APRIL 8, 2017

OLTD504
Addressing student learning needs through the context of how online learning, blended learning and face-to-
face teaching can meet the needs of diverse student backgrounds and abilities requires instructors and
institutions to look at how the combination of Learning Management Systems (such as Canvas, Moodle and so
on) as well as non-LMS systems/applications (such as (Office365, Google Suite, and so on) work in conjunction
together to meet educational outcomes. In my own context as an Elementary School Intermediate Resource
Teacher, I wanted to narrow the focus of my toolkit to match my own teacher creedo with the needs of my
students as well as look at what is currently available as tools (as of March, 2018) at the lowest cost possible
(considering maximum value for students)
The following four questions helped me narrow the focus of tools I wanted to explore and use based on what I
believe is important to me as a teacher and what is important for my students when it comes to selecting a non-
learning management (non-LMS) toolkit:
1) How can I individualize student learning for all learners
2) How will I provide enriching content and organization?
3) How can I build community and inspire meaningful and engaging communication/interaction
4) How will I assess as, for and of learning?
The following indicates the tools I felt met the needs of my students as well as me as a teacher given my context
(available technology/resources, school district provided technology platforms, funding for learning resources
and so on). Some of the tools meet my needs in several categories.

Office 365 Despite sometimes slow responsiveness within the Office365 environment (apps are
often slow to load) a few reasons why I really like Office 365 are the following:
There is no cost for institutions, teachers or students to use all the apps (such as my
school district). For example: Microsoft Word, Excel, ClassNotebook, Calendar,
One-Note, Powerpoint etc, and One-drive are available online 24-7 with virtually
unlimited storage. There is actually a huge list of free Microsoft educational and
related apps available from Office365 (available from the Microsoft app store) to use
with your school’s Office 365 license (if you have one like I do). All
students/teachers in my district by default have an email account from which to login
to Office365 as well. I really like this feature because you don’t have to ask students
to create accounts as they already have a default email address and a default student
Office365 space online. Office 365 allows for forming of classroom groups, and
student groups etc., all under teacher control, and privacy settings can be controlled
as well so that others not in the groups cannot view/participate unless they have
invites. Organization of learning content is fantastic in Office365 with an unlimited
number of add-in apps (planner, one-note, one-drive and so on). Documents (new or
existing in the cloud) can be edited/modified by everyone in the group if shared
(even in real time). Students don’t even have to be in the same room to collaborate
using a shared document. One of the best new apps in Office 365 is OneNote. It
gives you one place to work and collate all your information. Also included in Office
365 is OneNote Class Notebook, which allows a teacher to create a notebook specific
to their class and automatically set out the permissions needed for that notebook. One
Note ClassNotebook provides a collaboration space to work in, a content library to
set work or add resources for the students and then a space for the students to work
individually. Each section has its very own special permissions so it leaves me as the
 teacher not having to worry about who has access to the student’s documents. In
terms of individualizing student learning, Onenote / OneNote classroom and
Microsoft teams are a couple of powerful tools that allow students and teachers to
use a variety of apps to engage in student learning and where students can
demonstrate their learning even when they have unique learning needs. (Here is a
short video of how that looks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=104i8tnfA1k) One
thing also that is not so well known about Office 365 is you have 1TB of free space
to use. This is great because schools and teachers don’t have to worry about physical
storage on local servers, computers or USB drives anymore. It also provides a safe,
virus-free, accessible space for files, documents, photos and data. In terms of
discussion (collaboration), Office 365 uses sharepoint for discussion boards, and
newsfeed (commenting) (see https://sharepointmaven.com/newsfeed-or-discussion-
board/). Sharepoint has been around for years and it certainly can facilitate a
discussion forum or newsfeed commenting. Teachers have Management/Moderation
capabilities in the section which allows featuring of certain discussions. I think this is
very important that discussions online are being monitored and moderated. Having
said that, the Sharepoint discussion board and newsfeed are very limited in terms of
functionality and compared to Facebook, Twitter and other tools. In reality, both lack
the true social aspect you would expect from such tools. For this reason, I would
likely choose another platform such as Edmodo to have a discussion etc. To improve
upon this problem recently Microsoft has release new social apps in Office 365
called Yammer, Office 365 Groups, Microsoft Teams, and Planner which provide
much more extensive social features which integrate well not just with SharePoint
sites, but also other Office 365 tools. I have yet to fully realize the potential of these
new apps myself, but given time, I will see how they perform when compared to
competing apps like G+ and other social centric apps outside of Office365. In terms
of assessment office365 has a app called “Forms” that provides instructors a tool to
generate quizzes for students in the Office365 environment. (see
https://forms.office.com). Granted this is not as robust or as nice as evaluation tools
such as you might find in an LMS, however it is something (better than nothing).
What I also like about Office365 is the integration of the calendar tool and to-do-list
(separate app) with email. If you are using a Office365 email like I am at work, it is
nice when I manage reminders or events all in one platform.
Gooru.org I use Gooru to create engaging rich media student learning units that are well organized
and structured for ease of student understanding. For example, as part of my Non-LMS
build for this learning week, I created a student learning unit on Earth and Space
Science for middle school aged students, much the same way I did with the LMS build
in the previous week that incorporated video/audio and a variety of questions and
assignments/assessments. However, Gooru is not a learning management system at all.
It lacks some very important features such as the capability of facilitating group
discussions and teachers cannot have asynchronous or synchronous discussions in the
Gooru platform with students. No calendar function also is a downside. Having said
that, the main two strengths of using Gooru is the assessment tools and organized
approach to learning modules. For example, Gooru has the capability for teachers to
create formative and summative student assessments using teacher created questions
(9 different methods of question types), and it provides data and analytics on those
assessments in the form of student scores and student responses. Assessment items can
also be tagged to learning outcomes. Gooru also has the ability to have an organized
way to personalize student learning and deliver a variety of enriching digital content
that is interactive. For example, students in need of support with a learning
challenge/difficulty can work through a lesson unit tailored/dedicated to them. It is
easy to remix and leverage content (adapt and modify for a variety of learner types)
This is great feature of Gooru and reminds me of the Commons collections in Canvas.
In terms of engaging content, the teacher can create their own engaging class learning
collections which are divided into a study and practice sessions. Gooru has excellent
compatibility with embedding hundreds if not more types of rich digital media into its
pages. (for example, YouTube videos, websites, flash-enabled content, online courses,
and other resources that are high engagement for students). Alternately, for extension
activities, students looking to explore a new subject could build and share their own
 collection of materials. In terms of organization much of the site has the look and feel
of an learning management system with structured modules that are quite user friendly
to use. Each learning unit and lesson has a topic, description and instructions with
outcomes (should the teacher include them) as well as easy to navigate cloud-based
website. Each student course on Gooru has a classcode that is only open to invited
students. Best of all there is no advertising in the space and the cost is completely free.

