Peer Review

E-coach

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Reviewed:: Oct 16, 2016 by Teacher Education

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: This is a fee-based professional development and resource sharing community. Basic membership costs $35 and signing up a team costs $135. The resources available in the database mostly center around the K-12 curriculum and are nominally aligned to various sets of content standards. You can also purchase help with your project or team from an eCoach, and eCoach provides an eCoach training for those who are seeking to facilitate a team on the site.
Type of Material:: Examples of lessons but the main priority of the site is getting the user to sign up and use their services. There are sample lessons, some of which are very good.
Recommended Uses:: This social networking site could be used by teacher credential candidates to develop standards aligned lessons, to share blog posts, and to interact with each other on projects. The coaching functions and training on how to effectively coach others seem like they could be particularly useful for teacher educators who are learning about how to encourage online collaboration.
Technical Requirements:: Internet browser that displays graphics and videos.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: The purpose of the site is to help teachers in developing lessons of scope and sequence using the facilities of the Internet.
Target Student Population:: The general population interested in the site includes K-12 administrators and K-12 teachers. This site could be particularly useful for teacher educators who want to find a way to get their students to collaborate in a professional manner.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Prerequisites include an intermediate knowledge of how to use a web browser and having a basic knowledge of the field of education.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: There are a variety of learning communities on the site that one can join to learn more about different professional topics A variety of professional mentors the site offers are highlighted on the various page Items in the ELibrary (content database) are linked to relevant standards. There is a free trial available. Materials we viewed were well developed and contained appropriate examples for use in schools.
Concerns:: There is not a lot of teacher education content on this site even though it is a platform for teacher learning. Although one could create a team and facilitate a group for teachers, it is more of a social networking tool and resource database, rather than something that presents content directly usable in a teacher education course. Although the basic membership fees for the site are clearly posted, it is unclear how much it costs to have a mentor or how one signs up for this service. The ELibrary seems to be mostly a collection of links to other websites rather than original content

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: This is primarily a site for a school. There is a 30-days free trial and then $35 for a lifetime membership. The site claims that its advances are: "Copy any collaborative text and paste it anywhere the text editor is used, including your blog or Universal Builder Have the ability to embed surveys, quizzes, videos, flash games, applets, and other Web 2.0 tools such as iPaper, SlideShare, and VoiceThread. Set up a private space for your coursework in sites like Moodle or Wikispaces and then link to your lessons, blogs, surveys created in My eCoach. This seems like a promising tool for collaboration, particularly if the leader of a team was willing to go through their mentoring training. The set of mentors they have recruited seem knowledgeable and qualified in the area of teaching and could be helpful in mentoring new teachers.
Concerns:: The lifetime fee does not seem excessive, however, the site does not have clear learner goals for use in preservice teacher classrooms or inservice teacher education. The user would need to decide how to best employ the site in his or her specific context.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: Registration was quick and very simple Site loads quick; there are not a lot of unnecessary graphics or text on the site
Concerns:: It was unclear to do next once you were registered and on the site There is a lot of documentation on the site about potential uses, but there are not tutorials or step by step guides for how to actually use it The search function in the ELibrary seems to be broken; I tried a number of different searches and it claimed there were no results.

Other Issues and Comments:: The main issue with this site is cost; after the 30 day free trial it costs $35 for a membership and many of the features (such as the learning communities) are disabled until you pay this membership fee. The $35 also doesn't get you access for your whole team; that costs $135 to set up an entire class. Also, for a site called "e-coach" that is supposedly built around coaching, it is remarkably unclear how to sign up for coaching and for the coaching training.
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