Dear Raafat

We utilize the Quality Matters rubric to design the eLearning courses. It provides a set of standards for the design of online and blended courses at the college level. It has a set of 8 general standards and 41 specific standards used to evaluate the design of online and blended courses. The eight general standards included are:

1. Course Overview and Introduction

2. Learning Objectives (Competencies)

3. Assessment and Measurement

4. Instructional Materials

5. Learner Interaction and Engagement

6. Course Technology

7. Learner Support

8. Accessibility

The Rubric is complete with annotations that explain the application of the standards and the relationship among them. A scoring system and set of online tools facilitate the evaluation by a team of reviewers.

It aligns the course content under the various standards - Learning Objectives (2), Assessment and Measurement (3), Instructional Materials (4), Learner Interaction and Engagement (5), and Course Technology (6) - work together to ensure students achieve desired learning outcomes.

The course designed using the Quality Matters Rubric is peer evaluated by a team of reviewers.

https://www.qualitymatters.org/rubric

Although I'm not sure if one can or should try to 'embed a pedagogy into an LMS', the pedagogical preference of the instructor is usually evident in the design of the course, structure of the online platform, readings and of course the role they play and how they interact with students.

Having done my entire masters via Moodle and taught several graduate courses via the same LMS I've found that a mixed pedagogical design (not necessarily approach) can benefit learners of varying talents and learning styles.

As far as "What makes a website a learning environment? " I believe that it's the people who sign up for the course. A superb LMS, course design and great readings will only go so far if there is no engagement between the course participants. It's the discussion forums that I believe bring everything together and best accomplish the discourse and sense of community that occurs in traditional settings.

Forums have been a required component of the online courses I've taught and although some complain as to the % assignment to this activity I think the vast majority appreciated the opportunity to hash things out, clarify points and hear about common experiences. Many students overlook the value of shared experiential anecdotes and how much they can learn from each other in context. This was especially true for my students who were also all teachers, who were, in the context of the course, able to share what had worked and what had not in schools in different regions as well as technologies and other resources. At the end of the term the external resources students had shared and found via research was substantial.

Active interest displayed by the instructor is also a crucial component in these online courses. Again it's the sense of community and you are the leader, at least for a short time, of this online learning niche.

These links may also be useful:

http://www.slideshare.net/mbrownz/pedagogical-design-tools-planning-for-learning-with-purpose#

http://www.dashe.com/blog/elearning/instructional-design-prototyping-addie/

http://www.academia.edu/351455/From_instructional_design_to_setting_up_pedagogical_infrastructures_Designing_technology-enhanced_knowledge_creation

http://id.ome.ksu.edu/roundtable/

Most LMSes take as their priority the management of students and content within their systems (Blackboard, Moodle, etc). That is, the LMS is usually just the container and the counter (who, how many, when, what score, etc). The best LMS I've seen for actually incorporating learning into the management system is the eCampus/eCommunity platform from q2learning.com (http://q2learning.com/products.php) They started with social constructivist learning theory at the core of what they built and added the management and counting after. Those companies or higher ed systems who actually want to use technology to help their employees/students learn (and not just count the number of people who sat in front of their computer for the alotted time), love the eCampus/eCommunity platform.

Having used many different DMSs/CMSs/LMSs and being involved in the development of IT to enhance learning, since 1996, I am not fond of the level of innovation with elearning. I have come realize that elearning (and I use elearning in a broad sense to encompass all types of technologies used in one way or another to help in the learning process), when discussed, needs to be framed within or outside an academic institution. This has a lot to do with what Carrie mention = FOSTER. To me, if learning is to occur in the mind on an individual, then it can only happen when the knowledge pieces to be learned are fostered and nurtured. Creating an environment (in class or online) that fosters and nurtures knowledge artifacts, maximizes the potential for learning via absorption, facilitation, assimilation, contextualization, personalization, and emotionalization. Academic institutions today, with their new set of motivations and values to exist, does not allow the instructor to explore (assuming that the instructor is motivated to do so). Moreover, to do elearning, the instructor needs to understand programming, information technology, web management, learning theory, evolving students demographics, statistical tools, assessment methodologies and so on, in order to establish a feedback look for continuous improvement. Using facebook or any other social media alone does not (in my opinion) suffice. As you see, that my mind about elearning is pretty much convoluted and I continue to seek to make sense out of it. But let me share with you this tool that I developed and have been using in my face-to-face classes, included an ERP game-based course. I will try to explain in point form:

IT tool name: Peer to peer testing system

Pedagogical principle: Constructive-Active

Duration: 3 days

Process: 3 phases: Learn & Create; Peer Evaluate; Assess

Phase 1: Students are randomly (from a list of concepts/topics) assigned a concept/topic and asked to research the web, identify the best source they can find and create X-number of questions (MCQ, TF, FiB, etc...) related to that topic. (example 5 questions per student)

Phase 2: Each student is give Y-number of questions of his/her peers to evaluate level of quality and difficulty. (example each student is asked to evaluate 25 questions) Criteria can also be set to identify each Y so that each question can have at least Z-number of evaluations.

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At this point, I have for example 40 students who created 40x5questions=200 questions, with 3 evaluations done for each question.

I can then generate M-questions that were of highest quality and filter by demographics of who created them and level of difficulty.

Then I can edit these questions for quality assurance, label the test and publish for any subgroup of students to take the test. For example, I can create a test from the pool of female students and ask male students to take it. The system manages all this.

Reason for that is a question that continues to bother me: Being Male, when I create test questions, am I biasing towards Female students, or any ethnic background different than mine.

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Phase 3: To the test(s)

What I like about this P2P, is that the process itself is a learning process for the students. I add some motivational elements into it by doing the following:

1. if a student question is selected for the test, he/she gets extra points.

2. 10 percent of final exam will include questions from the P2P test.

To me, this kind of tools are what I consider to be pedagogically embedded. I have tried similar things with Forums (which are much more complex), and other tools.

Raafat

In Industries we use the following tools to create learning contents and share through DMS.

Book Builder

authorPOINT

Article IMPACT OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - OD ENABLER IN IT AND MANUFA...

I agree with Carrie - you don't embed a pedagogy in a tool; rather, the tool becomes part of a pedagogical approach.

I have outlined in the following article how digital tools - including an LMS - were used to move a mathematics course from face to face to blended mode. 

Regards, Kevin.

We use Embedded XL file for facilitating calculations in Compensation & Benefits Curriculum. The XL sheet is embedded on to the Power point and the PPT is either attached to an email or even web hosted (for relatively permanent period).