user name: cmckeach
Password: Space-2012
The LMS course that I have designed is intended for my grade 3 science class and would be implemented through a blended learning model. Due to the young age of my students all of the pages and activities would be introduced during class time. This will ensure that students will have access to the necessary technology and can ask for assistance as they navigate throughout the various activities.
I have created a visually appealing introduction page with four navigation icons that direct the user to several points of interest: including the current activity, course schedule, fun facts and activities and games. I completed three modules for this assignment, “the Big Picture of …”, “Constellations”, and “To the Moon and Back”. The two modules I have created to be included in this assignment to be marked are ”the Big Picture of …”, and “To the Moon and Back” units.
“The Big Picture of …” unit begins with the unit objectives. First thing the students will do is participate in a discussion where they state the planet they have chosen to study. This will allow for the groups to be populated for the subsequent discussion about designing a space suit for their chosen planet. The groups for this discussion will be organized into two groups, inner planets and outer planets. The main project for this unit is writing a paragraph using the outline included on the unit page. If I were actually using this in my classroom I would have the outline link to a Kurzweil document as opposed to the word document so that my students could click and type directly on the lines of the outline.
The “To the Moon and Back” unit incorporates watching a Youtube video, a discussion, an online activity and a written assignment. I enjoyed learning how to embed a Youtube video into my Moodle HTML page, as it will save the students trying to search and find it via Youtube. I have set the discussion and the written assignment in this unit to be released when both discussion forums and the written component from “The Big Picture of …” unit are completed. This is one way to program a module for selective release; I have also closed the eyes on all the upcoming sections and would release them one by one as the course progresses. If I was using this with my class, I would only use the latter option to control the release of the units for my class.
To edit the pages for this course I used NVU and then transferred the code into the appropriate module. Although I enjoyed creating an HTML lesson page and can appreciate how engaging it is for students as they navigate through a lesson, I found it very difficult and cumbersome to upload it up to Moodle. I had troubles with broken image links at first but then I added each picture I wanted to the unit page by adding a file then I hid them with the eye tool. Next I went into the HTML of the page and linked their location on the Moodle page to the appropriate picture. I realize that this is a round about way of uploading to Moodle, but I struggled with creating a zip file for a long time and finally gave into this plan.
I had wanted to create HTML pages for all the modules I have created but ran out of time. I found myself scouring the Internet trying to find out how to fulfill the course requirements and discovering many neat things you can do and create using Moodle instead. The two most important resources I used to create my course were Youtube videos and my classmates. I occasionally referred to the Moodle.org web site but rarely found it helpful in find the information I needed.
Through this assignment I have learned a great deal about how to use Moodle and the tools it has to offer. I would not hesitate to use Moodle in the future and I would enjoy the freedom to create a course with the requirements I see fit for my classroom.
cmckeachie