Managed Learning Environments: School Consultation

What is all this about managed learning environments?

Ian Munro & Paul Seiler

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Agenda

Introduction (Paul) 9.00 – 9.20 2.00 - 2.20

What is an MLE? (Paul) 9.20 - 9.40 2.20 - 2.40

Role of the LMS in an MLE (Ian) 9.40 – 10.00 2.40 - 3.00

ePortfolios (Ian) 10.00 - 10.20 3.00 - 3.20

Social networking sites (Paul) 10.20 – 10.40 3.20 - 3.40

Sharing teacher created resources (Ian) 10.40 - 11.00 3.40 – 4.00

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Introduction: Purpose

• To provide you an outline on what the Ministry has started in the MLE activity

so that

• You can share your views so we can consider them

and

• For you to identify your own knowledge gaps with sufficient lead time to close them before the next road show

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Introduction: Ground rules

• Respect each other– One person speaking at a time– Constructive comments preferred

• No such thing as a stupid question

• State your name and school when speaking

• Each topic will consist of a presentation followed by discussion

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The journey from SMS to MLE

• SMS Project was the starting point (but you know this part)

• SMS-LMS interoperability saw us working with the classroom needs for integration or interoperability

• It became apparent that a wider perspective was required to meet the emerging teaching and learning needs

• The subsequent consideration led us to the MLE concept

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What is an MLE?

• The software tools and digital content that support learning

• Comprised of many different modules, such as an SMS, LMS, eportfolio tool, blog, repositories for digital learning objects and many more

What might the components be?

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Objective of the MLE activity

• To design and promote an– Educationally relevant– Open– Modular– Standards-based– Sustainable

approach to the development and use of MLE for NZ schools

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Questions and discussion

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The role of the LMS in the MLE

• We are selecting a limited number of (funded) partner LMS vendors

• Those not selected will still have access to any standards and specifications that we develop

• The market will remain open to them and any new vendors

• How many LMS can you name?

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What exactly is an LMS? (1 of 2)

An LMS has no formal agreed definition

LMSs from different vendors may look different and do different things

By comparison, SMSs from different vendors may look different, but be surprisingly similar in what they do

i.e. The LMS market is quite immature

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What exactly is an LMS? (2 of 2)

If I sell you, what I call an LMS, then it is an LMS,

Your understanding of what an LMS is will be totally influenced by what I sold you

As a result, school staff in different schools can talk with little understanding of what the other’s LMS is used for

Most LMS originated from Higher Education

Most could better have been described as content management systems and had a strong distant-education focus

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Why not an MLE partner? (1 of 2)

The MLE is a concept

The MLE includes many applications, modules and services

An LMS is a critical component of the MLE

It is the centre of the teaching and learning activity

Most of the attached applications will be accessed directly from the LMS

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Why not an MLE partner? (2 of 2)

Our focus is to ensure that the LMS vendors can deliver and receive digital content from the other applications and digital repositories used in an MLE

This is interoperability – data at both ends of the transfer is interpreted and presented the same way

This also means that digital content can move from one MLE to another

E.g. A teacher moves from one school to another

Schools exchange digital content

Students leave one school and start another

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So why not an MLE partner?

No one application is an MLE?

Some contain 100 or so applications, services and modules

The LMS is the core and that is where we are starting our MLE journey

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How many LMS should we select and work with?

What do you believe are the most important criteria to select by?

What priority do we place on local c.f. off-shore?

ePortfolios – a global phenomenon

Huge global interest and research into this topic (including “for life”)

No clear definition

Many people think of them as a portfolio with an “e” in front

Remember that technology can offer us:

new ways of doing old things and new things

So don’t be blinkered by thinking of ePortfolios as portfolios!

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ePortfolios – a moving target

ePortfolios morph depending on the age of the student

Types or views of an ePortfolios can include:

Assessment

Showcase

Development

Reflective

Personal development plan

Leaving document

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ePortfolios – student maturity

As a student matures:

the help required to maintain an ePortfolio changes dramatically

questions of ownership, access and privacy surface

both short-term and long-term storage may be a problem

The format and transferability must be considered

When does material get archived or deleted? – who decides?

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ePortfolios – ownership

Depending on ownership the following must be considered

STUDENT Veracity and accuracy

What is the ePortfolio to be used for at the next step in the student’s career?

SCHOOL Format – is anything editable? What will it contain? Who has responsibility to pass them on (push or pull?)

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What are you currently doing in this area?

What needs do you believe an eportfolio meets?

Where should the ownership and control for the portfolio lie?

Is integration with an eportfolio tool a high priority for the MLE work?

Social networking and collaboration

A very wide, dynamic field

Our interest is in the expression and publishing of an authentic, student voice

An opportunity to evidence the growth in competencies and display multiple literacies

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What might the components be?

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Do you ban access to some/all of these at your school

How do you teach your students (and teachers) to participate appropriately and safely in an online, connected world?

What applications do you believe have educational value (i.e. potentially a role in an MLE)?

Teachers’ resources – authoring

The LMS usually has some type of editor that enables the user to format and layout text without any knowledge of HTML

Some LMS will “call on” an authoring tool for this task – this is an independent application accessed from the LMS that is specially designed to give you as much power and flexibility (and interoperability) as possible

In most cases you will also be able to add graphics such as digital learning objects, videos, sound files, diagrams, 3D animations, etc

You can also add links to external URLs

An example created in eXe

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Teachers’ resources

This can then be saved and stored as a learning activity or possibly a lesson plan, or maybe a revision test

It can then be made available for students as a digital resource to use at home or at school

The interactive nature of the so called web 2.0 tools provides the students with a much richer learning experience that has ever been possible before

International standards are being developed to help you create multi-choice questions that can be transferred into your LMS and modified to suit your purposes

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Teachers’ resources – duplication

On a large scale Korea has introduced the Cyber Home Learning System designed to reduce the education divide between regions and between classes

The largest use of LMS is corporate training, Boeing for example

In such examples the material is developed by training professionals and delivered via the LMS

Currently in the classroom we are looking at hundreds of teachers doing their own thing with LMS

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Teachers’ resources – the future (2 of 2)

We want to ensure that any material a teacher creates can: move with them to another LMS at another school be shared with a fellow teacher using the same or another LMS at

the same or another school

In the future it is very likely that teachers will be able to access New Zealand written resources tagged to our curriculum at clearly identified levels and objectives

Currently many teachers source overseas material (MIT for example) and have to modify it to suit

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Teachers’ resources – the future (2 of 2)

Quality assured searchable learning activities, assessments and lesson plans are the future

The rapid development of web tools means the online environment is only going to get richer

Next time we will show you the advantages for the students

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What use do your staff make of The Learning Federation’s digital learning objects?

What can we do to improve the use made of these resources?

Do your staff currently share digital resources? Within the school? Between schools?

What can we do to encourage greater sharing of teacher-created resources?