Project proposal: Continued Online Learning

It is our sincere regret to hear of the recent financial burdens our company
has been placed under. As trainers, we feel it vitally important for the
company to continue to educate new hires, while also providing
continuing education to long-term employees of the company as well. In
an effort to continue our success in training as the Biaggio Inc. corporate
training staff, yet also being sensitive to the economic demands that cut
our budget, we have found a way to train new staff, online, at absolutely
no cost. While we are hopeful to at one point attain funding for our
program once again, we understand the situation clearly, and under these
circumstances we feel that we have found an appropriate solution to the
problem we are faced with.

When we first found out that we could no longer use eCollege or

Blackboard as our CMS, we began looking for a solution that would be
both effective and free, and still provide us with the ability to train our
staff effectively. Instead of finding just one solution however, our research
and constant questioning has helped us come up with a number of
solutions. These solutions are in the form of some of the newest and most
exciting applications available today online: Web 2.0 applications.

What is a Web 2.0 application and why should we use it?

Since the first appearance of the word Web 2.0 came up in 2004, there
have been numerous definitions that have come up trying to explain what
it actually is.

Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as:

"a perceived second generation of web development and design, that

facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability,
and collaboration on the World Wide Web."

Tim O'Reilly states Web 2.0 is:

a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the
basis for the next generation of the Internet—a more mature, distinctive
medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network
effects. (O'Reilly Radar,Principles and Best Practices, 2007)

Regardless of definition, Web 2.0 offers a variety of new applications that

we feel are not only capable, but essential to our instruction online. As
the vast number of Web 2.0 applications continues to grow, we will
continue to use more of these tools in our instruction. However, for now,
after sorting through countless numbers of Web tools, we have found
some that we like for our instructional purposes.

Proprofs Quiz School

Formal assessment through testing may not be the best practice if we

believe that the classical theory of learning is the best way for students to
learn, but we still live and work in a world of the official theory. Formal
Assessment via tests and quizzes are a long lasting part of curriculum and
don’t seem to be fading any time soon. For an online learning situation
the best way to do these types of assessments is to have a an online quiz
platform such as Blackboard. Obviously with the worsening economy and
major budget cuts in our school especially we have to find a cheaper
alternative to these platforms. Proprofs quiz school is the best web 2.0
assessment application that is out there right now. Proprofs is the best
option for many reasons.
The first and most important reason that Proprofs is the best option for us
is that it is absolutely free, but does not look or feel like a free application.
There are no limits like on other applications such as Surveymonkey.
When you sign up for a free account on Proprofs you are given all of the
abilities of Proprofs, no holds bar. In addition to it being free, the students
who are taking the quiz don’t even have to sign up or sign in to take the
quiz
Proprofs is not limited to just multiple choice questions. It also allows the
quiz maker to create fill in the blank and essay options. All options allow
the quiz maker to add explanations for their correct answers so that
students can have immediate feedback for their incorrect answers. This is
pivotal to the students learning, as they are able to make the mistake and
then learn how to correct that mistake. For the fill in the blank option
there can be many options, like common misspellings or synonyms. The
essay option allows for word limits, but also gives the option for no limits.
Another great feature that allows the quiz maker to tap into the concrete
experiences of the learner is posting videos and images directly into the
quiz to help the student to tap into previous knowledge and demonstrate
learning.
For scoring the quiz there are several options including Pass/Fail, Letter
Grading, and customizing which allows the quiz maker to put in whatever
grading system he chooses. The student gets immediate grade feedback.
Once the quiz is created it allows the quiz maker to embed the quiz
directly into a platform or social networking cite such as Ning.
Proprofs was created for easy use for students and teachers. The site was
created as a result of suggestions from students and teachers and they
are constantly adding new feature and functions for the advancement of
their consumers (Technology Review).
Finally, Proprofs is on its way to becoming and social network because
students can rank and comment on the quizzes they take. They can also
search the rapidly growing database of quizzes on all kinds of topics. So
students can search for quizzes on their topic and practice taking them
before their actual quiz.

