A MALAT Student Blog
Our project team Amber, Karen, Klaus and I prepared a toolkit for managing for changing in digital learning environments in Articulate Rise, a cloud-based course authoring e-learning environment. Its purpose is to provide explanatory text and resources—four lessons, ideas, resources, and tools to affect change.
Our toolkit.
Innovation is change. A new leadership team (L2) is disrupting the norm and invoking necessary change to a new model of professional learning teams (PLTs). Each leadership team, the previous one (L1), and the current one (L2) approached change differently. The current model reveals how relationships and reflective practice are critical for innovation.
Change Management
Both leadership teams (L1 and L2) established a need to build more purposeful collaboration. Initial factors to implement change are physical – the school has difficulty with space, lacking space in the schedule for teachers to physically collaborate, but also mental space due to a hectic pace in – impeding mental capacity to grow and develop.
In recognizing this need for professional learning teams (PLT), the previous leadership team (L1) implemented a plan and affected change; however, the full faculty did not demonstrate a commitment to the PLT implementation. For four years, the L1 team has had difficulty in sustaining the trust of the faculty and resulted in low motivation by the faculty to build a collaborative group. Working backward, faculty members noted the L1 lacked transparency in stages of planning and implementing; change efficacy of the faculty was low (Weiner, 2009). According to Weiner, without the common belief in the change, implementation of the PLT model was difficult (2009).
The faculty demonstrated a lack of confidence in L1, leading to a difficulty in building enthusiasm and willingness to change. According to Lewin’s theory of change, the L1 team should have created a psychologically safe place when disrupting the traditional structure (Antwi & Kale, 2014). However, unable to do so, the L1 strategy became more autocratic by nature versus adaptive, weakening Lewin’s “moving” stage, where smaller influential groups is vital to implementing change (Antwi & Kale, 2014).
In contrast, the current leadership team (L2) had a different approach to determining organizational readiness. L2 created trust through transparency. The faculty identified the issue of PLTs, and common agreements were established. Under the lense of Kotter’s steps for change, L2 was able to create a sense of urgency, instilling greater efficacy for change (Weiner, 2009). Transparent in the vision and strategies, the immediate investment by the faculty in the change model was greater (Al-Haad & Kontour, 2015). Assessing the organizational readiness to change, allowed L2 to establish trust in the process (Weiner, 2009).
Perspectives
The success of L2 is the difference in approach and reception, leading to a reflective and adaptive process. L1 demonstrated strength in identifying the issue and implementing a plan; however, establishing trust proved challenging. L2 focused on building supportive relationships with the faculty through an adaptive leadership approach: faculty’s needs and goals were listened to and respected (Khan, 2017). Applying Kotter’s Leading Change model, L2 was successful in establishing a (1) sense of urgency, (2) a trusted guiding team, (3) a common vision, and (4) communication of the vision (Al-Haad & Kontour, 2015). The faculty demonstrated willingness and investment in the change ahead by forging common agreements.
Although L1 was unable to have full investment in the change, the L1 team was able to implement PLTs. The change was in process only, leaving the culture of the unchanged. L2, due to the relationship and trust, moved the culture from an on-site PLT to pair with professional learning networks via Twitter. Although traditionally labeled a tech school, there are difficulties in fully being current in practice and L2 was able to promote and build enthusiasm for being vulnerable to try something new.
L2, unlike L1, demonstrated the characteristics of an innovator. Kotter’s Leading Change model aligns with a reflective leader (Castelli, 2015) and innovator characteristics (Dyer, 2011). The first stages of Kotter’s model demonstrate the need for an innovative leader:
(1) The ability to associate with colleagues, showing the leadership diversity, connecting with each member, and establishing trust;
(2) question the status quo, displaying the vulnerability with suggestions;
(3) observe and respect the needs and goals of the faculty (Dyer, 2011).
L2 was able to instill trust and build change efficacy. By nurturing networking characteristics to lead to the implementation of change and aligning with experimenting characteristics, the faculty was infused with trust. Being an effective changemaker requires a skill set and a plan; the analysis reveals that trust and relationships are key to building enthusiasm and willingness to change and invest in the process.
Final Thoughts
Communication is important. The leadership who are changemakers are learners themselves. Leaders need to investigate, source, plan, and apply, then reflect in order to be transparent with the process.
