May 15 2011
Course Site
Reflection on Moodle
The learning curve for me was very steep when it came to creating the Moodle and much of this was to do with the fact that I had not seen or used Moodle before. With any new program it takes time to learn about the features and limitations associated with a program. As I progress in my knowledge, I am learning that most programs can do what we want and it is a matter of figuring out how.
For the website creation tool I chose iWeb for no other reason than it is on my computer and our grade eight classes use it to make websites in science. They are amazing tutors so, in the new year, when I want to create a site I can use their expertise to move ahead. I found the program to be fairly straightforward to use and for my first site I tried to keep it simple. There are many themes and colours available but I found that I could not find a good way to make it appeal to middle school and look educational at the same time. It was interesting linking iWeb to the Moodle and seeing all of the files associated with it. But it did make me think of what it would take to make a small edit to a webpage that one has on Moodle. The basic steps are: 1) make the change in iWeb 2) re-publish the change 3) zip the file 4) upload the file to Moodle 5) unzip the file 7) open the old place holder (edit) and finally 8 ) link the new html file. As a person who is always editing and changing the activities that I do in a class I think that this might prove to be frustrating. I could, however use it as more of a holding place for the activities and not use a web page for guiding.
In my Moodle, I tried to include activities, which would be appropriate for different types of learners. Organize the materials and giving directions so that students can follow in a logical order took some thought. In reality, I adjust the class according to the difficulties they are experiencing, and I do not always have students working on the same thing at the same time. I can see this as a great way for students to work at their own pace.
Instead of making my own tutorial, I made use of the very popular Khan Academy. Sal Khan (an MIT and Harvard graduate) began by creating and, posting to YouTube videos to tutor his younger cousins in math. He received so many hits on these videos that he created a website called Khan Academy, and now has more than 2 400 videos (Thompson, 2011). He has a system of tracking the performance of students and providing statistics related to their performance so that, over the length of a course I would have some valuable information on the progress of my students. Many of the middle school math topics include problems and exercises with which students can test themselves. When a student gets stuck he can re-watch the video or ask for a hint to get him moving ahead. It is this one-to-one attention, which is valuable. Students can explore other topics and nurture their mathematical curiosity.
At one point I found myself wanting to cross reference activities, videos etc quite but it became too much and was added unnecessary volume to the module. In reflecting on the online courses, which I have taken, I prefer to have one place where I can easily see the overview of what is happening in the course. Jumping from page to page in search of a small detail is annoying so I tried to avoid this. I also found it important to use the exact wording when items are related. For example, interchanging the words perimeter and circumference could easily be confusing. I created an interactive pdf at the beginning of each Module to help students keep track and not miss out on an activity. They are also asked to comment on each activity so that changes can be made in the future. I wanted the file to be downloaded so I was able to force this, which was helpful.
I created two modules, which are lead-ins to fully understanding the concept of surface area. Using the circle helps students practice the algebraic skills necessary for solving unknowns and also solidifies the concept of circumference being a length. I used videos to help with the understanding.
When quizzing students I find it very important to provide them with feedback as quickly as possible and I found the matching questions to be useful in this way. I would like to explore them more but I can see the potential. I also decided that for longer questions, I could set up a quiz where students enter only their final answer and submit the word in another form: a word document using equation editor. Ideally, it would be great to have a program allowing students to effectively write mathematical symbols.
In reflecting on the entire process I have to say that I enjoyed the learning but I am not sold on using Moodle in my class. However, it has opened my eyes to the possibilities and advantages of using an LMS and having all of the materials in one place.
References
Thompson, C. (2011). How Khan Academy is Changing the Rules of Education. Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/
