TCEA Leadership Seminar - Session 3 - "How to Prepare Teachers and Students for the Advent of the LMS in K-12 Schools" - Rich Lewis

Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD - what they do with their Learning Management System (LMS):

• Provide online courses.
• Support tools to extend learning outside the classroom.
• Their motto: "No Child Left Offline."
• Research and implement learnings from the book, Disruptive Class
• Deliver Professional Learning

Why?

• Support Student Achievement and Collaboration
• Allows access to resources outside of class (posting interactive lessons and tutorials, teachers presentations, etc.)
• 92% of Higher Education institutions have a LMS - kids WILL be using this in college courses

LMS - what is it used for in CFB?

used for online courses, organize content, create interaction outside of the classroom between students and teachers, manage user records, utilize Discussion Groups, create Supplemental Assessments with meaningful feedback for students, differentiate instruction/post these lessons there, provide cross campus/district collaboration, create a Campus/District class portal (example: Algebra 1 District Portal so that all teachers and students can access the content and resources for that class)

What does CFB Use as their LMS?: Moodle (everyone in district automatically has access as long as they have a login to network)

They have found it to be highly stable.

The Vision - All teachers will make their course resources available online.

Implementation (they are still in early stages for their LMS, but here are some things they have done to being the district implementation):

1. Installed Moodle, but then went with Remote Learners company to manage.

2. Use LDAP and integrates with Active Directory.

3. Lewisville ISD did training for IT staff. TOT

4. IT then built classes for teachers

5. Made sure that someone/at least one staff member who is passionate about online learning to 'own' it.

6. developed a functional demo course so that everyone could see the robust functionality of Moodle. So teachers can see in action how kids can use it.

7. Developed training for staff focusing on basic course construction and the features that offered the most bang for the buck. The training was a day long face to face.

8. There training was offered to volunteer early adopters. Early adopters latched on.

9. Got principals' buy-in. Showed the valid use of building campus community.

10. District Admin worked on curriculum with teachers.

11. Created an online LMS Community for district staff after about a year. Called it CFB Moodle University. Online community of people who use Moodle - share tips and tricks, how-tos. It is a self-serve solution for learning about Moodle and how to use it.

12. Used Wimba to allow community members to real-time share together.

13. The Professional Learning Department began to endorse and allow teachers to use Moodle for online PL. Piloted it this past Nov. and Dec. with 25 users.

14. Made sure C&I was a partner in the process.

15. Built an online orientation course for students.

16. Will be careful to design learning that is engaging and interactive for students.