When working in a digital environment …
This phrase causes me to pause to consider what is a digital environment and how does this look.
I am a ‘young’ leader in my organization. I have held other leadership positions in some capacity at other times in my life but now, labeled ‘a leader,’ the magnitude of the role and what I am charged with accomplishing—it is leveled-up but welcomed.
I am reflecting if the leadership style is different or should be different with digital leadership. Do I need to distinguish between the two?
My leadership perspective is moving the culture of ‘us’ and not a ‘we’ versus ‘them.’ I appreciate, witnessed, been apart of a leadership style that brings a wave of excitement, well, sometimes – or at least momentum, to change. Not that leadership always has to bring change, but there is a need to continually challenge and level up those that you work with, empowering and supporting learning. I appreciate and a mentoring under an adaptive model, where Khan (2017) describes adaptive leadership as flexible, changing behavior by seeing the holistic view of a situation. Assessing the goals and needs of the group help to facilitate and decide the change needed, but all the while enhancing social capital. This sounds right.
Does this change with digital leadership?
– I don’t think so.
Flexibility. Assessing environmental readiness. Changing behaviors and culture. Same same…but different. Sustainable change with growing technology environments, an adaptable and flexible leader who can empower people to change practice and understandings will have more sustainable change and growth (Sheninger, 2014).
Leadership is not about strolling along the status quo but rather how to level up and challenge your colleagues, faculty or students, to grow and change. With digital leadership, recognizing this leadership with students and faculty, it is when there are common agreements around the change—#BetheDigitalChange (Casa-Todd, 2017).
The adaptive leadership model will guide me look at the current challenges in a holistic view to gain consensus in ideas and direction for the greater good of the group (Khan, 2017). I think one thing that may not change but certainly could look different is how the information is presented to those involved in the change and presenting a platform that all voices are heard. As Sheninger has pointed out in his article of “Pillars of Digital Leadership” (2014) that communication is a “two-way communication” amongst the stakeholders, using digital platforms to communicate, learning through doing (p. 2). The involvement and engagement of those participating in the change and growth, those are the stakeholders that also have to observe the use of the digital change. Whether it is students or colleagues, the observation, and modeling of proper use. The more that the modeling is observed, the more impact we have on those watching, helping them to imitate the positive behaviors (Casa-Todd, 2017).
We know from Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory that learning occurs through social interaction and imitating behavior, and the environmental situation is relevant (McLeod, 2016). As a leader, not only modeling the behavior I want to be used, I need to assess the environmental readiness, evaluating obstacles or paths. As evaluation as made, and assumptions are removed, the need for reflection is necessary to catch what you might miss. To help build a sustainable change of culture and behavior, as a leader I have to ensure that my message is clear, and presented from the collective voice, and also demonstrate that I share the responsibility (Casa-Todd, 2017).
In using the Sheninger’s Pillars of Digital Leadership (2017) 
to help push and promote change, the adaptive and reflective style of leadership, thus far (knock on wood) seems to be proving itself correct. Every day, many times a day, reflection on what I am doing, and how I am doing is important, checking to see that I am that leader that is adaptive situations, and fluid enough to change directions as the scenario deems. I also recognize that it is also not only me in doing the leading. In the distributive model, tech teams and other colleagues who have embraced technology personally and professionally will also be leaders of change. As Huggins (2017), building capacity is the power in learning individually or collectively and applying their new knowledge to professional or personal situations (p. 3). The theories of leadership to lead the work in a change in digital learning environments are adaptive styles that promote flexibility, supporting and embracing change. The change must be sustained. Digital learning transforms at a rapid pace, and the learners must trust that their efforts will have a result in a viable transformation, grounded in support and tolerance for risk and empowerment.
Digital leadership is about impacting people. “We are making a difference in our own world and maybe in someone else’s” (Casa-Todd, 2017, p. 110).
References
Casa-Todd, J. (2017). Social Leadia. San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.
Huggins, K. (2017). Developing Leadership Capacity in Others: An Examination of High School Principals’ Personal Capacities for Fostering Leadership. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 12(1).
Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or Transactional Leadership in Current Higher Education: A Brief Comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3).
McLeod, S. (2016). Bandura-Social Learning Theory. Simple Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html.
Sheninger, E. (2014). Pillars of digital leadership. International Centre for Leadership in Education.