Engrade Originally developed as a gradebook tool for teachers many years ago, Engrade excels
with respect to having robust functionality in student assessment and grading, as well
as being able to communicate with/to parents and students electronically. However, to
get full access to everything, you will need to pay for the PRO license. Having one
place to organize and track student assessment and student grades is one strong
advantage of choosing to use Engrade. Similar to Edmodo, Engrade has
communication features such as you would find on social networking sites and other
student portfolio and assessment apps like Fresh Grade or Seesaw. Engrade has a
plethora of tools in addition to grade books such as attendance, rubrics, calendars,
quizzes, assignments and so on. Engrade has an excellent interface to facilitate
communication with parents and students, even a feature to send text message to
parents about their student and their performance. I don’t think I would ever want to
communicate to parents via text messaging however. I prefer using a class website
(with student portfolio) for communication of student learning with parents or use
Fresh Grade or SeeSaw etc. With Engrade, I can categorize assessments via thread or
topic and place a weight on each of these categories. With it, grades can be entered
directly into a report card. Engrade makes it possible for teachers to enter assignments,
tests and quiz scores into a grade book |(grade weighting is also possible). Having said
all of that the cost of using this toolkit is expensive and unless my school district had
a free license I would have reservations about using it beyond the free-trial period no
matter how good it was in the areas mentioned above.

Edmodo One of the greatest strengths of Edmodo is the classroom dashboard where students
can see the assignment/activity calendar and see communication threads (other
students and the teacher) as well as see teacher feedback/grades on
assignments/activities. Edmodo is great for facilitating discussions among
students/teacher. This is an excellent tool for creating community and discourse. It
looks and feels like Facebook or Twitter. Assignments can be assigned and carried out
(and submit them back to the teacher for evaluation) all in a safe, organized space. It
is easy for both the students and teachers to see their progress on assignments and track
how they are doing all in one place as well as see due dates for assignments on the
Calendar. Edmodo is compatible with Google Drive and Microsoft One-Drive so
students can easily create and share their work if they are using google docs or an
office 365 created document. I really like how I post an assignment and students can
submit it in Edmodo as well as have discussions/feedback based on the student
submissions. I can use Edmodo to post assignments, create discussions on the
discussion board, create quizzes (there are even third party apps like Flubaroo to
automate some of the assessment process (app for quizzes), and share content via
videos or websites and so on. Note that Edmodo is not a gradebook in of itself. Edmodo
has a “Badge” student reward system where the teacher can use extrinsic motivation
to motivate students to work hard on completing tasks to receive badge rewards in
Edmodo. I do not use this badge system right now, but in the future it is possible that
I may want to try using it. In terms of student individualization, the teacher can
asynchronously or synchronously privately message students and carry on constructive
discussions about their studies/work, providing them timely feedback that is
individualized to just them. I find that the blog like discussions in Edmodo with
students and teacher are much better than other platforms like office365 because they
look and feel like twitter/facebook messenger. Cost: free, but a lot of advertising from
third parties in the space is a huge negative.
Zoom Having the capability of a powerful virtual meeting platform such as Zoom to create a
community of learners (Face to Face discussion online) or host a webinar is important
for learners who are separated by distance/location or due to other circumstances etc.
What I really like about Zoom is it can be embedded and used within other LMS
systems like Blackboard Collaborate, Canvas, Moodle, and Desire2Learn etc (via LTI
plug-in). What I also like is anyone can host a Zoom session for free up to 40 minutes
and take advantage of all the robust functions that are available in Zoom such as break
out rooms, simultaneous screen sharing, text-chats, and so on. For example, a teacher
can share their entire desktop or an individual window from their computer. Even
streaming video with full audio can be shared through the screen sharing feature,
although playback quality is sometimes spotty depending on available upload and
down speed (bandwidth) and type of computer/device (and its specs) being used.
Besides having live video feed with students online is of itself very engaging and
interactive, I think Zoom also can be used by the instructor to individualize learning
with students such as one on one or in small groups. Students who live remotely, could
even login and be given co-host access to the session so that both the instructor or
student could walk one another through an activity as if they were in the same physical
space (remote access control of PC).

