Core Area 1: Operational Issues


1a) An understanding of the constraints and benefits of different technologies

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In this section, I will describe the technology strategy that me and my 2 teams at Prime Press Ltd opted in for, when we decided to really push the boundaries and run 2 major projects simultaneously! More specifically, not only did we setup and deploy a new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) service that came as a complimentary service to all new and existing clients, but we also engaged in extensive content development using cutting edge, user-friendly technology that complimented all of our existing book lines.

The Context

When I first undertook my duties as a Global Director for Digital Education at Prime Press Ltd, I was asked to 'revamp' all of their existing and new book lines to make them more appealing for international markets. All of the books that Prime Press Ltd produces, focus on English Language Teaching (ELT) for ESL Purposes (English as a Second Language). Due to the fact that this is largely, an extremely saturated marked, with high-calibre competition from many well-established, key, international players, I took the decision to focus all efforts on Technology-Enhanced Learning and Teaching. In an effort to create a sustainable ecosystem that would allow Prime Press, their clients and, last but not least, their students to thrive in an ever evolving tehnology-infused environment, I focused on 'tried and tested' technologies that produced maximum output with minimum effort.

Project 1

Even though, the insertion of the use of a VLE is not exactly a new idea, its use in the field of ELT has been rather limited, due to certain technical constrains which mainly pertain to scalability and technical upkeep. A VLE can offer immense added value in any ELT environment however, its technical setup, deployment, monitoring and follow-up processes can effectively counter any advantage that a platform has to offer by quickly overwhelming even the most tech-savvy, able and willing ELT Teacher and school owner. Even more so, any wrong choice in this field, could sky-rocket maintenance costs for Prime Press. 

Project 2

The vast synergistic powers that a VLE brings once it is coupled with synchronous and asynchronous interactive activities, such as Interactive Video Quizzes with branching out scenarios, as well as, automatically graded summary quizzes for each and every unit, can be easily wiped-off by various technical problems, as well as user error.


Phase A: A list of 4 VLEs.

Phase B: A list of 4 tools for developing Automatically Graded Quizzes for summative purposes.

Phase C: A list of 4 tools for developing videos.

Phase D: A list of 5 tools for developing Interactive Video Quizzes for formative purposes (flipped, in-class and extended classroom activities).

Phase E: A list of training activities and accreditation pathways for School Admins and ELT Teachers (onsite and webinars)on the use of Moodle and H5P. 

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Phase A: Choosing a Platform

The commercial success of the project would be highly depended on the choice of the platform, the cost of running and maintaining it, as well as, the ability to scale upwards or downwards in times of need. As a direct consequence, upon receiving stakeholder feedback, I also upvoted for option 1, Moodle. 

By opting in for a free, Open Source VLE, our IT department was allowed to engage in considerable customisation, branding and not to neglect, the use of our own servers for all data streams, setups, LTIs and API reports. Even though most universities opt in for a "software as a service" approach (SAS) which usually entails the use of the vendor servers and maintenance, I actively decided to use Prime Press's servers in Egypt and Athens to bypass any GDPR issue in these 2 large regions (Middle East and Europe) and to also leverage the power of open API to further customize our VLE according to the needs of each language school and offer bespoke subdomains with premium branding features for each third-party customer. 

Even more so, Moodle's open source API, in conjunction with the use of our own servers allowed me to fully utilise the free open source version of H5P to develop and deliver our Interactive Video Quizzes for formative purposes (H5P.org instead of H5P.com) and significantly reduce our content development costs. Last but not least, me and my teams were able to install a full LTI1.1 agreement for H5P.org in all subdomains, which basically meant that each language school would have capacity to further develop their own digital content activities using this powerful, rapid eAuthoring tool. 

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Phase B: Choosing a tool for delivering Automatically Graded Quizzes (summative assessment)

Factors such as, time, cost, quality of outcome and sustainability play a very important role when making decisions to implement Technology-Enhanced Learning and Teaching interventions in the private sector. Due to the fact that I was very much aware that the use of Articulate Storyline would only create a huge backlog of projects - as each package can take up to 6 months to develop, not to mention that staff require an initial 6 months of training to become fluent in using Articulate Storyline - I personally led an initiative to opt in for adopting a rapid eAuthoring tool within the Articulate 360 suite, called Articulate Rise. Articulate Rise, is an industry standard when it comes to developing "locked" content in the form of scorm packages that cannot be migrated to another platform, as well as, downloaded and/or edited by any third party that has the raw scorm file. For the same reason, my instinctive decision was to exclude Moodle quizzes and Xerte, as each language school would be in a position to download, edit or accidentally delete the files that contained the activities causing a backlog of support calls in Prime Press's support center.  Last but not least, the low cost of a team licence ($1300 per year for 5 seats), the presence of online training (Articulate community/eLearning Heroes) and the ability for inline feedback/comments from stakeholders (Articulate Review), allowed me to fast-track my plans to roll these automatically graded quizzes for summative purposes across most existing book lines on our new Moodle platform. 

