If I were to go completely Non-LMS I would need to ensure that there were a number of tools for myself and my students to utilize.
Landing Page
Students must have a central location to land - somewhere that they can find out about the course, expectations, contact information, etc. For this centralized location I would choose to use Weebly. Weebly allows for easy website creation which would make an excellent landing page. Within that page I would be able to add links to the various other tools as well as store static files directly on the site.
I think it's important that students always have a first step, and especially one that does not require a specific login. They will be logging in to a variety of sites so their initial stop to perhaps check the course outline or find a link to another location should be quick and easy. In addition, Weebly will allow me to customize my course homepage and easily modify it as required. I will be able to show a "professional face" to both students and parents.
Content Management
Within the management aspect of the course students will need to deal with a variety of files - these could include assignments, slides, articles, etc. To host these files and make them available to students I would choose to utilize Google Drive. This suite of software will act as the back-end to any files that students need to access. The most powerful feature for me about Google Drive is the ability to not only share documents with students but to also allow them to make copies, edit them and re-submit these documents for later assessment.
This leads me into the assessment and grading requirements of my course. Students will access, duplicate and modify documents located on Google Drive that are shared with them. This may be in the form of a shared folder for the whole class or individual documents shared with individual students, depending on the requirement. They will then be able to re-share a duplicated document, sufficiently named, so that I can organize this into a specific "dropbox" type location for each student.
Organization
Another important aspect of course management is creating a shared calendar. For this I would utilize the Google Apps accounts that students will have created to access Google Drive and share a course calendar with them. This calendar would not only be accessible by myself from any one of my devices but also by my students through any of their devices. Because of this I am able to make quick changes as required and keep students updated.
I would also encourage students to create and utilize a "school" calendar to share with me in order to keep me informed of their other class and extra-curricular requirements. This may include activities such as sports games, practices, family trips, extra-heavy homework loads, etc. This would be easily accomplished through Google Calendar and would allow me to quickly analyze where specific students are at in terms of their availability.
Assessment
There are two aspects to assessment that I will need to focus on with a Non-LMS based course. The first is a gradebook program that allows me to assess in a way that makes sense to me. For this I would choose to use Engrade simply for its ease of use and powerful assessment tools. I am able to categorize assessments via strand or topic and place a weight on each of these categories. Being able to access this tool anywhere is important, as well as the ability to download the marks and analyze them using spreadsheet tools.
For students, they would need to display some of their more creative work in a centralized e-portfolio. For this I would utilize Mahara, an e-portfolio system that interacts nicely with both students and teachers. Students have the ability to fully customize their e-portfolio in a way that makes sense for them. Teachers are given an excellent back-end that allows them to manage all student e-portfolios at once and quickly "log in" as a student in order to view and edit their portfolio. This is valuable because the management of multiple portfolios can become challenging and so a streamlined workflow would be important. The ability to edit a student's portfolio is valuable while working directly with that a succession of students and making quick changes and edits.
Community
Creating community is incredibly important to me and so I would choose to utilize Edmodo as a centralized location. Edmodo works much like Facebook except it also provides a number of organization options such as group creators and badges. For younger students it also allows a closed environment where students are able to make mistakes with respect to digital citizenship and have fewer repercussions.
Edmodo is valuable to me as a teacher because students can quickly be separated into groups to discuss various topics and then return to a centralized stream on the home page. It is also a valuable tool because it can be set to notify users of posts and updates. When a student returns to Edmodo they will quickly be engaged in the discussion because all conversation occurs on the main page, similar to a Facebook newsfeed.
In addition to having a discussion forum, Google Docs is a valuable tool for collaborating on documents which would be utilized in a number of ways. Google Docs does not only include the word processing capabilities. Instead, any type of document could be collaboratively edited by students. This may be utilized through the annotation of images in a collaborative setting or multiple groups filling in a lab spreadsheet on a single Google Doc. With the ability for students to share documents with each other and myself I can ensure that all groups are "on the right track" throughout the class period or project time.
Quizzing
A valuable part of my daily lessons involve the formative assessment made possible by Socrative. Socrative allows me to have two completely different quiz formats, both of which I utilize. The quick "press a button and send a quiz" is useful for getting formative assessment "on the fly" to ensure I am able to move on to the next part of my lesson. I particularly like that Socrative allows students to log in without any form of account, and on any device. Students are only presented with an ABCD or text entry box choice and I can receive anonymous feedback with respect to where everyone is at.
Landing Page
Students must have a central location to land - somewhere that they can find out about the course, expectations, contact information, etc. For this centralized location I would choose to use Weebly. Weebly allows for easy website creation which would make an excellent landing page. Within that page I would be able to add links to the various other tools as well as store static files directly on the site.
