Assignment 1

Scenario 2: K-12 School District in Texas Assignment

Stephan Ryan Dorey, Sarah Fitzpatrick, Bryn Hammett, Chava Kassierer, Cristina Leo, and Scott Lillis

University of British Columbia

ETEC 524 64A

Summary

Learning Management Systems (LMS) provide schools and school districts with the necessary tools to organize and enhance teaching and learning

opportunities. Our case study explores the need for a relatively new school district located in Central Texas to purchase and implement a new LMS

in their sizeable suburban public-school district. The composition of the district is unique, serving almost 8,000 students from pre-kindergarten to

twelfth grade. There are eleven campuses which include: one pre-kindergarten, six elementary (K-5), two junior high (6-8), one traditional high

school and one non-traditional high school campus. The demographics of this district are not specified in the scenario; however, central Texas has a

large portion of its families whose mother tongue is Spanish. Information regarding class size reveals a class size that ranges from 12.4 to 18.8

students, with the district student to teacher ratio being 14:1. The district’s goal is to implement an LMS that all eleven campuses can use to create

uniformity and consistency. Current issues lie in the fact that there is no LMS in place for teaching faculty. At this time, many teachers are using a

wide range of web-based learning tools, such as Edmodo, Classdojo, and Remind101 to conduct classroom activities and to communicate with

students and parents, based on personal preference. Use of the LMS would be compulsory, and faculty would receive six hours of training prior to

the school year. All of these factors must be considered when deciding which LMS to choose for this Texas School District.

It was predicted that by 2018 the corporate and academic LMS market will have reached $7.8 billion (Medved, 2015). With over 500 LMSs to

choose from (Weiss, 2013) in this fierce marketplace, picking the right LMS can be a difficult decision to make. Therefore, the following rubric has

been created to help support the district committee members in finding the best LMS to meet this Texas-based school district’s needs. This rubric is

based upon by the revised framework of Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS model to help educators frame technological implementation by asking

pedagogical questions first. Our comprehensive rubric aims to provide a holistic approach to choosing the best LMS that will serve all stakeholders

including administrators, teachers, students, and parents.

SECTIONS Category Criteria Not Suitable (1) Meets Some Of Our Needs (2) Meets All Of Our Needs (3)

STUDENTS Student Is only suitable for a Is suitable for a larger range of Suitable for all ages in multiple 
Demographics small age range and is students but one subset may languages including English and 
only available in English. experience more difficulties. Can Spanish 
easily be translated from English
to Spanish.

Access and Only available on one Students and parents can Students and parents are able to
Equity device and not accessible access content at home​ ​but may access the content conveniently from
off school grounds. experience delays in the content multiple devices. ​Options available for
Parents aren’t granted loading. Parents are not able to parent commenting. Equitable access
access. comment just view. Limited to all students.
features accessible to learners.

Differentiation Limited options on how Has 2-3 different options on how Has multiple features attractive to
students post content and students can post content and different learning styles that promote
receive feedback. Not receive feedback. Limited critical thinking and problem-solving
able to differentiate how options on how to present skills. Students receive feedback in
content is presented. content. multiple ways. Content can be
differentiated.

SECTIONS Category Criteria Not Suitable (1) Meets Some Of Our Needs (2) Meets All Of Our Needs (3)

EASE OF USE Computer and Difficult to understand Some time will be lost from Easy to understand and will require
Information and will take multiple learning and teaching while limited tech support. Orientation and
Literacy / training sessions for students and teachers learn how navigation for students and teachers
Orientation students and teachers. to use the LMS. will be quick.
Technical support will be
needed.

Interface Design Not user-friendly or User-friendly and intuitive for Extremely user-friendly and intuitive for
intuitive. users. Works on most platforms all users on numerous platforms and
Restricted to specific and devices. devices.
devices.

SECTIONS Category Criteria Not Suitable (1) Meets Some Of Our Needs (2) Meets All Of Our Needs (3)

COSTS Overhead License costs are License cost is expensive License cost is within 5% of the
prohibitive (>15% above (5-15% above budget) budget.
budget)
 Training LMS is unintuitive; <50% LMS is fairly intuitive; ~50% of LMS is intuitive; ~75% of teachers are
of teachers are able to teachers are able to adopt LMS able to adopt LMS having attended 6
adopt LMS having having attended 6 hrs or less of hrs or less of professional training.
attended 6 hrs or less of professional training.
professional training.

