COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT
Instructions for Assignment 3, Task #1: Initial Proposal
COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT
:TECHNOLOGIES FOR INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING
Schoology.com for ESL (English as a Second Language) Adult Learners
Introduction
The focus of this project is to support Adult ESL learners in their English continuing education during and after classroom instruction using technology as the platform learning tool. With this aim, we propose to use www.schoology.com , a free Learning Management System (LMS) tool that uncovers a set of new-preconceived learning experiences, to be used as extension of the classroom instructions. Schoology allows adult learners, in a user-friendly way, to practice English, assess their learnings, and keep direct connection with classmates and teachers from any computer, tablet, or smartphone with Internet access. On the other hand, Schoology enables instructors to create, manage, and share content and resources with their students and colleges. Teachers are able to follow their adult learners progress in a synchronous or asynchronous way by using their smart devices as well. The adoption of this LMS project could enhance any adult ESL education classroom by increasing the amount of time students spent practicing English on their own self-pace and increase of students’ technology skills. For this end, learning outcomes can be reflected on students’ English level advancement, job placement, and/or continuing education in a long run.
The project team is composed by Abubakr Abdelrasoul who is an electronics and computer systems engineer with over eight years of experience in electronics, software, and management fields. Coming from a third world country, Abubakr is interested in applying technology in educational contexts to increase accessibility to quality education, reduce costs, and promote open source tools. The other team member is Kennia Delafe, an Adult ESL teacher with more than fifteen years of experience working in different areas in the adult ESL education field. Her main focus is to help adult learners to learn English and get acquaintance in their new learning and life community, but also, to close technology knowledge gap in order to become self-sufficient in this rapid-advancing technological era. Both team members are currently students in the IDE:611 Technology for Instructional Settings course at Syracuse University.
Needs assessment: justification of the importance of this project; What was the context? How did you know there was a need for this project?
Needs assessment is conducted and there is a definite need for such tool. From experience in adult education, English as a Second Language adult learners have very limited time to learn and practice English in classroom settings which is limited by time and place as well. As a result, learning takes longer than it should and achieved results are not as high as teachers will like it to be. Schoology gives learners the chance to learn, practice, and access learning material without any time or geographical restrictions. To stimulate their interest in continuing their education outside of the classroom, the adoption of this new technology, may stimulate students’ interests in improving their English skills by practicing those four domains.
Goals and objectives of the project
The goal of this project is to implement a learning management system in an ESL learning context to overcome limitations of traditional ESL adult classrooms and extend the opportunities of learning.
Objectives : this project, the development of the Schoology learning management system, will enable ESL adult learners and teachers to:
· Learn English with no time or place restrictions
· Develop technological skill for both learners and instructors
· Create meaningful online lessons and assessments focusing on major learning problems
· Monitor and follow their student’s progress and take corrective actions when needed
· Provide user-friendly learning tools in one place
· Provide instructors with an easy to use tracking and reporting tool
Target audience
The target audience for this project are ESL (English as a Second Language) adult learners that are actively engage in an ESL adult or ESL adult tutoring programs and ESL teachers that will like to promote continuing ESL education outside of the classrooms and the use of technology as an instrument of learning.
Technology or technologies to be used: (what, how, why use)
This project will potentially engage targeted audience in the use a variety of technologies. Personal computers, tablets, smartphones, and virtual technology with the use of the www.schoology.com site or “online classroom,” can be accessed from any school computer lab, library computers, from home or by using other smart devices. Because of the nature of the ESL adult learners, it is important to clarify that all hardware used to access to the English practices must have internet access.
The use of these technologies makes the perfect combination to create a system that adult ESL students can use to improve their English by accessing and using teacher-created resources at no additional cost. Participating students will be able own and manage their own English acquisition at their own speed and have the possibility to expand their technological skills as an accidental learning. Students will have the opportunity to improve their listening, speaking, reading, and writing with the use of hands-on exercises, videos, vocabulary drills, flashcards, and more. Besides, having access to an online classroom on-site, students will be able to bring it home. Therefore, learning is reaching out those that for various reasons cannot go to school to learn or improve their English.
Teachers, on the other hand, will have the opportunity to design their own-private online classroom by using their limited or advanced technology skills for free. The opportunities to expand their creativity and knowledge while creating meaningful lessons that students can use to review concepts learned while away from the classroom, are endless. Teachers can easily organize content by creating folders, upload previous-created lessons, link outside sources into the courses, create quizzes and activities, quickly communicate news, have students chat about specific topics adding discussion sessions, create photo albums from classroom pictures, download useful apps into courses, connect with other teachers for resources within the same platform and much more.
What your final product will include: (three components are required in your final project product: (a) Instructional materials; (b) Learning activities (authentic and inquiry-based ICT [information communication technologies] activities, age-appropriate, relevant to the topic); (c) Assessment of learning)
The final project will contain a sample of a Beginning ESL Course for adults. Instructional materials for this course will include visual guides of how to register and use schoology.com for teachers and students, samples of instructional materials for ESL beginners such as grammar points for ESL, vocabulary drills, hands-on exercises, pronunciation videos, and quizzes. It will also include grading system, attendance, and analytics of the students use of the site.
Tentative timetable for project completion (list weekly dates, major tasks to be done each week, and what you will need to do that task)
October 9th- Initial Proposal
10/16 - www.schoology.com online classroom setup (Course Name and Section), selection of ESL materials to be use in the course.
10/23 - Course folders set up, grading system period setup, and instructional materials for registration and use of the site done.
10/30 - 11/6 ESL course instructional materials, exercises and quizzes done, work on progress report and start recruiting students and teachers for online classroom testing
November 11th - Progress Report
11/20 - Initial online classroom testing, continue working on instructional materials and learning assessment, record online classroom challenges and needs for changes
11/27 - Work on online classroom use data analysis, ultimate changes, complete online classroom details, record online classroom user's’ input, continue working on final submission paper
12/4 - www.schoology.com LMS ready to be adopted, work on final project paper details
December 8th - Final submission
Challenges to be faced (organizational, attitudinal, physical plant, technical, etc.)
One of the most common challenges we could face, because of the nature of many adult ESL learners that are technology immigrants as well, is the lack of technology skills. Also, because we are orienting this project to ESL adult learners with low English skills, language can be in fact, another immediate challenge.
Expected results
By the end of this project we will like to have a well structure sample of an online classroom using the www.schoology.com site that will serve as an aid in English Language instruction for ESL adult teachers, and as a learning tool for ESL adult students. The final result of the LMS will contain the basic structure for a Beginning English class that can be easily adopted and developed by teachers. This basic structure will have samples of ESL activities, for the given English level. It will also have training materials for students and teachers to be able to successfully implement in their instruction.
Demonstration: How will you document the project process through visuals as well as text? How will you include your project in the final report?
We are planning to keep in writing all the steps that will take us to the final expected result. Reports will include a detailed description of each step in the creation of the online classroom as well as screenshots of those steps, possible, that will serve as visuals components of the project. We may also provide pictures and/or short videos of actual students using Schoology in the classroom. For our final report we will include as much as valuable data as we can record throughout this project and the link to the actual online classroom for revision.
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