LMS: Delivering Media

Imagine a class full of NetGen students, eager to share videos, pics, creations etc. They live for the opportunity to share their lives through stories, pictures of their pets, their home, friends and family, or grassroots videos they have made. Those who have ventured into the musical arts are even creating sound files through Garage Band or various other MIDI or live recording/sound editing applications.

If you haven't seen what students are doing with media, watch this example below from SchoolTube.




As adults, we should not be surprised by the enthusiasm to share our personal media. This holiday season, the trend of sending "brag" letters seems to have really taken hold. My wife and I have been sending letters for about 3 years now. I am sure many of you can appreciate the same drive in students to share more than just what they have the chance to say in class.

As educators we certainly have some challenges in giving students a safe and organize environment to share their media. Some of those challenges:

• Receiving many files from various students
• Keeping a record of who's file belongs to whom
• Screaning files for appropriateness.
  
• Supplying secure access -- ie -- only students in the school or class can access the files
• Organizing the files for distribution
• Labeling the files for searching or locating files of interest quickly
• Archiving the files for future use

In a recent workshop, the topic of using Facebook and YouTube came up. Now, I am an advocate of both services. However, in a classroom, I do believe as educators, we must first ensure the safety and security of the students to whatever level of control we see appropriate. While it may be perfectly fine to a parent of one of the students to allow them to use those services, I would not assume that every parent agrees. Thus, I suggest your school's LMS should be considered first when thinking about distribution systems. Leave the openness and global aspects of the other services as an option to the families and be prepared to discuss them if they ask however. NOTE: If your school does not have an LMS, there are ways to "lock" down access to accounts in both of the above that may be sufficient for your needs. In another post, I would like to look at SchoolTube. More on that later.

For now, lets look at what an LMS can do for each of the above challenges.

• Receiving many files from various students

Most LMSs have a file sharing tool, messaging system etc. The important "rule" to establish when offering students a way to share media, is to ensure that students send files to you as the "moderator" ONLY. As a music educator, I have first hand experience in using student supplied media that was not appropriate. Lets just say how surprised I was when students supplied their own music for a project I had assigned. It was my first year teaching and WOW -- I was the coolest teacher in school after that. When the music played, OH MY ! I am not a fan of making censorship a big deal in the creative arts. So I will leave that for another topic. But, I did learn quickly that no matter what, we must teach students about class standards whatever they may be. So, submitting to you first and ONLY you, before posting, is a must in my opinion.

• Keeping a record of who's file belongs to whom

Each time a student sends you a file, their account is associated with that file. Imagine having 20 -25 students in a class, and potentially multiple classes, all emailing you files they want to be part of project. That process would quickly become out of control. And, you would most likely have issue with file sizes filling your email system. Through an LMS, students can easily send you files, with names attached and through a system where the flow of larger files is a norm.

• Screening files for appropriateness.

The simple act of the students submitting files to you for posting allows you to work with students individually, creating a really powerful learning experiences. Presenting "rules" up front in very simple terms can be done at the class level. However, if a student sends in a file that is not exactly educationally appropriate, dealing directly with that student 1:1 can be a memorable and lasting experience for the student. As a teacher, you can address specifics about the media and share what you are looking for and what traits of the media do not fall into those specifics. In direct terms -- "tell them what is bad and where they crossed the line for school."

NOTE: Many LMSs have discussion boards where files can be posted to a moderator. As the moderator, you can mark files as "approved" for distribution, simplifying the entire process. Also, this process is a great lesson for students to play a role in. Teaching them how to moderate a forum would be a wonderful way to apply the requirements to a hands-on, real-world application.

• Supplying secure access -- ie -- only students in the school or class can access the files

LMSs are built around access and roles. So they easily handle the issue of secure, controlled access to certain areas of your course, club or school site. To put this into practical terms, imagine being a teacher who has a site in the LMS that covers all of your course sections for Sociology. You have 3 sections of the course. You decide you want the students to share media about their hobbies for 1 section of the course. The other 2 will do so at a later time and your others classes are working on other projects. Using Blackboard as an example, you create Groups within your site for each separate course. Next, you give access to the students in each section to that section only (for now). At this point you can now communicate, post files, have discussions, etc. that are ONLY accessible by those students in that group!

• Organizing the files for distribution

For this challenge, think of the LMS as a website building tool. Most of us should have some experience building websites. If you are an educator and do not, you should! We know that we must format the pages, create labels for the files, create ways to link to a file, etc. If we are using a website building tool, all of this still take time. LMSs will still take time, but offer the essentials to you for supplying access to all of the student files. Keeping things simple will help a ton. Make a page, add items to the page, each being a link to a file, etc. and you have a great way to organize the files. You can create different pages for different themes if you like. Remember though, put all of these pages under 1 label or area for each access.

• Labeling the files for searching or locating files of interest quickly

Considering that each file has a user attached, and you have the ability to add a description, LMSs are an easy way to ensure each file supplies credit back to the student who created it. Plus, most LMS have search capabilities. For example, if you want to find Britney Smith's file, you can search for her.

• Archiving the files for future use

Lastly, LMS allow you to do various types of archiving. The one that I like the best is simply turning pages off. In Blackboard for instance, turning a page off leaves the page in the system, but keeps the page as part of the course. For future reference, you can turn the page back on. Or, if you need access but no one else does, you can simply user your UBER role and gain access to the file. If you want to use the course again, you can always copy the course, and thus all of the files, or archive the file into the LMS archiving system where courses can hang out for retrieval.

Remember, you are only limited by your imagination!