The Moodle Journal chronicles using podcasts, streaming, downloads, training, metadata, scorm, lessons, quizzes, forums, chat, journals, LAMS, Mahara and assignments in the deployment of the Moodle vle as part of our e-learning programme here at College.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Taking stock
As we enter phase 2 of the rollout and our Moodle system continues to grow here at Bromley College, we now have 128 staff and 340 students enrolled. The implications and impact of the VLE have begun to filter out far beyond just teaching staff, with our Quality Manager now chairing a new steering group, which is good, should be interesting, goes without saying . In the last couple of weeks I conducted an audit of user activity. This has been a useful and timely exercise, as it shows how many of the features promoted in the phase 1 training have actually been used. The outcome has shown, not surprisingly, variability within courses on the way in which staff are making use of the system, and so our phase 2 strategy will include specific targeting of those courses in an effort to introduce some level of continuity. We have also put together an easily digestible report for SMT, it seems my first somewhat voluminous attempt at this went down more like un-chewed cucumber, anyway the latest incarnation makes the case that by deploying Moodle, we will be in a position to leverage many of the high priority themes emerging from the DfEE of late, we shall see.
I came across a nice little freebe the other day that’s worth a look, it’s a web based mind-mapping tool called ThinkLink. In use it’s an intuitive application, students drag and drop various symbols onto the main stage and then type text into them, which in turn gets over any legibility issues. We are about to trial a mobile BlueTooth graphic pad in class and I feel tools like ThinkLink are going to come into their own.
With the arrival of phase 2, a new series of staff training is about to begin, that means some new courses, so I am pleased to say the file has closed on Moodle Quizzes this week. As an added extra I have included a chapter on Hot Potatoes, which seems to hook nicely into the Moodles quiz reporting system, well done out there for that one. I have been having some thoughts regarding the viability of doing things this way though, particularly for some of the lighter features, like say Journals and even options from the more heavyweight stuff, and with that in mind I am going to try screen capture type videos, that users can run on demand, anyway I will be getting back on that one.
The rollout here has hit one of those inevitable census points: how is the system actually being used. The findings are a bit mixed, with some staff uploading content, creating links and generally planning their delivery and taking advantage of VLE facilities. However its not that good everywhere, and this means that some courses are only partially served by Moodle, while with others its not really happening at all. Cash incentives are apparently going to be on offer, as are extra training sessions, sticks, what sticks.
I set up a new project on Moodle just before the end of winter term, more blogs on this later. Anyway realising that this implied students maybe having to do some work over the Christmas break, I say no more, I thought the decent thing to do would be to make myself available using a chat session. So we agreed a time each day. Well all I can say is that it would have been lonely old Christmas had relied on that strategy, not one contact! Clearly my high quality teaching and notes remove the need; nice thought, but back to planet Earth. Just before our return to college I set myself up, for the first time, on MSN Messenger and emailed my group. Guess what, most are in; as are some members from other courses who found out about it. I have had to set up groups to keep it manageable with chat actually about work even at weekends!
The upgrade to Moodle 1.5.2 went smoothly and I completed necessary changes to the course notes, so they will be OK to go for the next staff development. Started work on the “Creating a Quiz in Moodle” course and it's about 50+% complete so hopefully I can start to offer that by the end of Jan. Our Conference video is still being sliced up into easy chunks by the media team for me to edit and stream.
Welcome to the Moodle Journal
Movies on the web. Below you will find a selection of Moodle and related eLearning video tutorials currently available on
the web. So please select an option and be sure to have popups enabled on your browser, and enjoy.
Moodle is a CMS or Course Management System, a software package designed to facilitate the creation and delivery of
online courses. You will come across such e-learning systems referred to as an LMS (Learning
Management Systems) and more commonly now as a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). Moodle is Open Source, this means you are
free to download, use, modify and even distribute under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Visit the moodle shop at
VLE Tools
Audacity is a freeware audio editor that is
ideally suited for producing podcasts.
CamStudio from Macromedia is the easiest way
to create interactive demonstrations and software simulations in Flash format, and includes visible and audible mouse
movements.
CourseGenie is a tool that will help you to
take course material in Word format and efficiently transform it into a dynamic online course.
Just give EclipseCrossword a list of words
and clues, and it does the rest. In seconds, you'll have a crossword puzzle with just the words you want.
Doppler is a podcast aggregator thats small
and easy to use.
RealProducer Helix Basic is perfect for
users who want to create quality webcasts, on demand audio and video and synchronised media.
Hot Potatoes is a suite of tools that allow
you to develop various quiz type exercises using a GUI interface, the output files can be run as webpages or imported into a
VLE.
Lame is a plug-in for the Audacity audio
editor that will facilitate saving output in MP3 format.
Moodle is an Open source VLE designed to
facilitate the creation and delivery of online courses.
Pageflip is an open source Macromedia Flash
page turning book simulation that is ideal for small eBook projects.
A superb little application for interactive
white board work, allows students to drag statements, words, definitions to appropriate images, features scoring.
An add-on tool for MS Office PowerPoint 2003
lets you take your PowerPoint slides and synchronize them with audio and video
An open source JISC funded project (X4L
strand B) developing tools such as content packaging,Learning Technology and viewers to ADL and IMS Interoperability
specifications.
Skype is a little program for making free
calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It’s free and easy to download and use, and works with most
computers.
ThinkLink is a free web based mind-mapping
tool.
A web based interactive white board
Windows Encoder ia a powerful production
tool
for converting both live and prerecorded audio and video into Windows Media files or streams.
Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation
package,aimed at generating tutorials through screen capture incorporating callout boxes, buttons, titles etc..
A freeware Windows Podcast aggregator, that features a GUI interface and the ability to present Podcasts in realtime using streaming technology.