The Battle of the LMSs is a fun event being held at the 2022 ASCILITE conference in Sydney. Through a series of challenges, harnessing the expertise of Australasia’s best educators, learning designers and education technologists, we will answer the age-old question – Which is the best LMS?
This challenge is open to anyone attending the ASCILITE 2022 conference in person or online. (If you do this as a team, at least one member of the team must be registered for the conference.)
You have two weeks to upload a screencast video describing your design and the decisions that you made in your design of a learning activity in the LMS of your choice. These design videos will be voted on by members of the ed. design and ed. tech community and reviewed by esteemed judges in the week leading up to the final battle. Excellence in other areas will also be recognised through prizes for the finalists in this challenge and in the final battle.
Two finalists will then compete in real time during the live conference panel session to be crowned The Ultimate LMS Designer.
The challenge
In this challenge, you need to present a highly engaging, collaborative assessment task that you have designed in an LMS.
The challenge is to showcase your expertise with your chosen LMS and your learning design skills. There are no restrictions on which tools in your LMS you can use (including external plug-ins) or how you use them. This will allow everyone to judge the strengths of your chosen LMS.
You can either build something from scratch based on the criteria below or showcase work that you have done previously.
Select from your existing LMS design work
Create a screencast video of up to 2 mins showing an innovative assessment OR learning activity OR resource that you have built or helped to build. It can use any native functionality in your LMS as well as any external tools provided by your institution.
Try to address the judging criteria below in your discussion of your work and choices.
OR
Create a new design in your LMS
The brief is to create a short learning task sequence in your chosen LMS for learners at ASCILITE University or TAFE. The sequence is to focus on a collaborative assessment task that results in student-created content that can be used for the unit. (This may also include supporting mini-activities or resources as you see fit)
You may select one of these two topics:
A) Conflict resolution. (Base your conflict resolution sequence on these 12 principles)
(Aim this at 2nd year undergraduate students needing to develop workplace skills – in any field)
OR
B) Increasing student engagement in online learning and teaching
(Aim this at educators in your institution as part of Grad Cert/Dip level qualification tied to teaching)
You can approach this design however you wish and set whatever task details and assessment criteria etc. that you like. The only constraints to note are that while this learning activity sequence is to be part of a blended course (with some face-to-face learning activities and some online), the collaborative assessment must be submitted through the LMS.
You may choose to provide basic information about the other assessment items in this unit if it will help to contextualise this assessment.
You can use whatever LMS platform you (and your team) can access.
We are expecting your work for this challenge (designing and building in the LMS) should take no more than about 4 hours.
The content supporting the design is not being evaluated and can be drawn from existing resources: please acknowledge your sources as appropriate. Any images visible in the video submission should not contain material copyrighted by others.
Submission
To enter the LMS Heats challenge:
- Build the elements that students need to prepare their submission for the assessed learning activity in your LMS of choice.
- Record a short video (up to 2 mins) describing your design. This video will be your submission. In the video, indicate the LMS features that make your entry distinctive and how your design addresses the judging criteria (see below).
- Submit a link to your video (hosted in YouTube or similar platform) via this Google form.
- Entry is free and you may enter as many times as you like – different projects, clearly
Judging
The videos will be shared via Twitter and in other ASCILITE/TELedvisor channels and judged by interested members of the community. The criteria will be:
- How well does the learning design create opportunities for student learning?
- How well does the learning design encourage student collaboration?
- To what extent are the materials, design and instructions accessible, diverse and inclusive?
- How creative, innovative or interesting is the use of the available technologies?
- How easy would it be to repeat, sustain and/or share the design?
Prizes will be given for the best submission in each of these categories.
Timeframe
- The deadline to submit the design video via the submission form is Close of Business (your time) on Tuesday 29 November 2022.
- Votes can be cast until 9 am AEDT on Tuesday 6 December.
The Final
The two designs that receive the highest votes from the public and judges will become the finalists for the Battle of the LMSs.
The final will occur during the scheduled Battle of the LMS session at the ASCILITE conference on Tuesday 6th December around 3pm (AEDT). It will involve a final design and building challenging using the resources supplied by the organisers and employing only the default tools of their preferred LMS.
Judging of their designs will be conducted by live polling (in the room and online) as the finalists describe their work towards the end of the Battle panel session.
Any queries?
If you have any questions about the Battle of the LMSs, add your comment below or email teledvisors@gmail.com