When examining the continuum from renewal to new in the case of digital collaborative, I found that my case as a whole is more on the renewal side of the continuum. The use of digital platforms to collaborate is not new. Collaborating and teaming is not new. Collaborating digitally is not new. The method in which we will be collaborating is new.
My school, the location for my case study, is a Google school and is swamped with the use Google Suite. Google is fine; however, when examining other platforms and their performances, it seemed appropriate to test MURAL.
However, MURAL as a platform is new.
My colleagues are entrenched with user-friendly Google Suite, but this does not mean that all teachers are tech-savvy. The team that will be working with MURAL in the collaborative do not all have the same level of technology competencies. There will be a learning curve and comfort-level required to function in the collaborative. The learning curve for MURAL and the user expectations are ‘newer’ and will move down the continuum. The expectations of the familiarity and the consistent use of MURAL will be higher, for this collaborative work well and with purpose.
My case:
My international school is a reputable school with a strong faculty where there is a continual desire to improve and better our practice. Our physical space does not foster collaboration- a huge issue. The design of the physical space (or lack thereof)and busy schedule makes it extremely difficult to connect with colleagues.
Our school values opportunities for leadership and encouraging professional and personal growth. In particular, we have a group of teachers designated as learning leaders, who lead subject-specific teams such as English, Science, Math etc, and are a layer of leadership who are relied on for their ideas, input, and pulse on their team. This team is valuable to our organization.
Design Principles:
Learn from mistakes, and move forward
Listen and learn from ideas and situations from before. As learning happens, and other methods are trialed, many new ideas are considered and opportunities are presented. Thinking, reflecting, and building or restructuring goals with purpose will bring clarity to move forward.
Voice & Choice
Voice: Encouraging input and embracing ideas and suggestions empowers stakeholders to be apart of change–adapting to create a better learning environment. Inclusivity is key, building relationships and trust to strengthen the process.
Choice: Feedback collected is collated to present viable options making it less overwhelming. Minimal selection when the time is of the essence will increase engagement rather than burden with possibility.
Optimism
Optimism is what drives you forward. When things are muddied or difficult, or when there is new ground to explore, the belief that your team will find solutions and move forward is essential. The continual effort in the team’s common goal will boost engagement and collaboration.
Consistency is Crucial
Using tech is a routine.
The digital environment will only sustain and grow if stakeholders engage habitually with the content and with each other in order to benefit the common good.
Make things Efficient
The functionality of the platform must add to the positivity of the experience and enhance its perceived value.
Time is money: keep it simple.
Do you feel what we feel?
Be comfortable being uncomfortable and yet, understand the complexities of others learning curve. Viewing the problem and process through multiple lenses enhances and clarifies context while diminishing preconceived ideas.
Cohesiveness
You can be a critical friend but you cannot be a ‘Debbie-Downer’. Feedback is vital to the growth and redirection of a system. Stronger teams, even with disagreements, there is still a full commitment to the common goal.
“There is nothing more constant than change”
– Heraclitus, 535 BC
I feel in my work environment — this is what my colleagues and I identify with — constant change, masked in self-improvement and betterment. My international school is a reputable school with a strong faculty where there is a continual desire to improve and better our practice and strategies. Our current building, which was initially meant to be a temporary structure built 15 years ago, has turned into our permanent facility. It was not developed with the idea of shared spaces or collaboration in mind – a huge issue. The design of the physical space (or lack thereof) makes it extremely difficult to connect with colleagues. Adding to this, the stress that our schedule, demand for academics, and hectic pace of extracurricular activities, makes it difficult to find time to connect with each other and our community. We have struggled with, in either excess or limited, communication with all stakeholders and attempting to find the happy medium.
LP#1: Communication with faculty (Learning Leaders)
Our school values opportunities for leadership and encouraging professional and personal growth. In particular, we have a group of teachers in leadership roles, designated as learning leaders, who lead subject-specific teams such as English, Science, Math etc, and are used as a layer of leadership in our organization to help make decisions with the administration as far as grading, assessment, school-wide impacts, etc. Also, this talented group of teachers is relied on for their ideas, input, and pulse on their team.
This team is valuable to our organization; however, as an administrative team, we are unable to find the time to gather these people together to help us in curricular and administrative decisions while encouraging a supportive and team approach to this layer of leadership.
