A Moodle online course site module and overall site components:
- Overall quality of work, as per the overall standards listed above. A significant component of your score on this assignment relates to the calibre of your web design (including level sophistication, overall look and feel, and how user-friendly the site is);
- Splash page with a customized GUI with at least four (4) navigational components;
- One complete learning module with subject-specific content (module shells or placeholder pages not acceptable), largely based on HTML pages;
- One page or a section of the module programmed for selective release;
- One additional general discussion forum topics;
- One group discussion forum for (at least) 2 groups (must set up groups; they need not be populated);
- A reflection upon your experience completing this assignment posted in the Course Site page of your ePortfolio.
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Years ago, when e-learning was just beginning, I developed some modules using a few of the tools that were just starting to be used. Yes, I’m old! About 10 years ago, I was fortunate enough to work as an Instructional Designer/E-Learning Developer for a large corporation. I developed courses using the Adobe Creative Suite. These tutorials were for corporate employees on how to complete job tasks, based on job function and department, and for HR programs, corporate policy and procedure, etc.
For this assignment, and with relatively little experience with Moodle, I decided to create a somewhat basic course so I could focus on the assignment requirements. Here is some of the information I found. Moodle provides many site layout templates. Help files are available via their site. Moodle allows for customization via the built in the html editor. I also found out that course can be created outside of Moodle and then uploaded to the site. A variety of canned themes are available. I found tools provided in Moodle allow for content formatting, layout, etc. to a certain limited extent. I can see that users may want to use other sources such as a different html editor, CSS, etc. for content development, manipulation, etc. I did not find the eLearning Toolkit overly helpful and I believe it was mentioned during the course postings this was somewhat dated at this point.
I actually could not do this assignment from home as my internet connection was not adequate to work in Moodle. Luckily, my employer allows me to work in the building outside of business hours so I completed the assignment there. This, of course, was extremely frustrating at times and I feel for any students who had issues have consistent access to Moodle.
In my current position, I lead a group that provides training and support for schools using a student information system. We have done some work using Adobe Captivate to create software demos. If we decided to create an entire course online per se, an LMS could be used and having used Moodle now is helpful. I know there are other tools such as Blackboard, D2L, etc. that are also available. As we discussed in discussion postings, there are many factors such as budget, resources, etc. that would be considered when decided on the tool to use. Food for thought!