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Phase C: Choosing a video development tool (animated Vs live characters)

The special characteristics of the project required a fast turn-around on video production that was of top quality, easily amendable and also adhered to the basic principles of multi-modal learning. Due to the nature of the book line (English Language Teaching books for young ESL learners), it was imperative that we avoided lengthy processes of HD video production that required actors, scripts and multiple props! Due to the fact that both teams in Greece and Egypt did not contain a videographer nor did we posses the time to train multiple members of the team to use the Adobe creative suite, I took the decision to offer 3, 90-minute sessions on creating hand and toon animation videos in Toonly and Doodly. Further to this capacity building, the low cost of each licence ($29 for a lifetime basic licence) allowed me to purchase multiple seats and train the team on how to use these amazing tools to create hand and toon-character animation videos, that contained prop images, key vocabulary and/or closed captions, as well as, upbeat music. Last but not least, these tools offered an easy way for stakeholder feedback and amendments to be actioned locally, as opposed to using the Adobe Creative Suite and the real character camera recordings. 

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Phase D: Choosing a tool for delivering Interactive Video Quizzes (formative assessment)

Once we had developed all of the hand-animation and toon-character videos, once again, I instinctively opted in for using the free version of H5P.org that we had seamlessly integrated into our Moodle platform to deliver automatically graded, interactive video quizzes for formative assessment. These videos were prepopulated in each subdomain for each language school and were used as flipped-classroom, in-class or extended classroom activities. By opting in for H5P.org, me and my team didn't only provide with 3 working interactive video quizzes for each unit (and each book);we also engaged in capacity building by introducing some online and onsite training on the use of H5P.org in various language schools that had purchased our book lines and were making use of our platform services. 

In a nutshell, besides the obvious factors that were previously mentioned (time, energy, cost etc), I made the conscious decision to use a tool that would "model the practice" and thus pave the way for many EFL teachers to go ahead and make full use of our LTI agreement with H5P.org and create their own, bespoke material. 

Reflection

Even though the early stages of my career as a TEL professional involved the use of "off the shelf" educational technology, I have found myself after 15+ years to have developed into a strong supporter of balancing 'due diligence' with efficacy and value added, sustainable interventions that are not intrusive for both learning and teaching. This type of 'priming' that my career has brought forth has now manifested itself as an insatiable desire for capacity building in the true wealth of "hidden" functionality that many platforms and third-tool providers offer. (CV1) 

A deep understanding of the possibilities and limitations that each TEL intervention brings forth is not enough nowadays, as the 'dynamic' nature of TEL infused education requires all professionals that work in this field to possess a good grounding in underpinning pedagogies, as well as, technical skills (CV2/CV4). Going well beyond the aforementioned technical skills, it is also imperative to possess the right set of 'soft skills', followed by a solid understanding of underpinning pedagogies and a genuine love and enthusiasm for learning and teaching in order to be in a position to effectively produce deliverables and meet deadlines and projected costs(CV3). 

Before any attempt to introduce any new intervention was made, I engaged in talks with 4 specific focus groups. The first group involved the owners of the company. The second group involved the existing staff at Prime Press. The third group involved our existing base of clients and some prospective ones and the fourth group involved some of their students. My work with the first and second group aimed at raising awareness of the advantages and disadvantages that come from the use of scaling up their business via the use of a VLE. My work with the third and fourth focus group revolved more on 'narrowing down' on the underpinning pedagogies that emanate from the use of technology but also focused on measuring the impact that our proposed interventions would have on both the student and staff (teacher) population. 

In summary, my main point of concern before I actively introduced any new tool to both of my teams in Athens, Greece and Cairo, Egypt, was to eliminate any personal bias by asking all 4 focus groups to present me with an advantages and disadvantages list after I had presented my list of interventions.


1b) Technical knowledge and ability in the use of Learning Technology

Phase E: A list of training activities and accreditation pathways for Prime Press Staff, School Admins and ELT Teachers (onsite and webinars).

The team of Managing Directors also allowed me to engage in training some of our then existing staff in the roles of Digital Learning Developer, Technology-Enhanced Learning Specialist Trainer/Advisor and VLE Administrator. 50% of the workflow aimed at the staff that would be tasked with setting up, deploying and maintaining, monitoring of our VLE service and the remaining 50% was tasked with the follow up process of working with school owners and educators and assisting them with their day to day queries. 

