Core Area 2:  Teaching, Learning and Assessment processes

2a) An understanding of teaching, learning and/or assessment processes

Moodle-Prime Press Ltd

Moodle is the world’s most popular learning management system as it has dominated more than 50% of the market share in Europe, Latin America and Oceania. At the core of its existence, Moodle actively supports the idea of adhering to a constructivist and social constructionist approach to education, as it places a strong emphasis on the notion of “Learning Communities” where learners - and not just teachers - are empowered to contribute to the educational experience. It provides the ability to dynamically extend and custom-tailor learning environments by using community sourced plugins, as well as “third-party tools” and it even allows for “graphical themes” to be installed to change the look and functionality of any course. Besides the plethora of “plug-in” options and “third-party tools”, Moodle - as any other e-learning platform - incorporates standard features such as content deployment areas, blogs, chats, glossaries, content management libraries, formative and summative assessments, chats and many more features. Users can benefit from integrated accessibility checking tools, a strong support on all mobile devices (phones, tablets and laptops) and advanced analytics tracking where you can monitor learner progress and performance in real-time.

Keeping in mind that educators are not immersed in the latest edtech news and developments, and do not possess the time, money, energy or expertise to invest in building and maintaining such a sustainable learning ecosystem, me and my team decided to provide free access and support to all English Language Teaching providers (Language Schools) that purchase Prime Press's books to a fully functional Moodle learning environment. By purchasing any Prime Press book series, English Language Schools, their educators, and their students gain access to a pre-set Moodle environment that contains a digital version of all the books, interactive video quizzes and automatically graded formative and summative tests. Adding to the aforementioned, all instructors will have the ability to use their Moodle environment to create their own supplementary interactive content, exams and other activities such as blogs, pop-quizzes, notification boards and a plethora of other features, as they will have admin rights to all of their courses. A highly responsive interface, tracking and reporting tools, an all-in one calendar, an easy file manager, a notifications system, a personalised dashboard and an intuitive text editor will also empower teachers to create, add, copy or delete content in the form of free text, videos, Word, PDF and PPT files, as well as, other advanced interactive activities that will be discussed in the following part of this booklet. 

H5P.org-Prime Press Ltd

Interactive content can be a game-changer when it comes to eLearning engagement. H5P allows you to easily and quickly create rich interactive content on a web page. H5P is an abbreviation for Html-5-Package and it is used by more than 17,000 websites. H5P is a “plugin tool” that helps produce and run interactive content and interactive video within any LMS. H5P is built to optimize the process of creating and sharing any kind of html5 content as easy and seamless as possible as all you need is an up-to-date web browser and an LMS with a (free) H5P plugin to provide learners with 49 types of interactive activities such as interactive videos, presentations, games, quizzes, surveys and many others. 

H5P is perhaps one of the best solutions for rapid “eauthoring” of content as it allows educators to make the most of HTML5 which is the fifth – and most current - version of HyperText Markup Language. HTML5 is the basic universal code that underlies web pages and even though it is considered “mainstream”, it rivals other tools like Flash and Silverlight, which are considered the prevailing software behind enabling multimedia and interactive content in an online environment for animation purposes. Educators can create content via an H5P-enabled web site like H5P.com or directly from their LMS, provided that their Digital Learning Developer has installed the H5P plugin. eContent creators can also import or export H5P content directly in the Moodle site.  As with Moodle, H5P is also an open technology tool that is absolutely free and utilizes the MIT license, but it also comes in a paid version that offers more functionality.

