Just a little more meat to Simon’s earlier post about our Moodle thing yesterday.
The day started off with a 60 second period to consider what you wanted to get out of the day. Here are my thoughts:
- How to get news about Moodle out and about
- Thoughts on migrating and re-building courses that still exist in WebCT
- Getting tutors to really engage with Moodle
- I really wanted to see good example of good courses in Moodle
- Use of video in Moodle and the wider issue of editing video on a Windows PC
- Online Moodle course for staff – similar to our e-primer
So, that’s what I wanted to find out.
Here’s a typed version of my notes – although still very much in note form:
Moodle / Smartboards
The host college showed how some tutors are using their smartboards in lessons and then exporting the resulting pages as PDF’s to upload instantly to their Moodle course.
Very simple and very obvious but how many people are doing it?
Discussion boards
Newcastle also make a lot of use of discussion boards in their Moodle. They have, on the front page, a question of the week section which always proves very popular. Furthermore it doesn’t get abused too much – or so they assured us all.
They also had a nice little css (cascading style sheets) trick to make people’s comments display in the form of speech bubbles. A small thing but it looked good.
Messaging tool
This is something that we have had problems with but they had merely turned it off straight away. i think this is a discussion that tutors need to be having. Does anyone actually use the messaging tool in their classes?
How to use Moodle
They have a course that is open to guest to have a look around on how to use Moodle. This is something we really need to sort out ourselves as we currently have a number of such courses but not one that really gives you what you need to know. Ben has been assigned this task and will have it done in no time.
Course navigation block
I personally think that this is a useful block but there was resistance from some tutors at the start of the year and it was removed. The Newcastle block wrapped nicely onto a second line for the longer titles, so it might be worth having another look at this.
Sub-categories
Newcastle also made some use of subcategories within their Moodle. I’m not sure how this would work with our MIS integration but I think it would be useful for course categories with lots of courses.
Moodle stats block
I’ve seen this before and liked it then. We have already downloaded it and installed it on staff Moodle.
Assignment tool
For courses that allow re-submission of assignments, they use Multiple Uploads as this is the easiest way around the issue. I’m not so familiar with the issues around uploading of assignment and thus will need to clarify if we have any problems with the relevant teaching staff.
Google gadgets
Another college demo’ed Google gadgets as a way of adding a little bit of HTML flair to the website. The popular example seems to be the goldfish one – you’ll know it if you’ve seen it.
Minimum Moodle content
It’s a matter of equal opportunities! All students deserve the same rights and should have equal access to online resources. Students of tutors who do not have an online presence on Moodle are essentially being discriminated against.
Teacher training
There was also a video from another college of how the teacher training class have grown to love Moodle even though they have a very low level of IT. The idea of gathering basic level IT users together so that they can learn from each other was one that met with a lot of interest.
This was further developed later in the day as a Moodle Show and Tell type activity.
Further to the Show and Tell, the idea of a Moodler of the Month was also discussed whereby someone who had done something really effective with their Moodle would be interviewed with the interview being made available on Moodle as a resource.
Regular Moodle drop-in sessions at set times
It’s something that the ILT champs have tried before, but with great publicity about it, this may be something that could work. Essentially anyone can turn up booked – not – to chat about their Moodle course and any problems they are having.
That’s enough Moodling for now.
Andrew
Filed under: Work
