In this module we hope to

explore functionality and

the application of using LMS and VLE environments in K-12 virtual education.

We also hope to help you get a better sense

of how you may want to use these environments in your own teaching.

Where you may be able to access those environments for free, and

then how you can use them particularly to help your students socially interact and

collaborate in your courses.

Now in general, learning management systems and

virtual learning environments are fairly similar.

The difference can lay in some of the capabilities that you'll find in

each of those.

And the kinds of technologies that call themselves those environments,

the specific brands.

But in general we can think of LMS and

VLE capabilities as being similar if not the same.

And those capabilities in those environments

include course administration and logistics tools, so

this is where it becomes your physical classroom in the online world.

Especially if you're teaching entirely virtual education.

You need to have a space where students can be managed or administered.

It's kind of like what chairs do students sit in.

Its, and, and how are you directing them through the lessons each day.

That's what an LMS or a VLE can provide.

It also gives you an very easy accessible, easily accessible

environment for your students to get content associated with their courses.

This becomes important because using an LMS or

a VLE can also help you protect yourself in using content appropriately.

It can limit who you distribute your content to, and

in what duration of time you distribute that content.

And that way most often you can use pretty much any kind of content you wish,

as long as you've been aware of the kinds of permissions available.

It allows you to communicate and collaborate with your students

both on course information, but then also around key topics.

Either prior or after a lesson.

Helping them prepare for exams or assignments.

And we'll talk about that, or even encouraging group work.

You can do all of that in that environment.

It allows you to asses students.

You can have them submit work.

You can have them take quizzes and tests.

You can even have them do peer assessment if you wish in many LMS and

VLE environments.

And it can help you take your course and map it to specific outcomes.

This becomes important particularly in the US or in other countries where there

are curriculum mandates for how you choose to align your content.

Or if your school or district has mandates of how you align your content you can map

activities, experiences, even assessment questions specifically to outcomes.

And then finally, this is a great place for you to monitor your student progress.

So you can not only see when they are logging in and what they're doing, but

how are they looking through those materials.

And depending on how you set a course up, you can get some very good information

very early on in the course, that how well that student may or may not perform and

how you may want to intervene in that student's learning experience.

Finally, in some LMS environments and VLE environments students can also sign up for

personalized notifications or ways to get information

to them about the course so they're almost constantly online.

And I say that in the sense that they're not always in the course, but

they're always being notified in the way they wish to be notified

of what they should be doing, associated with that course.

And that can be really helpful to keep students engaged, and

not have to worry about getting them to come back to your virtual course.

Now, LMS environments also take very seriously data privacy and security.

This is another good thing about using one of these environments

to help support your virtual classroom.

Because you don't have to necessarily worry about who's getting access,

who's using that data, and how are they using that data in your course environment

because these environments are specific for education uses.

And the companies behind them care very strongly about how secure and

private that data is, or at least, in most cases, that is the truth.

So, encourage you to think about where you're housing your students and

how you might use an LMS and VLE to do that in just a way to make sure

that students are getting access to what they're supposed to be getting access to.

And that they're data's secure and private.

Now there's some extended capabilities with LMS and VLE environments as well.

And these include the integration of third party tools.

So in a lot of cases some of the technologies we will talk about further on

in this course, you can actually plug them into an LMS or a VLE, especially if it

doesn't already have that technology or a very good version of that technology.

And you can make these very robust.

I want to say custom, but they're not really custom,

because it doesn't take a lot of work to do this.

But you can make a very robust, custom environment for

students to be learning specifically in your course.

For those of you that aren't familiar with this, there is a website out there.

It's called eduappcenter, and that website will actually list various third-party

tools that work in many of the major LMS and VLE providers.

So it's a good place to check out, hey,

is there something I can plug into my environment?

If I would like to.

You also can have LMS and VLE environments that have your courses have not only

private environments to where your students data and privacy is secure.

But public environments where you can publish some of your own lessons or

teaching or learning or share them with other instructors.

And that can be valuable, but not necessarily a required capability.

But something to look at.

And then finally, depending on the LMS and VLE,

you may have not only access to the data in your course.

But access to it in an aggregate fashion and great reports that you can use

in an aggregate fashion, that can help you get a sense of

your overall approach to the teaching and the course design that you've created.

And how well students in aggregate are performing,

even compared to other students in your school if you wish,

on the particular skills and tasks that are set forth.

Finally, you may be interested in some LMS and VLE that provide parental access.

So that students can have parents and

guardians be able to monitor their work, or see what's due, or

get notifications or announcements related to what their child's work is.

And that can help deepen the engagement, not only with parents, but

even within the school itself.

Now some major providers this list is

not exclusive this is a list of just the more popular

tools out there that people are using in K-12 virtual education.

There's a lot more and in fact,

there's not a whole lot of international products listed on this.

Most of these are US-based.

