CCA teacher touts engagement as key differentiator of new learning management system.
Sarah Christman is a K-2 English Language Arts course designer at CCA. This year, she is creating lessons that will be part of edio, CCA’s new learning management system, that will go into effect next school year.
CCA teachers who have been working as course designers in edio are very excited about the new LMS. Sarah shares some of her thoughts about edio in this week’s designer spotlight.
What is your role with edio, the new learning management system?
I am the designer for English Language Arts. We have purchased a lot of curriculum. The main curriculum we use is Pearson ReadyGen, as well as a handwriting and keyboarding program. I am looking at all of the materials in the teacher lessons and the teacher guide. I am translating all of these lessons to fit the cyber learning environment. I have to figure out what the lessons and goals are, and how can I fit it into edio.
What has the design process looked like for you?
At the very beginning, we had to figure out the scoping sequence: What are the units, standards, topics and goals we want to cover? Once we had that, we got to go into edio and start designing lessons.
Each lesson has foundational reading and writing for ELA. Our goal is to make each of those parts engaging for the kids. We have a lot of videos kids can interact with. A lot of the components with edio are multiple choice, matching and hotspots (an image with a spot on it kids can click for text to appear). Everything is geared to give more information to the students. We also have a sketch pad where kids can draw on an image or write a word.
What new features should students and families be excited about in edio?
One of the things that I think stands out the most is the video. We use them all throughout the lessons. If you think about a typical learning environment, teachers must model it for the students — especially in language arts.
Language arts is all about the thinking process and figuring it out on your own. In the videos, the teacher is modeling how to write or perform something with your letter tiles. It gets the student to do something more than just sit and watch. We try to make the videos mimic the videos they are used to watching. We try to give them the same type of the feel. We want the videos to be something they would naturally watch or understand.
Who will be teaching the new courses?
Our current CCA teachers will be teaching the new courses. I will be teaching all of the core courses (in edio). We have had trainings all throughout the year to prepare the teachers for this. All of the teachers have their materials and will be ready to use them next year. Teachers will have the opportunity to personalize (courses) next year, as well.
