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Moodle Ah-Ha’s and Ho-Hums

3/17/2013

4 Comments

 
This week I built my first ever “unit” in Moodle.  I have to admit, it was a very large learning curve (not as straight forward as I thought it would be) and now I can see how and why my professors in years past have gotten so irritated with it. If you are to just learn everything there is to know about Moodle all by yourself and try to build something from scratch solo, it could take many hours. I am lucky enough to have a preset unit to work with so that made life a lot easier. I also really enjoyed learning about Moodle in a jigsaw fashion and having video tutorials made up by my colleagues to watch and go along with instead of just static readings. Finally, the help of a peer to critique and give me suggestions along the way was something that I am sure not many other teachers get the opportunity to have in other situations. Although Moodle is a very complex LMS, I now see a lot of benefits to it and I am excited to start using it with my own courses and students.

 There were many things that I did not even know were possible with Moodle until the presentations by my colleagues and now that I am more aware I am actually quite excited to start preparing and not nearly as
scared as I was before entering this experience. It was suggested that database would be a great way to complete novel studies and since my students are expected to complete a few a year, I am sure this is one of the first things that I will be setting up in my course. Another thing that I found very helpful was choice; it seems like a great way to help students select a novel and as a teacher I can make sure not everyone is doing the same book but rather they are evenly spread out throughout the term so each time a novel study is being done, the students have other peers to discuss with. Quiz is something else that I think I will be using as much as possible because I find it is hard to get students to physically mail me a test but if I can put them all online and their marks and answers are submitted automatically it saves me the stress of trying to track down tests and the family the stress of trying to get it to me through scanning or snail mail.

 Something that I am not too sure that I will be using with Moodle would be the grades function. I am more of an excel spreadsheet where I can see all of my student’s marks for different assignments and from there do my own calculations instead of worrying about putting in the correct values in the Moodle sections. I can see the value of using grades in Moodle but I also don’t think that I would ever be able to fully rely on it. Something else that I don’t think it worth trying to set up with Moodle would be math type questions in quizzes. The calculated questions I found were really hard to work with and needed to be typed in such a particular way that it really wasn’t worth trying to work with. Another reason I do not see value in trying to figure out the calculated questions is that math is something that has to be written out because if there is a mistake along the way at least partial marks can be given up until the mistake occurs and if you are only giving the students a chance to put in the answer they are unable to show their thought process to get there.

 All in all I am very glad to have gone through the experience of learning Moodle and I am now very excited to personalize it (or another program similar to it such as Edmodo) for my students to use in the years to come!

Picture
Screenshot from my LMS Moodle build
4 Comments
Jocelyn Finley
3/18/2013 03:36:42 am

Breanne,
Like you, I am also a graduate of VIU's teaching programme and I also earned my Liberal Studies degree from Malaspina. You totally amaze me that you are a full-time student, teacher,and mom. I am, by choice, not a parent and, as Kris Sward talks about in her week 2 posting, I am so busy with this course and my job I feel like Sisyphus ( in the unending nature of the work but not the futility aspect).
When I took my Liberal Studies degree I was attracted to the program as it focused on exploring primary texts and the instructional design was student centered, in that we were responsible for our own learning, and constructivist, in that we had weekly student led seminars and debates. I find 504 to be much like Liberal Studies. Rather than engaging with primary ancient texts, we are engaging with primary digital constructs, learning in community, reflecting on our readings and activities and actually doing the work rather than just reading about it in secondary sources.
You speak about some of the drawbacks of Moodle for math courses. Having not taught math online, I have no experience in that area, but I think Moodle would have been great for Liberal Studies and may have helped draw more students into the program had it been offered in a DL or blended model. I can easily see a Liberal Studies program fitting well with the options that Moodle has for building a course although the weekly seminars and debates would require the use of Collaborate as I feel that live seminars and debates are always more impactful because new ideas and contributions occur to the students based on the unpredictable flow of conversation. It wold also have been an added benefit for a cash strapped student to have been able to access lectures, seminars, and course texts online and to be able to return to those resources directly rather than re-reading lecture notes.
Enjoy the sunshine!

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Jean Kloppenburg link
3/22/2013 09:32:52 pm

Breanne,
I admire your ability to cruise through Moodle and specifically and articulately choose what would work for you and why. I am still struggling through the intricacies of Moodle without clearly feeling confident enough to visualize how I would construct a course from scratch! We have been fortunate to be able to use content that is available for the course for this introduction to Moodle. Right now I could not imagine trying to master Moodle while building a course at the same time. The videos created in a jigsaw fashion were also one of the most useful tools I used (and am still reviewing). I am not sure if Moodle would be my first choice as a LMS for fine art courses. I do like the idea of containing a course within a learning system where students can easily navigate and respond to material, individually or within a chat or wiki with others. I also see the value of having a well-organized course before choosing the learning system that would work best for what you are offering. Thank you for your clear reflections on Moodle, and especially your ideas on how you seeing it working for you in your teaching. I would be interested in hearing more progress made on your future use!
Jean

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Michelle
3/24/2013 01:43:17 am

Breanne,

I enjoyed reading your forthright appraisal of learning Moodle. Yes, the learning curve was steep, and although there are elements that I really like about it, I don’t know if it is an application that I would ultimately choose. I’ve been incessantly returning to Moodle over the past two weeks, in an attempt to understanding the ins and outs of it—watching videos, editing and re-editing my unit/page, in a never ending pursuit of making it look clean and clear. Like you, I believe that there are many benefits to the LMS, and I see its main advantage is a place to organize and house all of your course work. Although I didn’t explore the database and choice functions, I agree that they would work well with a novel study. I too, would not use the grade book function as our district already uses one, and I am not about to duplicate this task, as the one we use works fine.

Happy Moodling:)

***Also, congratulations on the birth of your daughter!

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Laura link
3/24/2013 04:38:18 am

Hi Breanne,
Being a "non-moodler" this week I admit to being daunted by your post and others' responses. From what has been shared it seems like the rewards do not match the effort of climbing the learning curve. It seems kind of clunky and not aesthetically pleasing.
I like your comment with which you conclude your thoughts: "I'm excited about personalizing Moodle (and other programs like it)."
In our teaching future we may not have the choice about which LMS (or non-LMS) we use. How does one personalize a program like Moodle to make it our own and release some of our personality into the course. How does one personalize it so students feel at home and connected to the LMS through which they learn?

Such happy news about the birth of your daughter - congratulations to you and your family :)

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    Breanne Quist is a student completing the Online Learning and Teaching program at Vancouver Island University.

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