Assignment 3

LMS Course Introduction

Jonathan Nilson

95651148

ETEC 565A
Course Chosen

The course I chose to redesign for this series of assignments was our school’s ICT 8 rotation. This is a 4
week locally developed course intended to provide students with:

 an overview of technology resources available to them.

 an understanding of the expectations around technology use including knowledge of digital
citizenship.
 an opportunity to develop basic skill sets in digital media creation and programming.
 a brief look at what other ICT areas are available for future study as they progress through their
high school career.

I felt this course was particularly well suited to blended model conversion as it essentially studies the
very tools being utilized to access and communicate in the course: an example of practicing what is
being preached. Further, as an introductory grade 8 course, ICT 8 is often assigned to newly hired, term
contract teachers who often have little experience in teaching technology based classes. The provision
of a semi-packaged course, with much of the content, activities and assessment tools already developed
in a digital format would provide these teachers with an opportunity to develop their own competencies
in utilizing an LMS based class, rather than developing activities and content, while ensure a continuity
of experience for our students.

I chose a blended model over a fully online version, as there are still many benefits accrued from the
face to face classroom experience. In particular, I feel the classroom allows for teachers to more easily
differentiate instruction and modify individual learning outcomes. This is a major element in British
Columbia’s new curriculum, which emphasises personalized learning and that “…that not all students
learn successfully at the same rate, in the same learning environment, and in the same ways” (BC
Ministry of Education, 2017). A fully packaged, digital course may offer options, but does not provide
the flexibility necessary to fully adapt to each student’s needs and their previous learning.

LMS Selection

Google Classroom seemed an obvious choice for the development of my blended course. As a
technology facilitator, Google Classroom has been one of the major topics of conversation both amongst
my teacher colleagues as well as among the other tech specialists in my district. Applied retrospectively,
the SECTIONS framework outlined by Bates (2014) incorporates many of the positive points that were
brought up during these discussions. In particular student access and ease of use are areas where
Google Classroom is strong. Google Classroom, as well as associated Google services such as Docs,
Forms and YouTube, are available on a variety of devices that students might utilize for access, ranging
from desktop computers to smart phones and tablets. Further, the ubiquity of YouTube for video
streaming and the commonality between Google Docs, Sheets and Slides and other business application
products like Microsoft Office ensure the easy adoption of these tools for classroom purposes. The same
ease of use and accessibility benefits can be applied to teachers, as well as the ability to easily
incorporate media and interactive elements, while keeping costs low with the sole expense of the
registration of a domain name.

Interaction and Communication

ICT 8 is designed around an inquiry based learning, and makes use of Barell’s (2003) KWHLAQ model
which consists of:

 K: What do we already Know about the topic?

 W: What do we Want or need to know?
 H: How will we find the answers?
 L: What have we Learned or are in the process of Learning?
 A: What Actions should we take?
 Q: What new Questions do we have?

As such, much of the interaction and communication in Google Classroom will focus on documenting
and elaborating on the inquiry process. This will include solely online activities, such as the use of digital
mind maps like Coggle.it, to establish and organize existing knowledge, with the completed results
communicated back via an assignment submission. It will also include the digital documentation of in
class, face to face activities, such a video recordings of group discussions and brainstorming sessions to
determine inquiry questions and establish what the students want to learn.

An additional theme to this remodeled ICT 8 is laying the foundations for digital participatory culture as
outlined by Jenkins et al (2009). In particular, it is intended that students will develop the basic skills
necessary to create their own media, be provided the opportunity to share their media while in turn
viewing others’, and feel that their creations matter or have an influence within their social sphere.
Google Classroom will help facilitate this interaction by allowing students to share some of their
creations via tools such as YouTube while receiving peer feedback through the comment features.

A final element that impacts communication and interaction, from the student perspective, is the
incorporation of reflective practices. Reflections provide students with an opportunity to engage in a
meaning-making process, which according to Rodgers (2002) “…moves a learner from one experience
into the next with deeper understanding of its relationships with and connections to other experiences
and ideas”. Equally important, is that reflections allow students to illustrate how the activities and
experiences have impacted their knowledge, and the degree of learning that has taken place. Google
Classroom will facilitate the collection of reflections in a variety of media formats, ranging from simple
comments attached to assignment submissions to vlogs where students can verbally articulate how they
feel their learning is progressing.

From a teacher perspective, one of the major interactive elements will be the digital documenting of
formative assessment and feedback. Rather than a few comments on a rough draft assignment which
are quickly forgotten or lost in a binder, feedback will be attached to specific submission and be
available for continuous review. This will also provide a broad-spectrum view of the learning that has
taken place over the four weeks of ICT 8, including how students have adapted or incorporated the
feedback into their practices. This in turn will provide a useful foundation for a final summative
assessment of non-content, more skill related or comprehension-based areas of the course.

Assessment

Assessment will be primarily formative, with student submissions and reflections receiving feedback and
opportunities to apply the feedback and make corrections. All module assignments and activities will
require completion but will not necessarily receive a specific letter grade or percentage. Summative
assessment will occur at the end of each of the four modules, preceded by an end of module student
reflection in which they summarize what they have learned or how their thinking has been impacted.
These four summative grades will be combined to achieve final mark, although students may request to
have previous modules reassessed if there have been changes to their learning.

The use of Google Forms as means of making a self-assessed, automatic feedback providing quiz was an
interesting experience, but one that would not have a major assessment role within this class. I would
limit its use to those few rote-memorized content areas that are required learning outcomes.

A Note on the Introductory Assignment

Like many of the online course I have taken, including this one, I chose to make a video introduction the
opening assignment for my course. While not especially ground-breaking, the expectation that students
would regularly post video reflections or document their activities via video and YouTube posts made
this a logical first step. Further, it is a means of introducing the inquiry process that is at the heart of the
class, by establishing what the students currently know and what they would like to learn. This can later
be bookended by a final, exit reflection in which they highlight all that they feel they have learned.

Citations

Barell, J. (2003). Developing More Curious Minds. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.

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/

British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2017). BC's New Curriculum: Curriculum Overview. Retrieved
from: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/overview

Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Weigel, M., Clinton, K., & Robison, A. J. (2009). Confronting the challenges
of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. MIT Press. Retrieved from:
https://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

Carol, R. (2002). Defining reflection: Another look at John Dewey and reflective thinking. Teachers
college record, 104(4), 842-866. Retrieved from:
http://www.bsp.msu.edu/uploads/files/Reading_Resources/Defining_Reflection.pdf
To Do

Adjust write-up to include inquiry model

Create introductory video

Adjust assignment