The proposed solution is looking at another digital collaborative platform that can support us until larger structural shifts can be made, such as redesigning the schedule or physically redesigning the building. Having a digital collaborative platform will help build a structure that allows communication to be open and readily accessible. It would be the base of a digital community, for learning leaders, that can be fostered and supported.
LP#2: Communication with students and parents
Currently, there are many platforms that students and teachers use to connect with students and then parents. Our school is a 1:1 school, and although we claim we technology savvy, we are not as savvy as we think. In fact, in most cases in education, the students’ ability supersedes that of our faculty. Here in lies the problem.
The LMS is Veracross, a great platform that is doing a lot of tasks for all levels of school. It is not unlike Moodle; however, it serves our purpose better with communicating academic achievement, formative process, and comments to the parents and students about progress. Comments and grading are happening simultaneously as report cards — it is pretty amazing, and it continues to build its platform to be superior to other rival systems such as PowerSchool. It is the main communication tool for students and parents, but it is used to varying degrees among staff because of preference and level of understanding.
However, not all teachers have bought in or willing to learn all that Veracross has to offer. There is a comfort with other platforms for managing class and assignments, thus, depending on the teacher, the student will navigate a series of websites, webpress sites, and google classrooms work through their class material. Students comment they go through click-icide to navigate their day. This is the problem.
Although the students are very digital literate, they are finding student life confusing with the uses of many platforms. In examining what is most useful for students, making their life easier, not necessarily the teacher, what would create a more sustainable, purposeful, cohesive learning model? There is a policy that every teacher has to use Veracross. However, it is in a minimal capacity, and this allowed teachers to choose what they felt the most comfortable with or to shy away if they were not as competent with the tools. The debate is to renew the learning practice of Google Classrooms for EVERYONE or to renew the thorough use of Veracross. There are pros and cons for both platforms, and they are not equally sharing the same perks and extras. This makes it difficult to decide and unsure of what level or degree our school should move toward mandating one platform.
The downside is that an online collaboration and a student management system discourages face-to-face conversations and relationship building.
With careful consideration and looking at the renewed practices, I will be examining the learning practice of collaboration online.
With this context in mind, I will be analyzing ways to:
Use time effectively
Establishing a culture
Benefits of an online environment
Digital collaborate: MURAL
Tutorials and time to be familiar program
Problem Statement:
Bobbi and Krista are discovering methods for students to better engage with curriculum while developing real-life skills and enhancing cultural perspective. Important to both learning groups is an increased cognizance of what is beyond their educational confines: considering the needs of 21st-century learners in an international high school; and supporting 20-30-year-old (mostly) Caucasian males, respectively. While there is an obvious contrast between groups’ participant diversity (or lack thereof), they are comparable in that both groups lack perspective outside their immediate context.
For us, one of the defining factors is trust and perspective. To encourage participation, we created an environment that is both comfortable and safe, while allowing for vulnerability (Wegerif, 1998). Although both groups have different needs, they require skills to engage online through collaboration, communication, and knowledge-building. Krista’s learning group is needing the support of the community to build awareness for operational work; Bobbi’s students are growing their international-mindedness. Both groups require the cognitive skills of a 21st-century learner/thinker to support their future endeavors.
Building Empathy:
Through the design process, we discovered current, common needs. Krista was seeking methods to build camaraderie online and encourage engagement, while Bobbi is seeking meaningful engagement through understanding. Because of concern for learner complacency (those who do the minimum needed to pass versus those who construct knowledge), it is essential to create learning experiences that are both authentic and experiential in nature (Crichton & Carter, 2017). In wanting to build online skills in research, collaboration, and communication, it was highlighted that both groups of students had to build a greater understanding of themselves and the world – a difficult concept to teach.
Our Solution:
Papert’s theory of constructivism offers that “[constructing] knowledge and understanding are through the building of something that is shareable outside of the student’s head” (Crichton & Carter, 2017, p.16). To aid in developing new perspectives and engagement, we created an activity that is low-risk and inclusive. In this activity, students represent self-selected United Nation countries in a simulated UN conference. The activity plays out live via Blackboard Collaborate or Skype and is centered around their countries’ positions on the urban refugee crisis.