Due to the nature of the selected tools (Moodle, H5P, Doodly/Toonly and Articulate Rise) there was an extremely fast turnaround for staff training. In just 1 month both teams were ready to roll out their training to our focus groups and undertake their role of creating new content for our book series. Perhaps one of the winning factors in this capacity building exercise that I undertook with my 2 teams was that I had extended knowledge of using Moodle, H5P and Articulate Rise. Having the technical knowledge and ability to use the learning technology in question allowed me to create the first batch of quizzes, animation videos and interactive video quizzes and then embed them in our Moodle Production site.  

Once the staff training had been completed, I then led the initiative to start drafting the plan for the relaunching event for all of our Book Series that would now include the new Moodle Site integration along with the prepopulated interactive content. The relaunching events took place in (Old and New) Cairo and in Giza and was focused on introducing the new Moodle Environment but also to raise awareness of our new training opportunities and accreditation pathways for all of our prospective clients (School owners, their admin staff and their teachers). 

Reflection

Perhaps one of the common denominators for all TEL professionals that undertake medium to large project work, is that they eventually miss those lost opportunities to interact with the students and sometimes even with the teachers and the content itself; and to a certain extend, this defeats the very purpose of why we even started doing this job, as it certainly wasn't the remuneration package or the glamourous lifestyle. Nevertheless, the added bonus of working with a truly global community of education experts that are all united under the same purpose of making education a bit better, really makes it worth while. (CV2/CV3) From participating in online webinars, working groups, conferences, stakeholder meetings, focus groups with teachers and practice observations in classes around the world, I have been able to evolve into a position where I can now empower others to do the same and hopefully even more. (CV4) By using tried and tested technology and infusing it with well-establish past and present pedagogy, I was able to provide many language schools in Egypt with the opportunity to not only interact with cutting-edge content, but with the opportunity to reduce Teacher fatigue by introducing automatically graded quizzes and last but not least, to establish a community of enquiry and a framework for each school to develop their own bespoke content. (CV1/CV2/CV3/CV4)   

 

1c) Supporting the deployment of learning technologies 

In order for the new VLE to be able to produce its economies of scale, considerable training was needed to be undertaken by the staff who would then roll-out and support our services. 

The first work flow that was tasked with the setup and roll-out, had 2 branches. The first team was in Athens, Greece and was tasked with creating the storyboards, writing up the activities and quizzes and proofreading. Their general orientation was deeply rooted in using technology to enhance the underpinning pedagogies that emanated from our books. Within the Athenian branch, a smaller sub-team was working on producing the storyboarding and digitisation! More specifically, the Greek team focused on interactive videos using Screencastomatic, Camtasia, Doodly, Toonly and the Adobe creative suite. A second sub-team was tasked with using Articulate Rise to create automatically graded quizzes in the form of SCORM packages and H5P to create interactive video quizzes with the videos that the first sub-team had created. Even though both sub-teams had vast experience in their field (ELT books and Graphic Design) the addition of new technology, required a grace period, some focused training, general steering and ongoing supervision that came mainly from me, as I had considerable experience using the Articulate 360 Suite of Applications, as well as, Toonly and Doodly and H5P in my 25 year old career. To this extend, I was tasked with creating the first set of Scorm packages for the summary quizzes for summative purposes, the first 20 interactive hand animation and toon characters videos, the first 20 interactive video quizzes via H5P.org, as well as, deliver 3 onsite keynote speeches and training events in Cairo, Giza and Athens, multiple online training events and last but not least, write a manual/booklet on the use of our new Platform and its integration (Moodle activities and H5P.com) 

The second work flow was based in Cairo, Egypt. It comprised by a much larger team of IT experts and our new VLE admins, Learning Technologists, Digital Learning Developers! This team of experts was tasked with setting up our new VLE, Moodle, re-branding it, building in the technology that would support auto-enrolment for schools and also handling the LTI agreements for third party tools. Part of this team was also handling support calls, troubleshooting, sales and training as the main local market in Egypt was already primed to receive our new intervention, seeing that there was a large existing clientele in a market of 100 million people that had potential for immediate expansion to the wider middle east area. 

Reflection

Even though these 2 teams had a very distinct purpose with one teem focusing on content development, activities, storyboards and animations and the second one focusing on the VLE setup, deployment and troubleshooting, there was considerable overlap that I hadn't anticipated. More specifically, all of the content that was developed in Greece was proofread offsite, by a team of experts in Egypt, before it was uploaded into our production area in Moodle platform. This caused a huge problem as minor errors that were later discovered by the Egyptian team in the content, forced the Greek team to re-develop but even more importantly so, to re-attach and try and send large scorm and video files that took hours and even days to reach the second team. Even though at the beginning of the project I had preemptively setup a MS Teams space with file sharing capabilities for both teams, its use was soon abandoned by both teams who were not familiar with this productivity platform. I think that going forward, in similar projects, I will need to take into account that the content development team will need to "sit" very close to the deployment team for obvious reasons.