to small businesses and start-ups. She is currently working on an international virtual student exchange program that would allow students who cannot travel abroad to work on business projects with students from international classrooms.

Image taken from Element14

Today, Raspberry Pi announced and launched the PiZero, a tiny £4 computer that can be reprogrammed for a variety of purposes and can even run programs like Minecraft. It’s an astonishingly tiny and cheap computer, and it opens up the possibilities for coding in the classroom.
The machine is so small and cheap that they’re even willing to give it away for free on the cover of MagPi magazine, meaning the tiny tech toy will be one of the most easily-acquirable computers ever made. This is something that your average KS2 pupil can buy with their pocket money, and it opens up a world of technology that will help them become the coders and programmers of the future.

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A pupil at Harrogate’s Saltergate Junior School has been declared the winner of our national Digi Designer Competition! The competition asked for schools up and down the country to design a website using the child friendly design software found in School Jotter’s ePortfolio for the chance to win an iPad Mini.

The competition received hundreds of entries, but the winner, Charlotte Durosaro, a Year 6 student at Saltergate Junior School, was awarded her prize on October 6th. Her design used a huge array of features, including the built in profile, image gallery and video embedding.

Charlotte was awarded a certificate to commend her great work and an iPad Mini to keep designing her wonderful websites on.
Although Charlotte was the overall winner, there were also two runners up, with Aman Praveenb using his excellent HTML, Java and CSS knowledge to secure a highly commended certificate and goodie bag, and a team of pupils going by the acronym SVER used their teamwork to make a great page about dogs, landing them a goodie bag each.
Webanywhere’s CEO Sean Gilligan says “We’re delighted to help find budding talent such as Charlotte and support young people developing skills for the future. Web design is a skill that children will need to learn as everything heads online – we’re proud to be supporting technology education and its evolution in the classroom. We’re delighted to see coding make it onto the curriculum, and we hope that running competitions like these shows teachers how they can combine the creative with the technical to inspire their students.”
Keep an eye on the blog for more updates about upcoming competitions, and if you’d like to try out ePortfolio yourself check out the free trial available here!

Government advisor Tom Bennett was recently on Good Morning Britain, discussing with the hosts the issue of school students and gadgets – 20% of whom will have over £400 worth. Bennett seemed resolutely opposed to the “creep” of technology into schools, and as an education technology provider, we’re here to fight the corner of the tablet and the laptop in the classroom.
Before we start, I do want to note that Mr Bennett isn’t entirely opposed to the idea of having tablets in classroom (and indeed his ire is focussed far more on mobile phones), and happily says that an iPad could be there if teachers have “strong reasons to use them” – additionally he’s willing to be proven wrong if in five years’ time everything turns out well. However, we rather think that Bennett’s definition of “strong reasons” might differ somewhat from ours!

As an advisor on bad behaviour, Bennett’s key objections with mobile devices seem to be how open they are to abuse, and I’ll concede this is a fair point, especially with mobile phones. Their smaller screens and boosted connectivity (with mobile broadband allowing kids around school filters) provide a less-than-ideal working environment. A tablet, however, can mitigate many of these problems, especially if provided by the school and connected to the school’s managed Wi-Fi. Distraction will always be a problem, but to assume kids will automatically get distracted just because they “can” is to do a disservice to their intelligence. If a child wants to learn, they’ll learn – why not give them the best interactive learning environments possible?
I’m particularly confused as to Bennett’s problems with a viewer whose school has gone paperless, and whose homework is now set via an app. Would he rather teachers instead deal with illegible handwriting, endless paper and cramped hands from manual marking? Setting homework and assignments online can save everyone – teachers, students and parents – time and effort – indeed according to ITV, 33% of respondents are now doing just that. Teachers can even plan out a term’s worth of work ahead of time, to be automatically assigned and even, in some cases, graded. Perhaps this can’t be the case for longer, essay-based work, but why mark a worksheet manually when you can have a VLE mark 30 of them automatically, instantly?
The problems, though, come when this tech is miss-used. We’ve got customers around the country (and indeed the world) happily tapping away on iPads and laptops, utilising their VLEs without the problems Bennett seems to think all gadgets bring. As ever, it’s important to note that none of these schools have got rid of textbooks or face-to-face learning, and this is never something we’d advocate.
Interested in finding out how you can better engage pupils using your VLE and a bring-your-own-device policy? Contact us for a free consultation at education@webanywhere.co.uk

Five years ago I took the plunge into the wonderful world of the smartphone. I’d been using the mobile web on-and-off for a couple of years on my low-powered old Samsung phone, but it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience, rife with poorly-designed mobile websites hiding information behind labyrinthine menu structures. With my new HTC Desire though I’d be able to experience the web as its designers meant me to.
I was rather surprised, therefore, to find that I was getting roughly the same mobile experience on my high-end smartphone as I was on my low-tech feature phone. None of the websites I’d visit in the phone’s browser seemed optimised for mobile browsing, it was an overall unpleasant experience. I ended up having to use a browser (Dolphin) which let me spoof a desktop user-agent so I could actually see the content I requested.

Three years ago, the Desire having outlived its usefulness, I upgraded to the phone-du-jour, a Galaxy S3. I hoped that, in the intervening two years, with smartphones getting huge, I’d be able to dispense with my habits of browsing desktop-optimised websites on a (relatively) small screen, but this was not to be. Despite the upgraded power of the Galaxy, websites were just as sluggish and unresponsive as when I was browsing with the Desire.
I’m a bit of a tech geek, so I tend to upgrade my phones relatively often, so 2014 saw the purchase of a shiny new LG G3, with a bigger screen and a frankly silly screen resolution. Due to inertia and habit, I continued to browse using Dolphin, as I did five years ago, requesting desktop versions of mobile sites, unaware of the shifts going on behind the scenes. With Google’s algorithm changes in April 2015, responsive web design had suddenly become not only useful but entirely necessary. Despite carrying a mobile supercomputer in my pocket, the mobile web still looked pretty rubbish to me.
And so recently, on a whim, I switched browsers to something a bit more modern. While it might have won awards back in 2011 and 2012, Dolphin’s showing its age a bit, so I decided to try out Mozilla’s mobile offering and started using Firefox. It seems that, while I’ve been ignoring it, the mobile web actually became usable, and it’s all thanks to responsive web design. No longer do I have to go through the cumbersome process of requesting desktop sites then trying to navigate the tiny menus to get to the page I want. Everything from my news sources to my social media is presented in a mobile-optimised format, the information isn’t hidden behind awful mobile websites or splash screens asking I download an app.
What does this mean for schools? It means that if your website isn’t responsive, you’re missing out on engaging parents. People getting their first smartphone now won’t be using Dolphin, they’ll be using Chrome or something similar – they won’t be requesting desktop views, they’ll be wanting the information right underneath their thumbs, and you need to provide it to them. 60% of web browsing is now done on the phone, can you afford to cut them out or give them a substandard experience?
Is your site responsive? You can check it using Google’s own mobile-friendly test tool. Come up negative? Give School Jotter a try. All new Jotter school websites are fully responsive and mobile optimised.

Our resident Totara expert Ben Wagner explains how using the LMS in schools can help improve your staff’s training and CPD.
For those that haven’t heard of it, Totara (pronounced “To-Tra”) is a workplace-focused LMS used by organisations around the world for compliance training and continual professional development (CPD). It’s based on another open source LMS, with additional extensions on top to add the feature set required in a modern workplace environment. The idea behind the system is to reduce barriers to training and ensure that learning can take place at any time, anywhere, ensuring that staff can keep on top of their training.
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