Prior to this culminating activity, students will connect with other UN countries. Sharing details of the countries represented (such as policies, cultural perspectives, and/or resources), students will determine if other countries geographically and politically support their position. By connecting synchronously online, students will evaluate each countries’ perspective. To model participation, the instructor will also represent a country, engaging in the same process. Final positions are compared with initial positions and posted to a forum.
This activity offers students the opportunity to engage in discussions concerning a global crisis that continues to have an impact on the world. As Burkhardt et al. (2003) confirm: interpersonal, management and problem-solving skills are fundamental to this economy, and students must demonstrate flexibility in an ever-changing environment that necessitates critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication/collaboration skills to adapt to any given situation.
Analysis:
The limitations of the logistics of this activity include: (1) that it is a new activity and some glitches may occur, and (2) keeping track of participant engagement might be difficult.
The limitations of the learner experience include: (1) the topic of the refugee crisis might not be of interest to all participants, thus limiting intrinsic motivation; (2) lack of background knowledge of the present day refugee context could hinder engagement; and (3) technology skill levels of the participants might detract from interaction and engagement.
References
Burkhardt, G., Monsour, M., Valdez, G., Gunn, G., Dawson, M., Lemke, C., Coughlin, E., Thadani, V., & Martin, C. (2003). Literacy in the digital age. NCREL. Retrieved from http://pict.sdsu.edu/engauge21st.pdf
Crichton, S. & Carter, D. (2017). Taking Making into Classrooms Toolkit. Open School/ITA.
Wegerif, R. (1998). The social dimension of asynchronous learning networks. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 2(1), 34–49. doi: https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/sites/default/files/v2n1_wegerif_1.pdf.
What We Investigated
With a limit of sixty minutes each to research our chosen topic of increasing traffic to blog sites, Karen and I both witnessed an abundance of content (Weller, 2011), including news articles, videos, infographics, social media groups, books and services for purchase. Topics ranged from those targeted to a novice audience, to others which cataloged and tracked successful blogs and topic influencers. We also found many active newsfeeds and digital environments with participants interested in what seemed to be an endless number of topics.
What We Found and Confidence in Abundance
In an initial search of “drive traffic to blog” resulting findings matched close to fifty million sources, which was overwhelming, even through the lens of this activity. Further refinement of search variables to include only those resources associated with 2017 resulted in over nine million results. We were confident that we had abundant content, but whether it was reliable and valid would take many more hours to determine.
The information provided listed strategies to increase the number of blog visitors. Sources uncovered were targeted to varying user abilities, meaning that a novice personal blogger with lower technology skills could navigate and apply the suggestions provided by some sources. Additionally, more advanced methods and strategies were presented for those with established social media presence, developed navigation skills, and fulsome content knowledge. Dependent on the situation and context, learners have control to choose which strategies are most applicable and to decide how and when to apply them, discriminating the value of the research, and then constructing knowledge.
Navigating the Abundance Uncovered
It is clear that information is more dynamic and accessible in the 21st-century, and that there are skills needed to navigate the abundance of information available. As learners in this vast arena of abundant online content, we reflected upon which search terms and other refinements would uncover relevant and current information. As we dug down with refinements to search criteria, we were able to target our search, but remained overwhelmed with the results and began to question the credibility or value of the sources provided.
Having the ability to access information quickly and effectively is a required transferable skill (Weller, 2011) that supports “learners in a journey to capacity rather than competency” (Anderson, 2016, p. 42). The shift from a supply-push model to a demand-pull model results in learner time and attention being scarce, as opposed to content scarcity (Weller, 2011). To be able to evaluate the abundance of information, the value of possessing critical thinking skills is crucial to determine the relevance of the text and to effectively analyze the content.
Supporting Learners
As an instructor, there are some simple ways to make sense of the content for learning. Instructional designers must prioritize learner support in understanding how to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge available so they can effectively evaluate uncovered content and learn how to find ways to manage it (Weller, 2011).
When learners engage with online digital learning environments, they produce content and discover “how to effectively participate in conversations,” which “is as important as learning the subject matter material itself” (Weller, 2011, p. 6). The wealth of information allows that both learners and instructors can add to, review and edit existing content, thereby adding new perspectives which can “enhance the work of others through added insights and findings” (Anderson, 2016, p. 40). Since knowledge today is more readily accessible to learners in digital formats, knowledge scarcity disappears and learners are no longer bound by accessing knowledge in a repository such as a library (Weller, 2011).
