Learning Management Systems and Education Suites
Just because learning sometimes looks messy, it doesn’t mean it lacks structure. Imagine a whole new world without a stack of papers to grade in which the assignments students submit are all organized and recorded in digital folders. Access to technology allows teachers to eliminate the stack of papers and create digital learning experiences that are meaningful and even more powerful to both students and teachers than paper. Schools in the 21st century use many different software programs and web-based applications, or learning management systems (LMSs), to stay organized. Most learning management systems have some free features and premium (paid) school or district solutions. In most schools, everyone uses the same system so students and parents don’t need to learn a different LMS for every class. Most learning management systems allow the teacher to message students, assign and collect documents, report student progress, and deliver e-learning content. Throughout the book, you will notice we provide steps for how you can give digital files to students and then how students return the digital files to you through the classroom LMS.
Common learning management systems include the following, but you can find hundreds of others on the market.
• Schoology (www.schoology.com)
• Showbie (www.showbie.com)
• Seesaw (https://web.seesaw.me)
• Canvas (www.canvaslms.com/k-12)
• Edmodo (www.edmodo.com)
• Otus (https://otus.com)
• PowerSchool Learning (www.powerschool.com/solutions/lms)
• Blackboard (www.blackboard.com)
• Moodle (https://moodle.org)
• D2L (www.d2l.com)
These options include both free and paid LMS platforms. One free option that needs a little more explanation is Google Classroom (https://classroom.google.com). Google Classroom is a cross between a document management system and a learning management system. It does not contain all the features of an LMS, but it is a great way to get started with managing a digital classroom.
In addition to an LMS, many school districts use an education productivity suite like Google’s G Suite for Education (https://edu.google.com/products/productivity-tools) or Microsoft Office 365 for Education (www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office). We focus on Google’s platform because it’s device agnostic, but if your school or district uses a different platform, you will find corollaries with it that allow you to adapt our content to your needs.
With G Suite for Education, every user in a district has a unique login and password to enter his or her own part of the G Suite, granting him or her access to the following services.
• Google Docs for word processing
• Google Sheets for spreadsheets
• Google Slides for presentations
• Google Forms to create quizzes and surveys
• Google Drawings to create illustrations
• Google Drive to store and share files
Using these online environments, students and teachers can communicate and keep documents online and available on any device that connects to the Internet. They can keep these documents private or share them with others.
To highlight the value of a product suite such as this, note that our writing team used Google Docs to organize and write this book. Twenty-seven coauthors took part in writing the NOW Classrooms series, and none of us can imagine how we could have done this without using a collaborative platform like G Suite. Students also need to experience this type of collaborative process to prepare for college and careers. Collaboration, improving work based on formative feedback, and working with digital tools will help students prepare for an increasingly technology-driven world so that they can adapt their skill sets to fit newer and better tools as they get older.
Student Privacy and Internet Use
As educators, we make it our goal to prepare even very young students for the world beyond the classroom, as they live in a connected world. For that reason, in many of this book’s lessons, you will see students share their work beyond classroom walls. This connection to the outside world is an important one, but before you start tweeting pictures or sharing student work online, make sure you understand your school’s and district’s policies for sharing information on social media. Talk to your administrator, and ensure that you understand what you can and can’t share online. In addition to staying mindful of school and district policies, you should familiarize yourself with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 before you have students publicly share their work.
Grades 6–8 teachers often find this age group particularly tricky to navigate because these students reach age thirteen at various times. Many online platforms and tools, including some referenced in this book, require students to be age thirteen or older to create an account or share content. In adapting this book’s lessons and processes to your classroom, be particularly mindful of this, but remember that there are many creative ways to use these tools for learning without violating district policies or privacy laws. For example, students can still have the experience of Twitter by having a class account that you control.
SAMR Model
When implementing technology, always remember learning comes first. You can use several models when evaluating if you are using technology’s full potential to enhance learning. Ruben Puentedura’s (2012) SAMR model is one such tool (see figure I.2). This model consists of four levels: (1) substitution, (2) augmentation, (3) modification, and (4) redefinition. The substitution level treats technology as a substitute that doesn’t change learning. At the augmentation level, technology provides a fuctional improvement. According to Puentedura (2012), learning transforms when it reaches the levels of modification and redefinition. At the modification level, technology use significantly changes the task, while redefinition occurs when you use technology to create a task that was previously impossible.
To learn more about the SAMR model and how you can apply it to your NOW classroom, visit our blog (http://nowclassrooms.com/samr-model).
Assessment
Formative and summative assessments are integral parts of teaching and give invaluable information on how students are progressing. These assessments also help grades 6–8 teachers streamline their data and adapt instruction accordingly. We recommend that you use your classroom LMS to house your assessment data and ensure that students and parents have access to it. As students share work, give constructive feedback and record your feedback in your own data files. There are many assessment programs out there that may also be helpful, but because this book features creation-based lessons, we focus this text only on formative assessment options in relation to NOW lessons.