Application LMS does not support Pre-existing courseware exists Courseware can be created
collaboration between but cannot be modified collaboratively.
teachers on courseware. Pre-existing courseware exists and
There is no pre-existing can be modified.
courseware.

Technical support LMS requires LMS requires some time to set LMS requires minimal time to set up
considerable time to set up and activate and requires and activate.
and up activate and some additional technical LMS requires limited to no additional
requires regular technical support (e.g. to create student technical support.
support. accounts, manage file sharing,
etc.)

SECTIONS Category Criteria Not Suitable (1) Meets Some Of Our Needs (2) Meets All Of Our Needs (3)

TEACHING Coherence LMS is illogical and LMS is fairly logical and LMS serves as a centralized hub and
FUNCTIONS AND inconsistent with teaching consistent with teaching and is fully logical and consistent.
MEDIA SELECTION and learning needs. learning needs. Teachers can Teachers can fully import and integrate
Teachers can not sometimes integrate resources resources, productivity tools, and
integrate resources easily from external apps but with complies with IMS Global Standards if
and/or efficiently. difficulty. integrating third tools. District LMS has
Single Sign-on, linking all members
together.

Curriculum LMS does not allow for LMS offers some collaborative
Integration & curriculum integration planning tools, but is not
Consistency regarding planning tools. accessible by all teaching staff
and administrators. Access does
not link to all grade levels.
Limited access and integration
from external platforms.
LMS offers collaborative planning tools
accessible to all teaching staff and
administrators in real time, across
grade levels. Seamless integration
with existing materials created on
third-party platforms. Materials can be
shared easily between platforms.

Texas Essential LMS does not support LMS includes limited TEKS skills LMS has pre-loaded Essential
Knowledge and TEKS integration of and does not contain information Knowledge and Skills, concepts,
Skills (TEKS) curriculum. for all grades ranging from pre-K aligned for all Grades ranging from
Integration to 12 and is only offered in pre-Kindergarten to 12th Grade that
 English. can be used to plan, design, and
instruct unit and lesson planning.
TEKS contains both English and
Spanish links.

e-Portfolio LMS does not offer an LMS e-portfolio tools are limited.
e-portfolio tool option. Teachers are responsible for
uploading content. Does not
track student progress of skill
development or knowledge.
Access to a portfolio is not
available once archived.
LMS e-portfolio allows teachers and
students access to build coursework
aligned with learning goals and
state-specific skills. E-portfolio has
built-in analytics to track progress and
development. Capable of hosting
multimedia.

Assessment & LMS does not provide LMS provides administrators LMS provides educators with an easy
Reporting teachers and only with access to assessment to navigate, customizable platform to
administrators with an and reporting features. Teachers input feedback, gradebook, and
option to input are unable to customize platform assessment notes. LMS has an
assessment. No reporting based on individual needs. excellent layout for communicating
feature available. reporting to parents.

Data & Analytics LMS does not collect LMS provides limited data
data in a useful way. No collection, partially related to
analytics potential. TEKS learning objectives.
Analytic options not accessible
for individual schools.
LMS provides in-depth data gathering
and reporting on TEKS learning
outcomes district wide.
Long-term data collection provides
tools for analytics and problem-solving
solutions.

SECTIONS Category Criteria Not Suitable (1) Meets Some Of Our Needs (2) Meets All Of Our Needs (3)

INTERACTION Learning Tools Does not provide Includes asynchronous Enables synchronous and
pedagogical diversity. online courses. asynchronous online courses.
Includes only Contains basic tools for Contains a set of tools for creating
asynchronous online creating content. media-rich content. Allows users to
courses. Allows users to check if content easily check if content is aligned with
Does not enable is aligned with standards. standards.
uploading external Enables uploading some Enables uploading external content
content. external content. including books, podcasts, and video
clips.
Allows for adaptive learning.

