My Moodle Course is complete and can be viewed here http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/view.php?id=53

I must say the overall experience of working in Moodle to create a course has been very rewarding.  Although I have experience with other LMS systems, Moodle seems to be unique in many ways and I appreciated the opportunity to explore it in greater detail.  First and foremost Moodle is open source which I really appreciate, the cost and features that result from this openness make it much more approachable for average teachers with a small budget.   There were a few challenges that I met along the way in Moodle but for the most part it is a very intuitive and full-featured LMS.

As with most things I started working with Moodle by exploring all that it had to offer.  I quickly found some great tools that I enabled such as the built in survey to establish learning styles, the built in RSS feed reader available for the right column and numerous opportunities to import or embed other resources.  As Google Calendar has received great praise in previous classes I was sure to embed an agenda view on the main page and link to an external calendar on the object orientation.  The object orientation on the splash page was something I wanted to create myself but realized it may be time consuming to create custom chemistry images for something of little educational benefit.  Instead I found some public domain images and double checked with the author for their use.  I think the results speak for themselves.

The discussion and wiki components were very straight forward and easy to use.  Normally I would link to an external forum from my class site to meet the discussion needs of my students but having it built into Moodle offers for better moderation, tracking, grouping and even assessment of the discussions.  I think the discussion and wiki tools are very well implemented in Moodle and they offer some unique opportunities for discussion activities.  I did create groups for one discussion but without students present in the course I couldn’t complete the entire group set-up.

When designing my course my goal was to recreate what I have done in the past with previous class sites.  I wanted to include the Powerpoint notes, relevant assignments, course calendar, related links and activities.  I was very successful getting all the tools I have used previously to work with Moodle such as presentations, RSS feeds, wikis, discussions, etc.  Despite the easy implementation of external tools I wish some components of Moodle were more robust so I would not have to use external tools like Google Documents or Slideshare to share Powerpoints easily and Google calendar to allow easy modification and sharing of the course calendar/agenda.

A major challenge was having my Powerpoint files correctly recognized by Moodle.  After converting them to every recommended format I was still unable to convert a complete presentation accurately in Moodle so I turned to Slideshare and eventually Google Documents which did this flawlessly with little effort.  Although the import tool in Moodle may not be at fault, as I have incredibly complex and long Powerpoints,  these presentations are the backbone of lessons and from the structure of my class.  As a result I had to find a tool that would allow me to use my existing presentations without heavy modifications and I am very glad I could make it work.

Beyond the importing of presentations I also had a few issues with some of the unique aspects of Moodle.  As I said, it is different from other systems and small quirks such as the enable editing and lack of some features such as timed release.  Some of these issues were quickly corrected as I became more familiar with the system and discovered how they function but other features I had to work around.  From what my classmates and I have seen there are no clear ways to do a selective release for content such as in WebCT Vista so certain components of my course will have to be manually made available to students as thy progress through the course.  I plan on doing this for 3 hidden components, a quiz for each module and a unit exam for all the content that will be made available after the tests are written.  Despite these small issues the LMS provides a clear place for me to post answer keys after assessment has occurred, and although automatic release based on a date would be nice, clicking a single button is not a major concern for the amount I would use this feature.

All and all I am glad I chose to explore Moodle is not only a full featured and flexible system it is also the one high school teachers are most likely to use.  The fact that it is free and has great support materials means that I will be using it next time I am in the classroom.  Again, there are some small quirks that I had to work around but over time I can adjust my online delivery to better suit the tools in Moodle and hopefully Moodle being open source means that it will continue to improve over time.

As part of our unit on digital stories we investigated the potential uses of digital story telling tools in an educational setting. I chose to tell the story of how our modern theory of the Atom has evolved in chemistry and physics.

The tool I chose to reveal this story was X Timeline which allows users to create, share and modify timelines with embedded graphics, discussions and references.

You can access the complete timeline as an external link here (recommended) or view the compact, embedded version below.

For more information on the tool, my rationale for its use and related pedagogical theory please visit the Digital Story page.

As part of our class we have been exploring a MediaWiki based wiki.  The system allows for sharing of a wiki as well as a discussion space for each page and tracking of all edits.  This wiki engine is the same one used to power Wikipedia so it is highly customizable and scalable.

