A few months ago, a persistent writer from THE Journal kept asking me questions about Learning Management Systems. I sent her everything I’d written on the subject–2 or 3 articles–and resources materials, and didn’t hear from her again. Then, I heard from an editor who was molding the story and he wanted to clarify his understanding…again, it’s been a few months.

Well, tonight, a colleague emailed me about THE Journal article, Up Close and Virtual by Jennifer Demski. Here’s part of the article, and I encourage you to read the rest:

Making web-based professional development opportunities available to their faculty, however, creates a new dilemma for districts: how to verify whether a teacher grasped the material. “It has to be done independently of any workshop facilitator or session presenter, because that person is not there to check for understanding,” says Miguel Guhlin, director of instructional technology services for the San Antonio Independent School District. “That process has to happen online.”

It’s an issue that Guhlin says his district handles with swift effectiveness through its use of Avatar, a learning management system from Alchemy Systems. The LMS disposes both ends of a professional development program: It enables administrators to deliver and host learning opportunities for teachers as well as monitor all of a teacher’s work within those activities. “I can check to see how many people have taken a course, how many people completed it successfully, how many haven’t completed it successfully, how many are in progress right now,” Guhlin says. “All of that tracking is handled by the technology itself.”
Read the Rest

Here’s Jennifer’s original request for information…I thought it interesting to see how a story develops:

Here’s the portion of the article that concerns SAISD. I’m actually happy that you’ll be looking at it, because I don’t want to misstate anything regarding the technical aspects of the learning management system. Bear in mind that it’s a short article, and the SAISD portion is about half so I couldn’t get incredibly in depth. I tried to keep the technical stuff as simple as possible.

I’ll be turning this over to the editors today, with a note that I’ve sent it to you for verification. Any changes made between now and publication will be grammar-related, unless they come back with specific notes or questions, at which point I’ll contact you.
Source: Jennifer Demski, 10/03/2008

The article was finally approved in November, 2008 for publishing and it appeared in the April, 2009 issue with some modifications I made (basically, to give credit to my team of folks for their hard work). Here’s what I submitted back to Jennifer on 10/04/2008 after getting it cleared through District’s channels (always do that when you’re working on story involving your District):

When a district expands the types of professional development opportunities available to it’s faculty, it’s very likely that the district will find it more difficult to track and verify which courses a teacher has completed. Tracking needs to go beyond a simple sign-in sheet at the door to a seminar – it’s easy to confirm that a teacher was present for the full length of a workshop, but how does a district confirm that they’ve watched an online video in its entirety?

San Antonio ISD’s Instructional Technology Services Office in San Antonio, Texas—under the leadership of Miguel Guhlin, Director–solved this problem. The District used Alchemy Systems AvatarPro (www.avatarpdms.com) to build an online Learning Management System to facilitate the district’s professional development program, which, like WCS, consists of traditional seminars and workshops mixed with new technology, such as PBS TeacherLine. Called ePath, the SAISD learning management system allows teachers and administrators to post, search and register for upcoming professional development courses or seminars, view and print transcripts of the courses they’ve taken, and view online video courses – all accessible from any computer with an internet connection. “Not only do we have a system where we can track professional development,” shares Guhlin, “but we also have a system where we can deliver professional development.”

When choosing which online content to purchase for the ePath learning management system, Guhlin and his team found they had to take into consideration not only the quality of the content, but also whether it was SCORM (Shareable Content Object Module) compliant. SCORM compliancy allows the online content to be embedded directly into the district’s learning management system, allowing administrators to directly track a teacher’s progress through the course’s content module. “Without SCORM compliant content, you lose what makes the learning management system so powerful. If you’re participating in online content, teachers can be tracked in their progress through that module.” Guhlin recommends that any district looking to purchase online content to incorporate into a learning management system purchase just one course from a provider before committing to their entire library, with the stipulation that if that provider’s SCORM compliancy doesn’t mesh with the district’s learning management system, they will not be charged for the course. “Even when a vendor says they are SCORM compliant, they might not be, or they might be compliant to an older standard, or a variation of the SCORM standard. If it takes forever to adjust their content so that it meets the standards of your learning management system, you’re wasting money.”

Although still in its infancy, response to the ePath learning management system from teachers and staff throughout the district has been incredibly positive, especially considering that just six years ago professional development in the district was still being tracked on paper. “We didn’t face any push-back or opposition from teachers, or people that would actually use the system. We didn’t get any push-back either from department secretaries who had previously been handling all the paper registration – each doing it their own way and trying to figure it out.” The ePath learning management system has standardized the way professional development is facilitated throughout the district.

Fascinating to see how the story evolved as it moved from person to person.

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