Assessment Contains a very basic test Contains a more elaborate test Comprises adaptive learning with a
Tools generator with the ability generator, with integration of rich test generator containing tools for
 to add multiple choice or
true/false questions.
Provides instant
automatic assessment
and feedback. Requires
minimal teacher
intervention.
images or other attached files
into assessments. Some
activities allow for instant
automatic assessment, while
assessments of higher order
thinking skills require more
teacher intervention.
creating assessments with multimedia
including quiz/activity over video.
Includes games that help develop
problem-solving skills. Activities can
provide automatic, immediate and
corrective feedback.

Collaboration Limited interaction – Allows for asynchronous online Allows for asynchronous and
And asynchronous discussion discussion forums and synchronous online discussion forums
Communication forums using text only. collaboration with option to and collaboration including instant
Contains some tools for attach images, audio and video. messaging, chat, and web
asynchronous conferencing.
collaboration. Includes option to gamify interaction
through use of virtual world, avatars
and rewards.

SECTIONS Category Criteria Not Suitable (1) Meets Some Of Our Needs (2) Meets All Of Our Needs (3)

ORGANIZATIONAL Institutional Difficult to integrate the
ISSUES Readiness LMS into the District
ecosystem and will
require training for the
technology department.
Can be integrated into the LMS can be easily integrated into the
workflow of the District workflow of the District technology
technology department with department with minimal training and
some training and support. tech support.

SECTIONS Category Criteria Not Suitable (1) Meets Some Of Our Needs (2) Meets All Of Our Needs (3)

SECURITY AND Privacy and Data LMS collects Personal information used to Students’ personal information and
PRIVACY Collection personal information to identify ways to lower the cost learning analytics are used strictly to
market paid services. for the district. support and enrich the education of
students.

Cloud-Based Cloud based data storage Cloud based data storage is All data is located on a local secure
Services is outside the country. always located within the U.S. and encrypted server rigorously
protected against misappropriation. ​A
Data Breach Response plan is in
place.
 Copyright The LMS owns the rights The district maintains control Teachers and students have full and
to all the learning material and ownership of the content open access to all teaching materials
created within the LMS. and data generated by learning created by teachers within the LMS, as
materials within the LMS. well as the data generated.

Password LMS does not require a LMS requires all User sign-in is age or level appropriate
Protection password students/teachers and parents to and mandatory each time.
use a password that may be
stored.

Justification

Based on our scenario, it is critical that the LMS selected suits a diverse range of learners. It must be ​easy to use​ for both students and teachers

and provide meaningful learning outcomes. The committee will also look for an LMS at the most reasonable ​cost​. Beyond the fixed implementation

fee and the annual subscription dues, some LMSs will require more or less IT setup and support as well as supplemental technology to produce

video lessons and enable adaptive learning features. It is therefore imperative to consider all costs above and beyond the base sticker price of the

LMS. While the LMS needs to be simple to navigate for all users, it must provide the ​teaching and learning functions​ necessary to enhance

instruction, learning, and organization of data and analytics. Research suggests technology-based instruction with abundant and diversified

resources and tools can provide high-level ​interaction​ and lead to increased learning (Bates, 2015). The LMS should provide an arsenal of tools to

create engaging lessons and activities for students, including the option to securely upload and incorporate external learning tools, resources and

assessments. Assessment tools are the most used feature in LMSs (Medved, 2015). These tools should provide automatic feedback and

personalized learning paths to enable each student to excel in their learning. The LMS must also provide students and teachers with diverse and

current modes of communication and collaboration, two of the four skills identified as the most crucial 21​st​ ​ ​Century skills in “An Educator’s Guide”.

An LMS that provides communication and collaboration that is suitable for both the classroom and at the district-wide level is another important
consideration for the committee (​organizational issues​). Finally, one must take into consideration the risks to ​privacy and security​ created by

collecting the personal information of students in an era where such information can be accessed and exploited. Protection of student privacy and

data is legally set out in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, 2018). FERPA along with the support of the Texas Student Privacy

Alliance, sets out requirements for the protection of students’ education records and gives parents certain rights with respect to a student’s

education records.

Individual Reflections

Bryn Hammett

References

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