Logged off at: June 2016. Connected for: 20 years. Time remaining: 0 seconds. Total time used: 160 weeks.

Beginning this year, Urban will transition off of the communication application FirstClass. The application has been used since 1996, which, according to Kelsey Vrooman, Director of Educational technology, is “a long time ago especially when you think of technology and how fast it moves.” She said, “when we compare FirstClass to what’s out there it’s a no brainer.”

Vrooman expressed that FirstClass is not the most efficient use of the school’s resources. She said, “FirstClass is so much of an attic. (We are) losing focus with FirstClass because it allows us to keep everything.”

According to her, “resistance is coming from a point of comfort.” Yet as new grades enter the school, Urban is warming up to idea of a transition. Vrooman said, “The tide is beginning to turn as the teachers realized the benefits of other system … I don’t think we should be hesitant to move on.”

DIG is searching for something, “a little more open-ended and will allow us to connect to the world and bring media in, bring apps in bring all that kind of stuff and make it a more interactive experience because right now you think of FirstClass: it’s flat.”

The transition is important to keep the school up to date, according to Vrooman, “if we want to stay this innovative school that does a lot with technology and really helps students to connect to the world and engage and integrate with all these different great technology programs, we have to move away from FirstClass”

The transition has been in process for three years, starting with David Bill. Vrooman waited waited to continue the transition until she got to know the Urban community and how it works.

The school is in the midst of a three-year migration plan to Google Drive and a supplementary LMS, learning message system. According to Vrooman, “we’re not choosing two separate systems … we are choosing a backbone … and a pretty face on it”

Google Drive will replace the email, calendar, and reference file cabinet aspects of FirstClass. This transition will occur over the next two years.

In the final year, the school will transition to a new LMS system, which will replace the course conferences and student & faculty forums.

Riley Maddox’s statistics class is testing the Canvas LMS. Vrooman’s French 2B class, Esteban Speier’s Spanish 5B, Kelli Yon’s photo class, and Dawn Jefferson’s Baldwin and Puig class are testing the Chalkup LMS. Sam Littlejohn’s Advanced Chemistry class, Matthew Casey’s astronomy class, and Clarke Weatherspoon’s Contemporary China class is testing the Google Classroom LMS. These classes are being surveyed three times over the term to determine the best possible LMS.

Vrooman said, “An interesting finding has been that students’ perceptions are highly divergent, with some people loving platforms while other people hate them.  Everyone has a very strong opinion!”

Vrooman also said, “On the whole, upperclassmen/women tend to be more critical while freshmen and sophomores have more positive reactions to the new platforms, which could possibly be due to the comfort level with First Class juniors and seniors have built up over their multiple years using that system.”

The decision on the learning management system will be finalized in March 2015.