H5P is mostly comprised by Javascript code so it is relatively stress-free to embed in any platform or website, however, arguably its full potential can be found only if there is a paid license, and it is fully integrated in your Learning Management System (i.e Moodle) eliminating the need for administrative maintenance tasks. H5P is great for easily inserting an element of gamification into your courses as you can easily create “branching out scenarios” using interactive videos. In an attempt to take the initiative in this field and save teachers time and energy, I introduced two (2) Interactive Video Quizzes in each unit in all of Prime Press's books. The first video is a pre-class, “warmer” video that primes the students in participating in class by targeting key content and key vocabulary, whereas the second video is an in-class, “follow up” activity that targets deeper understanding of the content and offers more changes for students to consolidate on today’s lesson. These videos can be accessed by students and educators via our Moodle site at any given point, provided that they purchase a line of books from Prime Press. Interactive video quizzes are great for “synchronous” and “asynchronous” learning, as they can be viewed before, during or after class, presenting for an excellent opportunity for any educator to insert an element of continuous formative assessment in their classrooms. Over the past 2 years, learning and teaching activities have been continuing to take place online with students accessing many learning materials asynchronously via a platform such as Moodle. By adding interactivity to videos for formative assessments this can improve student engagement and achievement which can be at times monotonous for students that study from home. H5P empowers educators to insert questions or information in videos such as links, images or even questions and automatic feedback. Educators even have the power to set the video to “jump” to a different point of the timeline depending on how a student answers a question as well as also add links to additional resources that students can go to view if they feel they need to study one area further. As an added bonus, besides having already created the first 2 interactive videos for each unit in all book series, I also gave the power to educators to create their own content and then share it with their students. More specifically, by purchasing a complete line of books from Prime Press, educators were given access to add H5P content easily on their Moodle sites following a very easy route that resembles the way that they would normally add any other activity and resources offered by Moodle to their course. In an attempt to make the process of making and sharing interactive video quizzes as simple and smooth as possible, I incorporated an H5P button (LTI1.1) within the standard text editor which allowed educators to add a link to H5P or directly embed content that they have already created.   

Articulate Rise allows educators to create responsive courses for any device (laptop, tablet, smartphone) using a web-based course builder which contains pre-built templates of activities. Since Rise is “web-based”, and it doesn’t require users to download and install any software on their servers or even laptops, it has steadily increased in popularity over the past few years. The entire course-building process is completed in the browser itself in the most seamless way possible in both Mac OS or a Windows PC. While Articulate Rise certainly doesn’t have all of the customization features of “traditional” eLearning authoring tools, it’s overall layout and responsiveness has made it a “go to tool” when time and energy is in short supply. With the click of a button, you can duplicate modules, add interactive features, and move items up or down. Other pros of using Articulate Rise is that it uses a “drag and drop” builder, it provides with very clear “learner navigation” signposting and last but not least, it is easy to review and amend content and quizzes. Perhaps one of the cons is the increased annual cost of USD999 (single licence or $1300 for 5 seats).

In light of the aforementioned, I took the active decision to incorporate one (1) Articulate Rise Automatically Graded Quiz in each unit in most of the ELT book series. Learners that have access to their Moodle site were able to visit each unit, find and take the quiz and see the results/scoring in “real time” – immediately after they finish taking the test. Educators on the other hand, were able to monitor class progress by visiting the “Grade Book” in each Moodle site, to see how many students took the test, what the overall class scoring and stats were, as well as, see individual student attempts and scorings. By designing, building and deploying quizzes that can be used as formative or summative assessments, I was able to solve one of the biggest reasons of “Teacher Fatigue” which is marking and continuous assessment.

Reflection

Even though my main intention was to reduce teacher fatigue by introducing automatically graded quizzes and interactive activities that came in the form of a video mainly, I frequently wondered if there was a good possibility that I would end up overwhelming the Teachers, and especially the Egyptian Teachers that seemingly were less digitally savvy that their European counterparts. As such, I am not afraid to report that this indeed resulted in many heating conversations that took place with upper management, as all of Prime Presses' top executives were very keen to introduce the "wow factor" and very quickly opted out from using Moodle Quizzes, which could also be easily automated to provide adaptive feedback and grades. 

Last but not least, I also often reflect to the extend that my own natural dependency, predisposition and digital fluency in using certain tools and technological advancements contribute to my bias in choosing TELT interventions. More specifically, I often wonder to what extend my thorough background in Learning Technologies is able to covertly "cloud" my own decision and bias during the selection process of any TELT tool. There is some indication that in academia, it is easier to raise voices of concern or raise quality over quantity matters, or perhaps manage expectations and even turn down certain tools based on previous due diligence that you have performed, which is something that in the private sector is much, much harder to achieve.   

