I Moodle, they Moodle, we all

Moodle together! .

A focus on the L in Moodle

Becky Barrington

Learning by doing…

It’s all about learning

I would like to know how YOU use Moodle

I would like to know whether you use Moodle, or support

the use of Moodle, in a traditionally taught environment

(such as in school, college, university etc) or if you use

Moodle as a delivery platform and never physically see your

students.

Please pick the option below that best summarises your

main use of Moodle.

• Answer ‘blended’ if you use Moodle as a teaching tool but

also meet your students face to face

• Answer ‘distance’ if all your delivery and learning takes

place completely online

Hello!

About me and our Moodle!

• Work at South Devon College (since 2000)

• Using Moodle since 2005

• Managed in-house

• Over 800 courses

• My role is support, develop and promote Moodle

and technology to support learning

Moodle

• A title for a system that can be used to store content

and has a wide range of features to support learning

(noun)

• “To dawdle aimlessly, to idle time away; the process of

lazily meandering through something, doing things as

it occurs; an enjoyable tinkering that may

lead to insight and creativity” (verb) http://www.allwords.com/word-moodle.html

Moodle

• Should learning be about ‘wandering aimlessly’

through an online system or the internet?

• Certainly, we hope learning will lead to insight and

creativity

How can we make this happen?

• Will a student wander aimlessly through a Moodle

course and come out the other end with a

qualification?

Moodle and Learning

This presentation will look at:

• How we can develop and structure online

courses and content to ensure that learning can

occur (focusing on distance / online learning initially before applying to

blended learning approaches)

• How Moodle supports learning and the benefits

of certain Moodle activities

Moodle Use

• A sad fact but probably

true of many Moodle

courses

• Not unsurprising

– Moodle has SO

much to offer

– But teachers have

SO much to do

Sorry about the terrible blurry image

Martin Dougiamas

MoodleMoot Ireland 2013

Getting Started with Moodle

• Learning all the things that Moodle can do can

take time;

• CPD often focuses on function rather than

learning

• Starting point is often adding content to Moodle

– Usually documents that already exist.

Does this look familiar?

This isn’t a bad

thing in itself How did we share

electronic resources

before Moodle?

But we know

Moodle can do

more..

Moodle can do SO much more!

Upload files

Assignments Lessons

Feedback and

surveys

Forums Quiz

Workshop URLs /

weblinks

Glossaries

Pages Books

Wikis

Grades

Activity and course

completion

Conditional

activities

Moodle supports the social constructivist

learning model and Martin uses 5 key areas

to link Moodle to learning

Moodle was made for learning,

not just content storage.

When supporting teachers and

promoting Moodle we should

focus on learning

rather than the functions

From http://docs.moodle.org/23/en/Pedagogy

• All of us are potential teachers as well as learners - in

a true collaborative environment we are both.

• We learn particularly well from the act of creating or

expressing something for others to see.

• We learn a lot by just observing the activity of our

peers.

• By understanding the contexts of others, we can teach

in a more transformational way (constructivism).

• A learning environment needs to be flexible and

adaptable, so that it can quickly respond to the needs of

the participants within it.

Moodle and Social Constructivism

Sharing information

• Files, forums, databases, lessons, weblinks, blogs

• Students should share information to ‘construct’ knowledge rather than just access files

Collaboration and shared development of content

• Forums, wikis, chatrooms, workshops, glossaries

Adapting to individuals needs

• Easy for teacher to add extra information

• Set up conditions to release content based on student individual progress

It’s not just content

• MOOCs are one of the current ‘hot topics’;

• A MOOC is not just content: It is online,

distance learning;

• Structure is key; How should we structure online learning?

Use the same principles as delivered lessons?

Structuring Learning: Take 1

• Introduction

– Aims / objectives of learning unit

• Developing understanding

– Information and activities

• Checking understanding

– Applying skills

– Testing knowledge

• Completing tasks

– Linking to course goals

De

ve

lop

ing

Un

de

rsta

nd

ing

Ch

ec

kin

g L

ea

rnin

g

Also important for students to be able to check

progress

Checking Progress

Some tools used, utilising activity completion

Structuring Learning: Take 1a

• Developed online training that also encouraged

collaboration and reflection

• Distance learning from many organisations

Structure needed

more opportunities

for collaboration and

sharing of ideas

rather than just

checking

understanding

Structuring Learning: Take 1a

• Activities developed to enable personalised

progress through course.

– Students working at own pace

– Activity completion

– Conditional activities

– Course completion

• Collaboration and reflection built in to enable the

sharing of ideas at all stages

Le

arn

ing

by

Do

ing

Application following

collaboration and reflection

Structuring Learning

• This simple structure, alongside good practice

guidelines, is used to develop some of our ‘blended’

learning courses.

• However, for fully online courses, a more

detailed structure is required.

• This is especially important when supporting teaching

staff who are developing the content but are used to

‘controlling’ the content through taught delivery.