The addition if a wiki to an online class or even a face-to-face class offers new opportunities to engage with each other and the content.  In this activity I was happy to see everyone get into the wiki without too much difficulty and begin to add their two cents, so to speak.  We were able to share a document, add our own content and work together to create other aspects of the wiki.  Wikis are great when an educator takes the time to build an activity around the wiki and develop the skills needed to communicate in this manner.  It was a good experience.

As rewarding as wikis can be for online collaboration and discussion I their were certain things I did not like about MediaWiki’s implementation.  The lack of a threaded discussion left our discussion a bit difficult to keep track of and add to.  If you are used to a forum or discussion board with many features and a clear layout, standalone discussions may be better facilitated by a stand-alone system.  Beyond the discussion I found that there was no option for synchronous editing as with other collaborative document editors and some wikis.  After editing a page I faced a page which revealed someone else had already been editing and my changes were not saved.  I then had to manually copy and paste my entry below the new one.  This is not a big problem but there are more streamlined methods of discussion and editing out there.

I am excited to explore other wiki and collaboration systems to find a system or combination that will allow more synchronous and streamlined communication and editing of documents.

I chose to construct a simple, self-administered review quiz for my Chemistry 20 course. This quiz would fit with face-to-face instruction to provide another opportunity for formative assessment and feedback. This activity was designed as a review quiz which would be completed when this small section ends. There would be no major exam for this section and the summative assessment for this material would occur after section 2 is completed and then assessed together on one exam. By allowing access to small section exams students can gain more practice, feedback and immediately assess how far they have come with the material. This should be a benefit for studying and reviewing material while getting students to focus on their academics outside of the school and on their own time.

Moodle offers a variety of quiz and reporting-related tools that allow me to track student progress, attempts and overall performance with this quiz. Teachers have the ability to see reports of attempts and individual item analysis. The marks from the quiz can then be used to generate an overall grade in the Moodle course which can make assessment very easy and streamlined for online courses.

Despite its flexibility and ease-of-use there are a number of problems I see with this tool. Firstly, as with many programs and platforms subscripts and superscripts are poorly supported. Although normally this is not a problem Chemistry relies on certain conventions that cannot be met without the ability to modify the script. As a result some matching and multiple choice responses do not contain the subscripts they require which makes for a poor example of proper conventions and may confuse students. The only other problem lies in the essay responses. Of course the computer cannot mark these questions which means a teacher must mark them manually in order to provide proper feedback. As this LMS course is a supplement to a traditional classroom course this is not a problem as higher level reasoning can be assessed and feedback provided through other means. I would prefer that Moodle mark all the questions and not provide a total mark until the instructor manually marked the essay components.

All and all I was happy with how the Quiz tool worked within Moodle. It provides yet another opportunity for formative assessment and feedback while delivering a quiz that is easy to make and complete by students on their own time.

The Internet can facilitate communication.  There is no doubt that if properly harnessed the Internet can allow interaction, communication and collaboration seldom seen by other means over great distances and in a variety of formats.

When asked to investigate and explore the communication tools available to me as an educator I found myself wondering where I should focus my efforts.  I have used a variety of services, sites and technologies to keep my F2F class more informed and connected to both each other and myself as an educator and there really is a lot out there.

I chose to focus on Google Calendar, a shared calendar I have used in the past with great success and acclaim from students, parents and fellow staff.  This tool was easy to implement in Moodle but I was frustrated by what I would call lacking support for the .ical format, it allows exporting of calendar but no importing.  The flexibility of Moodle was the solution to this problem as I was able to setup an external link and embedded calendar with ease.  Ideally there would be a way to bring the flexibility and ease-of-use of this calendar to Moodle but sadly their calendar tool is quite limited and there is no way to do so without reworking Moodle.  On that note Moodle and Google have been working in partnership for some time and this type of compabitibility and blending of the platforms may not be far off.

The other tool I chose was a shared, group wiki within Moodle.  This tool will allow students to collaborate, research and present theirchemistry-related information to the remainder of the class.  I feel by buildng a group project and assessment around this tool I can extend group research, normally limited to the classroom setting, to the home setting while using digital tools to allow for more flexibility in time and space.

I plan on exploring and using more tools in this demo Moodle class and building up the different forms of communication.  One thing I have been thinking about his how the focus may be asynchronous communication as most of the students in this class have plenty of time to work together in this manner due to the nature of classroom instruction.  By bringing this shared wiki into their project I hope to allow my students another way to communicate and learn outside of the classroom on their own time.  I think synchronous tools such as text, audio and video chat may be important for student-student interactions but may not be feasible for teacher-student communication due to time constraints and issues.  Another factor here may be that students who ae physical classmates may be served better or prefer other forms of synchronous communication such as meeting in person, telephone, SMS or their preferred chat client.  With that said, offering students a central location, attached to their LMS where they can fpocus on education-related communication may have some inherent benefits as well.

I have learned a lot thus far investigating how students and teachers can communicate using digital tools.  I am excited to see how learning can be supported in this manner and how students will respond to these technologies being used to support their more traditional educational setting.

I must say my experience with Moodle has been very good so far.  I have experimented with most of the features and find it to be as intuitive and flexible as reviewers have discussed.  I really enjoy its default weekly layout as well as its ability to import and host a variety of files.

I did have trouble with its Powerpoint import feature.  Despite converting my Powerpoint to html as per the instructions once imported my complex diagrams and text were largely missing with only the titles and various elements visible.  Really though Powerpoint files are not made to be viewed on the web and I can still easily host the files in any format and require students to use an external viewer.  This is actually how most of my previous content was shared so this is a minor issue, it just would have been nice to easily import existing content.

On another note it appeasrs that educators with existing course materials in SCORM format should have no problem importing all their content very smoothly.  This is the preferred format for these materials, I just don’t have any developed.

In general I am excited by the free and easy to use aspects of Moodle and am interested to explore it furthe

As an educator and someone enthusiastic about technology I have found many opportunities to combine the two in my professional career. As a secondary science teacher technology is not something that can be ignored and when appropriate I try to integrate technology into my classroom. Currently, I am not teaching but involved with research and project work centered on online training and simulations for firefighters. Although this is a break from teaching and more related to educational technologies such as Learning Management Systems (LMS), multimedia, communication and assessment, the classroom will be the primary setting for my reflections and goals. With this in mind my goals for this class are twofold: (a) to gain more experience with both new and familiar digital tools and (b) gain greater insight into how these technologies can be used effectively in the classroom.

Learning Management Systems

I have extensive experience with LMS such as Desire2Learn from contract work but I have never found a way to bring those skills into the classroom. I have considered using Moodle but found it easier to make my own site and tailor it to my needs then use an established LMS and be somewhat limited. With that said I am interested in finding out more about how I can utilize low or no cost systems to help engage my secondary students.

Assessment and Communication

As Chickering and Ehrmann (1996) explain, assessing and communicating with students is an area of extreme importance. Heeding their caution, I try and pay keen attention as to my development in these areas. Assessment for and of learning is a huge part of my classroom but an aspect which seldom benefits from the technologies available. Communication, however, has been greatly advanced in my classroom by asynchronous communication such the discussion boards, class websites and use of email. I have not used technology for synchronous communication in my traditional classroom as face-to-face seems to work best but would be very interested to hear how my students could benefit from such technologies.

Multimedia

Interactivity and novelty are seen as key considerations when it comes to educational technologies (Bates and Poole, 2003). It is in these two areas that I think multimedia and the power of technology really shines. The amount and variety of useful and educationally relevant multimedia available to modern teachers is truly astounding but I am interested to find out how best to harness these powerful resources. Sure my science classes benefit from the additional details and visualization of hard to or even impossible to see processes but how can I further utilize these resources in a useful manner that really engages my students?

I am very comfortable with technology but that doesn’t necessarily transfer into the useful technology-infused learning experiences I endeavour to create for my students. By gaining more experience with communication, assessment, multimedia and LMS technologies I hope to further understand how they can be used in my classroom, something I am confident ETEC 565 will help me achieve.

References

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987).  Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.  American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), 3-7. Retrieved May 12, 2009 from http://www.aahea.org/bulletins/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm

This is another of my blogs related to my Masters of Educational Technology or MET program through UBC.

This blog will house all my ETEC 565 related posts and assignments. To find out more about me and my work as an educator and technology enthusiast please visit my main blog by clicking here. You can also see some pictures of me and my personal history here.

Thanks for visiting and enjoy the entries and reflections to follow.

Michel