<div>I think our home is the only one on the street with a huge red pterodactyl perched upon the
Christmas tree. I have given up looking for some missing bits of Lego
and AAA batteries and jumped online to send this message.<br><br>Last week we took the plunge and upgraded our Moodle server to version 1.7. Ajax is a good tool that I finally got my head around after Martin's talk at the VITTA conference. It will be very handy to help shuffle resources as I rebuild my IPM course... in fact, I might start from scratch to make the ITA course, teaching and building inside a scaffold that I will initially set up.
<br><br>I like the notes in the following post by Anthony. It describes the bridge that we build between face to face teaching and the collaborative online work that we do with Moodle.<br><br>
Happy Christmas everybody!! :-)<br><br>Regards Roland<br> </div><br><blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote"><div><div>Re: How teaching is changing using Moodle
</div>
</div><div>by <a href="http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=51473&course=5" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Anthony Borrow</a> - Friday 22 December 2006, 02:42<br>
<br>
</div>
I
feel that Moodle has greatly helped me to reclaim precious class time.
Typically, I will present a PowerPoint in class and have class
discussions based off of that PowerPoint. I give the students access
through Moodle to the PowerPoint so that if they are absent they can
still keep up with the class. In addition, I give the students a Moodle
<a title="Quiz" href="http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=86" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">quiz</a>
on the PowerPoint to make sure that they have picked up the key ideas
that I want them to have from that PowerPoint. The students do the
Moodle quizzes at home as a homework <a title="Assignment" href="http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=34" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">assignment</a> and they are open
<a title="Book" href="http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=319" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">book</a>,
open note (PowerPoint), open friend. By doing some of the assessment
outside of class, I am free to have more in-depth discussions in class.
Students also like submitting assignments online and having the <a title="Feedback" href="http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=95" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">feedback
</a>
available online because there is less chance of them losing the paper
(and the feedback). I also am able to provide the students with a
variety of additional web resources that they may not have had before.
I have put up special interest articles that are optional and am
pleasantly surprised by the number of students who go in and read them.
The students know that their online Moodle activities are logged. As a
result, if I give an online reading assignment, it is easy to tell who
has not pulled up the assignment. <br><br>Another positive thing that
Moodle does for me is that it allows me to send a quick reminder or
message to a student who forgot to turn in an assignment or deserves
some type of recognition. I can go online and send the student a
message rather than waiting until I see the student and then forget
what it was that I wanted to say to them. This is not a substitute for
face-to-face meetings. Actually, I will sometimes use Moodle to let a
student know that I wish to speak with them in person and give them an
idea of what it is about. Students will frequently ask if I have
received their Moodle message to me and I think it helps them to send a
question or check on something when they are thinking about it.<br><br>We
have a 1000 students and this is the first year the entire campus is
using Moodle. We average 250,000 hits on the Moodle webserver and 1.5
GB of traffic. I go online and typically see about 20 concurrent users.
As I see how Moodle has been utilized, I cannot help but think "that is
a lot of learning going on". I believe Moodle helps students learn how
to use the internet in a way that promotes education and their own
personal development while simultaneously building community.<br clear="all"></blockquote>
<br>-- <br>Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College<br><a href="http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au">http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au</a><br><br>"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead