Preparing for elearning the first run

This week finally saw the launch of the third phase of our Moodle vle roll out at the college with the delivery of a new 2 hour cpd staff training session Preparing for e-learning. If you have been following the blog here then you will know that this centres on the use of Wimba Create, in the production of learning objects from otherwise standard materials or handouts produced in Word. I see these new materials, as putting into place the final part of a resource package for implementing an e-Learning strategy that draw upon those other tools available in the vle in support of collaborative learning. From this last statement, you can correctly conclude that a certain amount of discussion took place on the very subject of learning objects themselves, principally some definitions and advantages they represent for both students and staff / developers alike.

The objective of the session was to take a typical class handout and see how it could be converted into a learning object with navigation, embedded videos, an embedded website and various question and answer feedback question types. I was pleased enough to see a range of IT skills among those attending especially as everyone completed the task in good time. After the initial production work we exported the material in scorm format and upload onto the vle. In fact I think it was the features of this last stage i.e. the launching and tracking of the object by Moodles Learning Management System that impressed the assembled group as much as the transformation of the material itself.

Since this first run of the course this week, I have already received requests to run more training, one in particular was for everyone in a single department, so very promising.


My objective then remains very much unchanged, and that is to move learning beyond the physical boundaries and time constraints of the scheduled curriculum. In the near future, when students enrol at our college, they will be enrolling into a very real vibrant working social environment, while at the same time enrolling into a very real, social virtual environment.

Please stay in touch for future posts and feel free to comment.

Barry Spencer e-Learning Project Coordinator