COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT

IDE 611: Assignment 3, Task #2: Progress Report

Abdelrasoul, Abubakr & Delafe, Kennia November 9, 2017

1

COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT

IDE 611: TECHNOLOGIES FOR INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING

Name: Abubakr Abdelrasoul, Kennia Delafe

PROJECT TITLE

Schoology.com for ESL (English as a Second Language) Adult Learners

NAMES OF PROJECT TEAM MEMBERS

1. Abubakr Abdelrasoul IDE 611 Course Participant, Electronics Eng.

2. Kennia Delafe IDE 611 Course Participant, Adult ESL teacher

GOAL AND CONTEXT OF PROJECT

The goal of this project is to implement a Learning Management System (LMS), in an English

as a Second Language (ESL) learning context to overcome limitations of traditional ESL adult

classrooms and extend the opportunities of learning. The project will support Adult ESL learners

in their English continuing education during and after classroom instruction using technology as

the platform learning tool. Students are refugees who come from different countries

Schoology, a free LMS, is used as extension of the classroom instructions. 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.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS THUS FAR ON THE PROJECT

As stated in initial report, our final project will include: (a) Instructional materials; (b) Learning

activities (authentic and inquiry-based Information Communication Technologies (ICT)

activities, age-appropriate, relevant to the topic); (c) Assessment of learning). Our timetable for

the project is:

Commented [AM1]: I think we need to elaborate a little on learners and their background as the doctor commented in

the initial report.

We can also elaborate on instructors, who are they and their

technological background. I also suggest mentioning that

you are the only one to use the tool for now, later, other

instructors can be trained.

She also asked about the environment.

What do you think?

Commented [AM2]: I’m calling previous data to connect it with what we did so far, and to give her an impression that

we are doing well according to our timetable. What do you

think?

IDE 611: Assignment 3, Task #2: Progress Report

Abdelrasoul, Abubakr & Delafe, Kennia November 9, 2017

2

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

We started the project implementation by registering for new accounts at www.schoology.com

FREELY to start using the tool and experience its features. Schoology has a very useful quick

overview to new users helping them to get familiar with the platform. For advance and more

information, Schoology provides Help Center with step by step info on using the platform.

Schoology’s friendly graphical user interface (GUI), which depends heavily on visualization,

makes it very easy for our targeted students as those students are adult learners with low English

and technology skills.

After exploring and experiencing the platform, we started to design our course’s hierarchy and

create needed folders. This is where we will instruct, grade, and communicate with ESL adult

learners. These folders contain our instructional materials (or links to online materials) e.g. files,

assignments, YouTube videos, assessments or quizzes, and optional further learning resources.

Schoology platform offers different ways to organize and setup materials for example by week,

section, topic, and so on. Instructors and course developers can even set up in what order students

must complete each item using the Student Completion feature for a self-paced approach to

IDE 611: Assignment 3, Task #2: Progress Report

Abdelrasoul, Abubakr & Delafe, Kennia November 9, 2017

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learning. For our course, we organized the material in … (See Image 1: Course organization

below) as we think this suits our situation the best. However, this setup can be changed easily at

any moment if needed. We will closely follow up and get feedback from our students and adapt

accordingly, thanks to Schoology’s flexibility. In Schoology, learners can be grouped in any

suitable way, but for our course, all students will be in one group, so they can interact, learn, and

communicate with each other.

Image 1: Course organization

As shown above, there are three main parts:

1. Left Side Navigation - This contains our Materials page, Updates, Gradebook, and more.

2. Central Column - This column can be set to land on our instructional materials or course

updates, whatever you deem most important to view first, from you Course Options menu

on the left.

3. Reminders and Upcoming – Serves as a Home Page to our course, though they are more

closely related due to the fact they are associated only with one course.

ESL course instructional materials, exercises and quizzes done, work on progress report and start

recruiting students and teachers for online classroom testing

Commented [AM3]: Please fill here according to our style of organizing.

Commented [AM4]: Replace above image with actual course image!

You can add more if you think it helps and add some

description

Commented [AM5]: We can personalize these three parts by using actual course name, folders, materials, etc.

Commented [AM6]: Please elaborate on the content and quizzes. One paragraph, five to seven lines should be

enough.

This point is copied from our timetable plan. Refer to it for

more info.

Below is a new and separate paragraph.

IDE 611: Assignment 3, Task #2: Progress Report

Abdelrasoul, Abubakr & Delafe, Kennia November 9, 2017

4

As of this level, our course organization and folders setup are ready, as well as instructions

materials, links, files, and quizzes. As mentioned earlier, our ESL adult learners are not skilled

in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), there for a training/ hands-on session was

conducted to help all students register and login to the course, use instructional materials, links,

and interact and submit quizzes. Training was …

ISSUES, INSIGHTS AND PROBLEMS REGARDING THE PROJECT

Schoology is a great LMS platform with many features and user-friendly environment. However,

Schoology is a tool at the end of the day. It facilitates learning and makes it easier, but the

important component is the content and its quality. Deciding on the right content, with our

students’ low English skills in mind, was difficult and time consuming. Ideally, the content must

cover all English’s four skills. That is Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking.

Fortunately, we could manage to organize and prepare suitable content for the first three skill

Reading, Writing, and Listening. We relied on free and open-source content from the Internet

rather than preparing it from scratch. We used resources like YouTube, …, …, etc.

For Listening skill, Schoology might not be of great use, as this skill required a synchronous

interaction whether its face-to-face or online, and this might not be easy for our students as they

have tight and limited time for learning. Therefore, we decided to focus on it on class only instead

of using Schoology.

PLAN FOR THE REST OF THE PROJECT

So far, our initial timetable plan worked fine, and we are one week ahead as we developed some

content and helped learners to interact with it. Here is our plan for the rest of the project’s

activities:

• Develop more content and instructional materials. Material to include videos, reading

materials, etc.

• The goal of this project is to help ESL learners to learn. Assessing the learning is a key

component of this project. Schoology has a quiz and assessment features that we are going

to utilize to help assess learning. Quizzes will be prepared in away that it will support learning

materials and lessons.

Commented [AM7]: Please add if I forgot anything.

Commented [AM8]: Please write one or two lines describing how it went. How you prepare for it, where it took

place, etc.

This will be the end of this paragraph.

Commented [AM9]: You can add if you remember anything. You can edit, add and/or delete below sentences as

needed.

Commented [AM10]: Please add couple of resources that you used for content preparation.

Commented [AM11]: Can you rephrase this statement? I think it needs some modifications!

Commented [AM12]: I followed our timetable plan. You can modify, delete, and add as needed.

Commented [AM13]: You can add more as needed!

IDE 611: Assignment 3, Task #2: Progress Report

Abdelrasoul, Abubakr & Delafe, Kennia November 9, 2017

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• All learners attended a hands-on training session. However, we will be following them as

some technical difficulties might interfere students and learning process. According to our

close follow-up and learning trends, we will determine whether to have another practical

session/s or to support needy learners individually.

• Schoology has great data analysis tool. Time spent by each student or all students, quizzes

taken, scores, learning progress, interactions with the platform, etc. These statistics will be

used to enhance and develop learning materials and do needed changes (major or minor) to

course design and folders.

• Finally, will continue to document the project and prepare the final document according to

guidelines.