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Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today, we're going to take a look at a specific learning management system called Sophia-- specifically how we can use Sophia instruction, its features, its major strength, and some of the major challenges in using Sophia as a learning management system within your classroom.
For today's, lesson I've chosen a quote by Benjamin Franklin which says, "An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." and I know that sometimes it can be exhausting to have to go through all of the different options that we can use as teachers, but really investing this time in increasing your knowledge like you are doing right now is going to pay off excellent interest in the long run. By the end of the lesson today, you will be able to describe the features of Sophia that you can use to help develop instruction in your classroom.
First and foremost, one of the wonderful things about Sophia is that it provides free teacher tools that are necessary for blended learning in a K-12 setting. That is what Sophia does. It is the description. So Sophia is a wonderful learning management system for you if you're in a blended learning environment and you want to collect all of those tools together, especially if you want to do it for free.
Now let's take a look at some of the features Sophia offers. Sophia is really excellent because it allows for lessons that are aligned to the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards. This is a wonderful tool for you to have in a learning management system because these are standards that you are going to be expected to include if it falls within your content area. And to have an LMS that already helps meat or align these standards is really helpful and is going to save you quite a bit of time on the back end.
Another great thing about Sophia is that there are many ways to learn. Sophia offers multiple instructors and various methods that are used to help explain those concepts, so that students have the opportunity to really customize their education. They can choose a specific instructor that they want for each individual lesson. They can help guide their way through the various elements, so that they can really tailor who they're learning from to meet their own learning style.
There are also a number of different opportunities to create groups of students. This allows for various different groups to access lessons, ask questions, and chat-- meaning that you can really help customize the education for the students in your classroom based on meeting each of their individual learning needs.
Teachers can do a number of different things with Sophia. First and foremost, teachers can design their own tutorials. They can use these specifically designed for their class. And Sophia offers the ability to add in various text and images, audio, video, or even screen casts so that teachers are able to reach their students through an engaging medium.
Teachers also have the opportunity to create playlists of those tutorials-- meaning that they can either use the ones that they have made, or they can select from a number of other tutorials that have already been created on Sophia. I believe there at 37,000 and growing. So there are many, many options for you to customize and design those tutorials, so that they meet your student needs.
Teachers can also create quizzes using formative assessment quizzing tool, helping to see after the student has seen the tutorial, quizzing them on various elements of that tutorial, so that the teacher can see what their various comprehension or their analytical element where they are at the end of that tutorial. This is exceptionally beneficial to helping teachers gather what students know after encountering that knowledge.
Additionally, teachers can track student progress through the analytics in real time. So teachers are able to see that student performance and track and see where each individual student is-- again, helping to really customize the learning for each and every student in your class. Especially that real time element helps keep you on track, so that we are meeting those deadlines that teachers so often face.
Another wonderful feature of Sophia is that it allows for professional development for teachers-- meaning that you can earn those CEUs through flipped classroom certification. You can get tablet certification, specifically using iPads, chrome classroom certification, even virtual classroom certification, all of these different ways to really help earn those elements that not only make you a better teacher because you have the education, but also can help impact what you are taking home. A lot of districts say the more CEUs you use that you have on your transcript the more you're going to be able to earn in your profession.
So those are some of the major features that Sophia can offer. Now I'd like to go ahead and take a look at some of the strengths and weaknesses of Sophia. First, let's take a look at some of the advantages or the strengths of using it. First and foremost, it interfaces with educational apps exceptionally well this offers, again, that accessibility so that it can be accessed at a number of different times and in different places, helping to make it really functional for you and your students.
There is a robust video content. As we said before, there are over 37,000 tutorials that already exist within Sophia and that is growing every day. So that offers a lot of variety. You are sure to be able to find something that will meet the needs that you have in your classroom.
And finally, it is device friendly. There are many different mobile devices that can access and use Sophia. And that again, helps with that accessibility. Students being able to engage actively with the material in many different times and places.
However, Sophia does have a number of challenges. It is more of a classroom specific learning melon management tool rather than a larger school community one. And that's mostly due to a lack of a grade book, specifically like a comprehensive grade book or various reporting or scheduling opportunities. So this isn't necessarily something that would be useful as a school-wide learning management system, but more a tool that you could use in your individual classes.
Another challenge of using Sophia would be that it is definitely cloud-based. And with cloud-based materials come the issues of storage. Do you have enough memory within your system to help store that? Is there an opportunity within cloud base for the security to be limited? So all of those are questions that you just want to make sure you take a look at when you're dealing with cloud based software.
Finally, while there are assessments, those assessments are limited. So you're kind of stuck with what you have. You can certainly generate your own, but within the system itself, there are only limited assessments that come at the end of the tutorial.
Taking all of this into account, I would highly recommend that you go to the learning management system and test it out. Sophia is open for you to begin engaging with. And we would highly recommend that you just go take a look at it and see if it's something that fits your needs.
Now that we've reached the end of the lesson, you are able to describe features for Sophia that you can use to help develop instruction. Before we finish today, I would like to take just a moment for reflection. Now that you've learned about some of the features and major strengths and challenges of the learning management system, Sophia, what do you think would be the greatest challenge that you might experience in your specific learning environment if you were to use Sophia as your LMS? Feel free to pause the video for just a moment to think about your answer to this question.
As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you might want to explore the Additional Resources section that accompanies the video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skillset.
(00:00-00:44) Intro
(00:45-00:56) Objectives
(00:57-05:28) Sophia Features
(05:29-07:57) Strengths and Challenges
(07:58-08:05) Review
(08:06-08:50) Reflection
Sophia Teachers' Lounge
This section of the Sophia website provides a place where teachers can post and have their questions answered about using Sophia in their instructional practice. The responses are easy to follow and often include videos and/or screenshots to clarify.
http://www.sophia.org/teachers-lounge?page=4
Sophia for Teachers
This page on the Sophia website helps teachers get started with flipping their lessons and using Sophia as a component of their LMS. Scroll down for free courses on everything that you need to know about bringing your classroom into the 21st century, including how to use Sophia as a helpful tool.
https://www.sophia.org/sophia-for-teachers