Why Course Management System?

As I review the website R-Campus (http://www.rcampus.com/ ) I am impressed with the tools and flexibility it offers teachers, administrators and students. Being a special education teacher the Course Management tool would be invaluable to remind students of the assignment and when they are due. The site can be used for collaboration within either the class or through collaboration from the larger R-campus community. Teachers can use the site as a repository for students’ assignments, grades and group communications.

For 21st century students it is important for them to be an active participant in their learning. According to the article, The Change Agents by C. Lemke and E. Coughlin, “students expect to interact with and have a voice in everything they do – and that includes learning”. More important to student’s then a calendar of reminders, is the ability to share ideas and have discussions with not only community peers but to collaborate with different schools in 250 countries.

The concern I had, as most technology immigrants may have is the concern of opening up school and home networks to a “free and open access” website. But, as I delved further I found this website to be secure. Teachers have the ability to read each blog post prior to it being posted, classes can be setup with a code in order to enter the classroom. Another concern is how to gain the support needed to successfully implement a Course Management System (CMS). This can be done by educating your administration and peers on the security of the site and the collaboration tools that students need to succeed.

If you would like to see a demonstration of RC Campus/Solutions check out http://www.screentoaster.com/watch/stUEhUQkBIRFtWQFVbU11cUVNS/recording_12_16_pm it is a screentoaster demo I did of the tools available for teachers at the RC Solutions website.

Through this course I partnered with several other students to share resources, teaching philosophies and tools related to Universal Design Learning (UDL) and differentiating learning (DL). It gave me the opportunity to share ideas and resources with other teachers from different educational settings sharing ideas on how to interact with their students.

In my classroom I will continue to differentiate by content, process, product, affect and a comfortable and respectful learning environment. But, I will be more flexible when creating collaborative groups and partners as I group them based on readiness, interests and learning profiles.

The most important principal I came away from this course with is how important on-going assessments are. It is important to do pre and post-assessments with students and through the Internet there are several sites, which allows you to make your own survey including Survey Monkey. But more important is on-going assessments which are tools that allow you to assess where students are at any point of the learning process. Tools such as KWL, Venn diagram, journaling, group and one-on-one discussions gives students the opportunities to process what they have learned, identify what they do not understand and to give teachers the opportunity to support student’s when they struggle and to create lessons based on students individual needs.