Engrade
Engrade is a completely free online grading application. There are several
successful downloadable grading applications, but Engrade is the only one
that doesn’t require any downloaded files, just an internet connection.
Other applications such as Thinkwave, and 1st class allow you to download
a trial version, or a limited version, but does not give you the full extent of
the software unless you purchase a premium package. Engrade offers the
teacher the ability to access the gradebook from anywhere in the world.
In addition it also allows the student’s to access a an online assignment
calendar. Engrade also allows the teacher to privately communicate to
each of his students via Engrade. Students and parents can access the
grades anytime all over the world and it s secure and private via a secret
access code. Not only is Engrade a fully functional gradebook, but it is
also a fully functional attendance software. While Engrade is the best free
option on the market, there have been some consumer complaints about
crashing, and lack of effective technical support. However, the complaints
are not every consumer’s experience, and the reward is worth the risk.

Ning Social Network

As a way to organize a class and present content, ning, as a free social

network service, allows instructors the freedom to present learning
objects in a way that suits the needs of their own personalized classroom.
Ning can be used as a way to organize friends, co-workers, or learners
who are learning in an online environment. For the purpose of this course,
Ning can be used to distribute our eLearning objects and to manage our
course.

Firstly, Ning allows instructors to post any and all html code that is needed
to serve their client base. In doing so, instructors are able to post online
presentations (ie. Flowgram), quizzes or surveys (ie. Proprofs), or tutorial
links (ie. jing/screen-o-matic) to a single course shell that is organized
through the use of horizontal tabs on the top of the page. Additionally,
Ning can be used to post RSS feeds from which supplemental learning can
take place. These feeds prove as valuable learning tools and have a range
of quality from simple blog post rss feeds, to video presentations from
major companies, to even reasearch articles published from organizations.

Secondly, Ning allows instructors to create and track discussion forums.

In an online environment, this supports both the social, supportive, active,
reflective, and relevant learning values that are so important to effective
teaching. The discussion forums allow students to not only participate in
a discussion but also gives them access to a variety of word processor
tools, including the use of bold face, italics, and other paragraph
formatting. Furthermore, unlike some of other Course Management
Systems (like eCollege or Blackboard), students can post pictures and/or
any html into their discussion post. This feature allows a great deal of
flexibility to the instructors, in terms of what a discussion is ,and allows
students a great deal of flexibility in regards to what they post.

Flowgram

Flowgram allows users to combine slide presentations and screencasts. It

allows users to upload pictures, slides, documents and more. Yet, at the
same time, it allows users to show chosen websites as a screen cast.

One big advantage of using Flowgram is that it can be used to give

presentations online. You can upload a powerpoint slideshow and then
narrate your slides, adding voice, music, or other audio. As such, if you
decide to offer project-based learning opportunites for your classs,
students can present their projects using such a tool.

Additionally, if you have to make your own presentation of a particular

topic, Flowgram allows you a great number of options to use, including the
ability to screen share websites. If you decide to do a screen share of a
web site, you'll be able to use an online highlighter to showcase specific
parts of a site that you want learners to pay attention to.

Scribd

Too often students who want to print text from a course CMS are forced to
copy, paste, and then format the text in a word processor before they are
able to print it. Instead of putting our students through this, we have
decided to use the program scribd to eliminate the need to do any text
formatting. Scribd allows us to type up a document and then share it so
that it is printer friendly. For students, all they need to do is click on the
print feature that is already built into the display and they are ready to
print.

As a corporate training team, we feel that the combination of these

activities allows us a great deal of flexibility in our teaching, offers
learners an optimal opportunity for learning, and offers Biaggo Inc. an
opportunity to continue it's online education program at absolutely no
extra cost. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Biaggo Training Team

Jennie Liesge
Ben Nesbit
Jessie Shipman