2b) An understanding of your target learners-Prime Press Ltd 

Language Schools have been pressured to shift towards more flexible, effective, active, and student-centered teaching strategies that mitigate the limitations of traditional transmittal models of education. Lately, the flipped classroom model has been suggested to support this transition. However, research on the use of flipped classroom in English Language Teaching is in its infancy and little is known about student’s perceptions of learning through flipped classroom. Most studies that have been conducted so far have concentrated on measuring student perceptions of the “flipped classroom” in general, video as a learning tool, and Moodle (Learning Management System) as a supporting tool within the frame of a flipped classroom model. The results revealed that a large majority of the students had a positive attitude towards flipped classroom, the use of video and Moodle, and that a positive attitude towards flipped classroom was strongly correlated to perceptions of increased motivation, engagement, increased learning, and effective learning. Low achievers significantly reported more positively as compared to high achievers with regards to attitudes towards the use of video as a learning tool, perceived increased learning, and perceived more effective learning.

The flipped classroom model is based on the idea that traditional teaching is inverted in the sense that what is normally done in class is flipped or switched with that which is normally done by the students out of class. As such, instead of students doing all of the work in class and then going home to complete their tasks and homework, they are given some content to assimilate before they attend their classes. In recognition of the value of the “flipped classroom model”, Prime Press has invested in a large team of Learning Technologists and eLearning Designers that sets up, deploys, monitors and troubleshoots its Moodle site for each language school, empowering teachers to make use of this wonderful approach into teaching and learning. Language schools and their educators increase their chances of student success as research indicates that using Moodle before, during and after class allows students to learn in their own pace, it encourages students to actively engage with class material, it frees up actual class time for more effective, creative and active learning activities, teachers receive expanded opportunities to interact with and to assess students’ learning, and students take control and responsibility for their learning. Learners can access their Moodle site before they attend a lesson, to engage with pre-class material that is already pre-populated by Prime Press and comes in the form of an eBook, as well as various other interactive activities but they will also be able to access notifications, warm up tasks, videos, chat boards and any other interactive activity that the teachers decides to develop.  Several studies examining the use of flipped learning in the field of teaching English have provided strong evidence that this instructional approach offers learners more opportunities to adjust their pace of language learning in a more personalized manner.

When it comes to blended learning approaches where instructors combine classroom teaching with the use of Moodle applications, such as a “live” chat room, a “pop quiz” or perhaps embedded audio-visual material that can be displayed in class in real time, research has illustrated that blended young and adolescent learner courses have various positive contributions that go beyond simple time management and efficacy of accessing audio-visual material (i.e listening audio mp3s or mp4 video files). More specifically, blended learning seems to present more advantageous in terms of triggering the motivation and provoking the interest of the students, using time effectively, flexibly and seamlessly for both the teachers and the students. Even more so, blended learning approaches that make use of Moodle in the classroom helps in promoting “positive disruption” by breaking the monotony of using a book and by introducing the right conditions for the development of classroom gamification, group work, project-based learning. Last but not least, by using smartphones, tablets or laptops, students can collaborate and sharpen their digital literacies whilst in the classroom and engage in fun activities that compliment all book series that are produced by Prime Press.

Reflection

Video-based learning, Polling tools and interactive animation are key features in the ELT business nowadays. Students "consume" video, before, during and after class, use their smartphones to interact with the teachers and share their opinions and enjoy multi-modal learning that comes in the form of simple or complicated animation. Even though this new "movement" has created a great number of jobs across the sector and has renewed an "aging" industry, I often reflect on the fact that children and adolescents are rapidly shifted in an online environment, making the use of printed books almost redundant. It is my firm belief that if the Learning Designers that are behind the development of TELT interventions are not firmly rooted in good, "old-fashioned" pedagogy, books will be soon substituted by platforms that are preloaded with endless content and activities. This is perhaps why, I always take great care when I design interactive activities to make sure that they complement and not substitute the book content. It is very true that many eLearning Developers will very quickly - and easily - re-develop, or better yet, "digitise" a book, offering an electronic version but very few will be able to create interactive activities that empower, prime and consolidate student learning.