ScreenCast-O-Matic Screencast-O-Matic is an excellent tool for both students and teachers to record and
edit everything from video presentations to learning modules. Screencasting is novel
and interesting way to present new information to students and for students to
communicate their learning to the teacher/or other students in an engaging way.
Embedding technology and screencasts into lessons grabs students’ attention, and thus
increases student engagement and learning outcomes. Such presentations are a great
way to assess a student’s knowledge and skills. I have always valued student
presentations in the classroom and this is another excellent method that allows for
individualization of student learning. Not only can screencasts be used to introduce
new content, but they can also be used to facilitate and guide learning. Teachers can
differentiate content by creating multiple screencasts on the same topic thus provide
individualization for students.

Youtube/TeacherTube Youtube is a wonderful resource for educational videos and for presenting learning
content (students or teachers). Some key benefits are the following:
- Enhancing comprehension of complex topics
- Increased student engagement/interest (especially the visual/auditory learners)
- Ideal for slow learners (individualization)
- Can be repeat played at different times, places etc.
- Students can also be curators of learning content such a presentations/topics.
- Provide excellent opportunity for assessment of learning (communication of
learning)
Although Youtube itself is very limited in functioning as an app like Edmodo or G-
Suite/G+ when it comes to being a one-stop for student/teacher communications,
learning assessment and organization etc, it has gravitas because some much
educational (student and teacher) content is being shared via Youtube as it seems to
have become the defacto for video sharing and playback that extends to all
applications and programs on the internet today. I think that pretty much every
application I have used up to today has functionality to link with Youtube in some
way for uploading and or playback. Knowing how to embed Youtube video in
various other tools/platforms is an important skill that all teachers and students
should know. In my research of using youtube I have also found it has capability of
being used as an effective assessment tool. I have demonstrated this on my weebly
blog (http://timoftebro.weebly.com/resources-for-online-learning.html) with the
“Trip down market street” interactive youtube game. This type or method of
assessment is quite innovative and I could see how it would be fun to do something
similar with a subject area like Science or Social Studies or even learning a foreign
language !

G-Suite and G+ Google has quite an impressive suite of educational apps called G Suite for Education,
 that extends in my mind to G+ and a web-hosting platform (Google Sites), so I believe
it is important to recognize its importance among educators. G-Suite for Education is
a suite of educational apps that allow students to work on documents on any device,
any place and any time. The applications, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive,
Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Classroom as
well as G+ facilitate innovative tools for collaboration, communication, and
assessment. Compared to Office365, I find that the responsiveness of these in-the-
cloud apps is so much faster. The Google suite of educational products is very powerful
when used together. For example in our course OLTD 504, the instructor has provided
a rubric and outcome linked tracker google spreadsheet that is both our gradebook and
our own reporting of activity tool. Sharing of documents could not be any simpler with
the G-Suite of products. Google Classroom is a great front end for students to go to as
a course home page and so much more.

In summary, I think that there are hundreds if not more potential non-LMS tools out there that may very well
be useful and meaningful for students and teachers given the very different contexts that teachers and students
find themselves in. In my case, although my school district provides Office365 for all staff and students (free
of cost), I find that there are many times when I want to use other tools such as Edmodo, Engrade, Gooru,
Google docs etc, because each of these tools has many unique advantages and features that are not fully
realizable in other tools or do not work exactly the way I want them. As part of my ongoing professional
development, I am doing my best to keep notes in Evernote and OneNote etc, about my reflections of exploring
and using (sometimes even trying out) a lot of these new tools. I see that other students in this OLTD cohort
have introduced a variety of tools that I have never used before such as Symbaloo and Schoology and so on. I
certainly would like to explore some of these in greater detail and even do a detailed comparison with similar
apps/tools. Finally, what I would like to also say is there has never been a more exciting time in history for
teachers and students to engage with each other using technology in both an online and blending learning space
(even a F2F classroom). Thank you to Avi for providing the focus challenge question for this course, which I
kept in mind while creating my LMS and non-LMS tool kit build. The challenge question really allowed me to
reflect about my teaching creedo that envelops the concept of individualizing student learning for all learners
which was one of my lenses of focus for building a personally tailored non-LMS toolkit. I want to share the
following visual which expresses that sentiment quite well and was a quote by Albert Einstein.