I think it's important that students always have a first step, and especially one that does not require a specific login. They will be logging in to a variety of sites so their initial stop to perhaps check the course outline or find a link to another location should be quick and easy. In addition, Weebly will allow me to customize my course homepage and easily modify it as required. I will be able to show a "professional face" to both students and parents.
Content Management
Within the management aspect of the course students will need to deal with a variety of files - these could include assignments, slides, articles, etc. To host these files and make them available to students I would choose to utilize Google Drive. This suite of software will act as the back-end to any files that students need to access. The most powerful feature for me about Google Drive is the ability to not only share documents with students but to also allow them to make copies, edit them and re-submit these documents for later assessment.
This leads me into the assessment and grading requirements of my course. Students will access, duplicate and modify documents located on Google Drive that are shared with them. This may be in the form of a shared folder for the whole class or individual documents shared with individual students, depending on the requirement. They will then be able to re-share a duplicated document, sufficiently named, so that I can organize this into a specific "dropbox" type location for each student.
Organization
Another important aspect of course management is creating a shared calendar. For this I would utilize the Google Apps accounts that students will have created to access Google Drive and share a course calendar with them. This calendar would not only be accessible by myself from any one of my devices but also by my students through any of their devices. Because of this I am able to make quick changes as required and keep students updated.
I would also encourage students to create and utilize a "school" calendar to share with me in order to keep me informed of their other class and extra-curricular requirements. This may include activities such as sports games, practices, family trips, extra-heavy homework loads, etc. This would be easily accomplished through Google Calendar and would allow me to quickly analyze where specific students are at in terms of their availability.
Assessment
There are two aspects to assessment that I will need to focus on with a Non-LMS based course. The first is a gradebook program that allows me to assess in a way that makes sense to me. For this I would choose to use Engrade simply for its ease of use and powerful assessment tools. I am able to categorize assessments via strand or topic and place a weight on each of these categories. Being able to access this tool anywhere is important, as well as the ability to download the marks and analyze them using spreadsheet tools.
For students, they would need to display some of their more creative work in a centralized e-portfolio. For this I would utilize Mahara, an e-portfolio system that interacts nicely with both students and teachers. Students have the ability to fully customize their e-portfolio in a way that makes sense for them. Teachers are given an excellent back-end that allows them to manage all student e-portfolios at once and quickly "log in" as a student in order to view and edit their portfolio. This is valuable because the management of multiple portfolios can become challenging and so a streamlined workflow would be important. The ability to edit a student's portfolio is valuable while working directly with that a succession of students and making quick changes and edits.
Community
Creating community is incredibly important to me and so I would choose to utilize Edmodo as a centralized location. Edmodo works much like Facebook except it also provides a number of organization options such as group creators and badges. For younger students it also allows a closed environment where students are able to make mistakes with respect to digital citizenship and have fewer repercussions.
Edmodo is valuable to me as a teacher because students can quickly be separated into groups to discuss various topics and then return to a centralized stream on the home page. It is also a valuable tool because it can be set to notify users of posts and updates. When a student returns to Edmodo they will quickly be engaged in the discussion because all conversation occurs on the main page, similar to a Facebook newsfeed.
In addition to having a discussion forum, Google Docs is a valuable tool for collaborating on documents which would be utilized in a number of ways. Google Docs does not only include the word processing capabilities. Instead, any type of document could be collaboratively edited by students. This may be utilized through the annotation of images in a collaborative setting or multiple groups filling in a lab spreadsheet on a single Google Doc. With the ability for students to share documents with each other and myself I can ensure that all groups are "on the right track" throughout the class period or project time.
Quizzing
A valuable part of my daily lessons involve the formative assessment made possible by Socrative. Socrative allows me to have two completely different quiz formats, both of which I utilize. The quick "press a button and send a quiz" is useful for getting formative assessment "on the fly" to ensure I am able to move on to the next part of my lesson. I particularly like that Socrative allows students to log in without any form of account, and on any device. Students are only presented with an ABCD or text entry box choice and I can receive anonymous feedback with respect to where everyone is at.
Utilizing the more formal "quiz" section of Socrative allows me to make a longer, or more permanent, formative assessment with a students name attached to it. This could be utilized in a similar fashion to the above, but also in a more formal setting as an exit ticket or at the end of a period where the content will be continued next time.
Concluding Thoughts
These are only a few of the categories that would be required if only non-LMS tools were utilized in my classroom, however, they are the most important. With these tools I am able to fully engage my learners in a variety of tasks while ensuring I have the management and organizational tools required to be an eff