Structuring Learning: Take 2

• Introduction and outcomes of unit

• Initial / diagnostic assessment to signpost to activities

• Learning content

– Range of information

– Guided learning activities

– Interaction and collaboration to ensure learning and

engagement

• Checking understanding activities; Opportunities to apply

skills

• Assessment of achievement

• Reflection and target setting

Introduction and outcomes of unit

• May only be a little information but it sets the

scene

– Section description

– Labels

– Pages

– Audio files and video trailers

Initial / diagnostic assessment to

signpost to activities

• For online courses with differentiation built in, or

different levels of achievement, this is important

• Could be a simple quiz or lesson

• Could be a whole section of activities

– Conditional activities to make it games based

– Release content of course based on outcome

Learning Content

• Core content

– Range of information

– Guided learning activities

– Interaction and collaboration to ensure learning and

engagement

• Easy to add based on information that may

already exist (PowerPoints, documents etc) but

this is an area that really needs to be ‘designed’

to be beneficial.

Learning Content

• In the classroom:

– The teacher can control the pace of the

learning content based on student

understanding;

– A teacher can use body language to check

understanding;

– Ask questions at pertinent times;

– Adapt the content as required.

Learning Content

• In Moodle:

– Content is delivered for students to complete at

their own pace;

– Ideally needs to build in questions and adapt to

understanding.

Great Moodle tools for this:

– Lessons: Provides content, adapts to input.

– Books and glossaries also provide interactive

and / or media rich content

Checking Understanding

• Check learning and understanding

– Quizzes (release further content based on results)

– Glossaries

– Forum

– Wikis

– Reflective journals

– Guided learning activities (such as webquests)

– Mahara

• Opportunities to apply skills

• Collaboration activities work well here

• In practice, these two elements may appear

together through the core delivery of learning

content.

• Similarly, some of these activities may be ‘guided

learning’ where the task and support is online but

the activities take place away from the computer

(books are still important!)

Learning Content

Checking Understanding

Assessment of Achievement

• Formative or summative assessment

• Teacher graded, self-assessment or peer

assessment

– Assignments

– Quizzes

– Lessons (model answers for self-assessment)

– Workshop

– Wikis

– Forums

– Certificates and badges for recognition

Reflection and Target Setting

• Enabling students to identify their own progress

and improve themselves.

• Enabling students to become independent

learners.

– Blogs

– Assignments for personal reflection

– Forums for collaborative reflection

– Feedback surveys

– Checklists

Structure

• Using this structure we can support students to

develop their understanding in a constructive

way.

• However, the Moodle course is more than just

activities.

– All these activities can be added to a course

and still there could be no structure.

• Structure supports the learning – it has to make

sense!

Structure

• Think about:

– Course layout and labels as sub-headings;

– Guidance on use. (Do the students even know

how to navigate Moodle?);

– Tracking so that students know where they are

and where they are going;

– Communication to get support when required.

Not too distant…

Other considerations for

distance learners

• Friendly face

• Communication tools:

– Be online at a set

time or set

response times

• Encourage student

communication and

collaboration

Distance vs Blended Learning

• Works distance learning and would certainly

help for blended learning.

• However, how many teachers will develop that

much content when they are also teaching face

to face?

What value does this have in a blended

learning situation?

And how do we go from

this…

Step 1

• Ask teachers to add their resources for delivery onto Moodle.

• List in the order they will be used.

• Present FROM Moodle.

Benefits

• Links the taught course to the Moodle course.

• Students see the structure from the lesson and can easily

refer back to it.

• Teachers start to think about how the structure they apply to

the classroom can help in Moodle.

Step 2

• Instead of making PowerPoints for the session,

create books.

• Selling point: Easier to update and edit.

• Present straight from Moodle.

• Can easily integrate media.

From here we can start to utilise and ‘sell’ other

features of Moodle to support the learning

For example….

Glossaries

• By adding a glossary, any terminology listed will

auto-link into the book (and pages etc) enabling

students to develop understanding when the

teacher is unavailable.

• Creating the glossary takes time, why not ask

your students to create it….

Group Work activities

• Instead of group creating a PowerPoint, create a

wiki.

• Recording group work discussions - have a

forum. Send students other places to collect

information and collate centrally on the forum.

Course tracker

• Ditch the spreadsheet - put onto Moodle!

– Keeps all in one place.

– Student know what to do next.

– All grades stored in gradebook and can be

exported.

– And / or use course completion for a simpler

tracking interface for teachers and students.

Develop Over Time

• Always sell the benefits before the function

• If you are lucky to have a support team, get them

to do as much as possible:

– Let the teachers be the experts in their field;

– Let support staff be the experts in theirs.

Develop a Bit a Time

MOOCs may not be your goal…

…but how about the flipped classroom?

• We can apply the same concepts to a

specific piece of work or topic.

• Similarly with homework activities.

Even one structured section helps learning

If I Moodle…

Then the students can

Moodle

If I Moodle…

Then the students can

Moodle

If I Moodle…

And we can all Moodle

together!

Any

questions?

In the spirit of the open theme...

you can learn by doing!