So I encourage you in discussions to share some of your own favorite country-specific

LMS or VLE providers as well.

But this list includes things like Google

classroom which came out in 2014.

And then some of the four cost but they have free environments.

Tools like a Blackboard, a Canvas, Desire2Learn,

Schoology, there's Edmodo and Moodle which were driven by being free.

And even some of the the younger tools like a Haiku and then one of the more

popular international approach that I am aware of is Fronter but there's lots more.

And so I encourage you to go check those out.

And not only do I encourage you to check them out, but

many of those tools have completely free options for individual teachers.

In fact, many of them let you go sign up as a teacher, enroll your students, and

run your course just as if your district or your school had a license to it.

And you can use it and a great way to either pilot or experiment with that, or

continually support your virtual education.

Especially if you're in an environment where you don't have

a license to one of these technologies within your school or district.

Now how do you pick which one to use?

LMS and VLEs are generally

similar in their capabilities as I've talked about at the beginning but there

are some key differentials that could help you pick which one you want to use.

First and foremost your school may have a license you may or

may not be aware of that but if your school does have a license.

Clearly you want to be able to use a locked down environment for

your students that's very specific to your school.

So that's a great way to use it.

However I do know a number of teachers that the school may have a license for

one technology.

But they want tp use a different one that's free, and many of those are very

secure, because they want to play around with a different set of tools.

So, you know, it may not always be the one you go with but

it's definitely a good one to go with.

There's probably also training resources available at your school or

district associated with it that can be really helpful as you use it.

You should look into, ease of use, and I'm going to say, ease of use, is relative.

Most people would probably disagree with that, but I do believe what's easy for

one person may not be easy for another.

And may not be easy for your students, so you want to think, ease of use,

for you as the administrator of that environment.

But then you also want to think ease of use for your students.

What's going to feel most comfortable for them so

their not wrapped up in how to use the LMS or VLE but instead in the learning.

You also want to think about what your preferred interface is.

And this is different from ease of use we all have a style and

a way we want to present our courses and

our content and our community that we're having students learn in.

I know my course right now is very different than probably many of

the other courses that you've taken.

Well, in that case, we all have that preferred interface and

you want to look at the LMS and VLE environments

to see which one will allow for you to design courses in the way you wish.

And it's that preferred interface, that look and feel.

And then finally, you want to make sure it's applicable to your students.

So, some technologies are better for higher education.

Some learning management systems and VLEs were driven towards higher ed.

Some have been customized for K-12.

Some were driven by K-12.

Some are better for just traditional classes.

Others are blended for bu, better for blended or virtual environments.

You just want to play around with them and

see okay which feels most applicable to my students and

then go look at resources out there and see who's using those technologies and

how they may be similar in their use to how you will use them with your students.

This is particularly important if you're going to use an LMS or a VLE for

young young students.

If you're looking at ages five to ten,

you want to think about which ones allow for big icons,

big print, lots of colors, visuals, and let you do that very easily for students.

Because students are interacting a little bit differently at a young age.

You also want to think about which ones have mobile tools.

So making sure that if your students are tablet users or phone users,

because that's an, an important part of your virtual program that the LMS or

VLE supports a tablet or a phone.

And then finally you want to make sure that that LMS or

VLE has the appropriate country the country and language support.

Many of them will allow you to create courses in different languages have

students pick the langauge that they take their course in.

But you want to make sure your language is supported, people in your country

are using it, or can use it, and that it, it is appropriate in even its language,

not just its translated language, but how people interact.

Are assessments called assessments?

Are, is content called content?

Can you change that?

Asking yourselves those kinds of questions is important when you're picking because

it helps you make sure your environment is most relative to your students.

And last, and probably most important,

you want to look at the kinds of resources that the company provides.

That the community provides.

That maybe even your school or district provides.

So that you can get started as easily as possible.

You have help throughout the process.

And that your students can get access to help when they need it.

Now when thinking about using a learning managing system, or a VLE.

Let's take a moment to reflect on some of the things we just discussed.

Your school, and, and

this is hypothetical as usual, your school does not have a centralized license.

So, you're out there looking at technologies.

I challenge you to go to three of those technologies on the list that we shared,

the particular providers, and just sign up for a free course.

In many cases you can opt out of marketing.

So you're not going to get spammed by those providers.

But what you can do, is take a look at sample courses, and

how you may want to use those environments in your own settings.

This is also a great way, lets say your district does have a license, or

your school does have a license.

Check it out if you've never used it, and investigate how you might create your own

virtual class within that LMS in VLE environment.

Also take a look at what tools may be missing.

Because as we talk about tools moving forward in this course

there may be categories of tools that you specifically want to look into

that you want to bring into your current LMS or VLE environment.

Week 2: Learning Management Systems

Emerging Trends & Technologies in the Virtual K-12 Classroom

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