Today, content is distributed for free on a global scale (Weller, 2011), allowing novices and experts to connect effectively online. Learners can self-organize to share knowledge, resources, and questions, thereby organizing a support network (Anderson, 2016), with instructors acting as a source of support for learners, in framing knowledge and encouraging collaboration (Weller, 2011). When learners are supported to monitor, evaluate, and update their constructions based on new knowledge or perspectives presented from other digital participants (Ertmer & Newby, 2013), a partnership evolves between novice and experienced contributors. As described by Anderson (2016), when learners are actively engaged and when they participate in conversations with multiple people with varied perspectives, learning is supported. From Ertmer and Newby (2013), because learners create meaning based on their individual experiences and validate them through negotiation when the instructor encourages communication in online environments, learners can communicate and collaborate with others to construct learning which is authentic and which holds meaning for them (Anderson, 2016).
Conclusion
We often reflect on the great thinkers of the past, working in veritable isolation. If the web was available to the great thinkers in the past to explore, collaborate, and share discoveries, who knows what the world would look like? When determining how to increase traffic to a blog site, the extensive information uncovered was overwhelming. The need to determine and discern the relevance of information and tips was evident because the diversity in the information puts the learner in control, choosing what is applicable to their given situation. In gaining perspective of scenarios, there is an increase in the importance of collaboration and a focus on users contributing to each other’s understanding (Weller, 2011). The growth from Web 1.0 to 2.0, brings new social media and other technology tools, emphasizing participation and encouraging focused conversations (Weller, 2011). When learning online, we determined that technology literacy skills are important and that the ability to connect and collaborate within an online environment is also a key factor to effective content knowledge navigation.
References
Anderson, T. (2016). Chapter 3: Theories for Learning with Emerging Technologies. In Veletsianos, G. (Ed). Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning: Foundations and Applications. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.
Ertmer, P., & Newby, T. (2013). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71.
Weller, M. (2011). A pedagogy of abundance. Spanish Journal of Pedagogy, 249, 223–236.
I want to discuss one word with you. Slack.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines slack in the following ways:
adjective \ˈslak\
: not stretched or held in a tight position
: not busy
: lacking the expected or desired activity
: doing something poorly because you are not putting enough care or effort into
I want to add a third definition:
noun
: student-centered LMS for a 21st-century educational context
In doing a bit of research on it, I came across a blog by Mathias Elmose (2015), that discusses the use of Slack as a student-centered LMS for a 21st-century educational context.
The Slack application has been around since late 2013 and is essentially a messaging app for teams. We are currently using it among our LRNT 523 cohort and playing with the ins and outs. I have been using it here and there for over a year and well … FUN FUN FUN. There is a lot more to offer than what meets the eye. Here is a video that gives a brief overview of how it works.
Mathias Elmose (2015) posted his thoughts on the app known as Slack on his blog. Up until recently, Slack has mostly been associated with business platforms, but Elmose is promoting its use for education. In a previous blog post, I mentioned how “technology needs to serve a need and not the other way around.” Elmose believes that Slack can do just this – that will be able to “support learning by default.”
I believe that learning happens when educators provide experiences that give learners opportunities to engage meaningfully in activities that promote peer interaction. This brings into the forefront two learning theories – constructivism and connectivism. Both of these theories help to engage learners in a 21st-century learning landscape – one that takes the teacher off the stage and encourages digital networking.
(Click on the graphic to see it better)
Slack is an interactive environment where you can post, comment, and share ideas. Elmose believes that “it is collaboration” and it will help to shift from teacher-centered to a student-centered learning context – it will help to build a community of learning in the classroom. These communities of learning are necessary to promote opportunities for students to take owner-ship of their learning.
Main Features/Pros:
Cons (In connection to my LMS train of thought)
It really doesn’t have a lot of cons…and although those are big ones for administrative aspects to an educational setting, the ability of the app to engage students in the learning process, in collaboration, in 21st-century digital skills is more than enough of a reason to use it in a classroom.
Elmose, M. (2015, April 23). Is Slack the new LMS? (Blog). Retrieved
from https://medium.com/synapse/is-slack-the-new-lms-
7d1c15ff964f.