Choosing an online education platform

The last few weeks, I have been spending hours upon hours searching for the right solution to online learning for our students who need credit recovery and courses due to scheduling conflicts.  I never realized how difficult it is to evaluate and how many platforms there are out there.

Of late, we have had our regular education students doing a program with live teachers through a state program. Our special education kids have an online platform that self grades.   We pay the live program per class and each student does their work and have someone grade it.  I have been really frustrated with this method lately because our students are being expected to keep working but don't get a direct response or grade.  They never know how they are doing and how far they have progressed because the teachers have teaching jobs and do this as an extra special.  Face it, they are all busy too, we all are.

So, I started looking for something that can be controlled in house and is comparable to the classroom environment, especially with content.  The online platform we have been using for our special education students isn't as content heavy and the kids who are stronger students won't get a challenge from it.

My process began by starting a thread in several state tech forums.  I wanted to know what others have found to be helpful and what others are using.  I needed to know what people thought and how the programs worked for them.  I understand that every situation is different, but there are a lot of schools out there using online education and a lot of them are finding great success with it.

My endeavor has led me to about 4 programs that meet our needs.  I have spent a lot of time doing meetings with their representatives, pilots, sample classes.  I have found that there is a lot of great stuff out there.  Some of the platforms are very user friendly and can be modified and edited to accommodate the needs of every student. It can be edited to match the curriculum the school district is using.  A lot of these tools are very impressive and exciting.  The cool thing is the cost difference!  We can get kids in online classes every class period for a site license fee and save a lot of money on online learning.  We can do great things offering this.  With so many colleges offering online classes and so many options in life being online, doing this makes for a lot of opportunities for kids to build needed future skills.

I am excited to be a part of the evaluation process.  I look forward to seeing the outcome.

Using an LMS in your class

I recently had the opportunity to attend a webinar hosted on edweb.net and presented by Gail Palumbo.  She shared with the viewers a lot of information about LMS (Learning Management Systems) and how schools are using them in their web environments to expand learning.   I really wanted to investigate some of these tools more to see if there is a platform I prefer over the other.  First of all, let's talk about what an LMS is.  It is a platform online or via server that provides learners with a virtual classroom setting.  There are ways to upload documents, video, calendars, share files and links and collaborate.  A few you may know are Edmodo, Blackboard, My Big Campus and even moodle.  The platforms vary by how they work, but, all in all, they accomplish the same thing: Structure, organization and accountability.  Some of these platforms have built in quizzes and grading systems.  Some link directly to a lot of school based data software such as Powerschool, SDS and the like. The programs make it so much easier to accomplish some of the many things that need to be done in the classroom.

Being in a 1:1 environment, I think having some sort of LMS is important to being successful.  Deciding on a unified program can be good or bad.  Some teachers have different needs with their platform, so forcing everyone to use the exact same platform might not be best for everyone.  On the other hand (let's play devil's advocate here) having everyone on board can allow cross collaboration, paired lessons and potentially make it easier on the kids. (I say this because each one has a different way of getting kids online, each one has a different access code.  That can really overwhelm a kid.)  I hooked our staff up on Edmodo a few years back and a few of them continue using it.  I have also looked at a few other platforms that are free to create classroom settings.

The conversation about LMS is a big one.  There are a lot of them out there.  The key is to choose something you think you can use with students and staff to establish some collaboration.  Here are a few to peruse and try out.  There might be one there that strikes your fancy.

1. Collaborize Classroom:  free platform with a topic library featuring curriculum ideas.  Also has an app to use on an iOS device.
2. Edmodo:  Free, features an app (but I really prefer the web based.) Also has a very strong community with a lot of ideas and curriculum from the many subscribers.  A lot of people share things here.  There is also a capability to create a district account.
3. My Big Campus:  Free to use, online chat help to solve problems.  Good forum and also an app.  Downside, without access to a Lightspeed server, you don't have as much space so adding video and larger files is not a possibility.
4.  Schoology:  Free for teachers.  Good for online courses.  Worth looking at. (I haven't spent a lot of time checking this one out.)
5. Haiku:  I am not really super versed in this one, I saw someone comment about it on a chat once and it looks pretty good.  The person raved about it.