Final Moodle Reflection
Aug 1st, 2009 by Michele Brannon-Hamilton
In wrapping up my portfolio development, I realize the pride I feel in having created a Moodle course and a weblog. Looking back, I might have run if I’d known how much work it would take in such a short time. However, I plodded along with a great team of classmates who were interesting, knowledgeable, helpful and even fun.
You can find my Moodle site here: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/view.php?id=79
As required for the class, my course includes the following:
1. Flight Path
2. Learning Managing System
3. Two or more synchronous or asynchronous tools
4. Exam
5. Digital Story
6. Multimedia Inventory
7. Synthesis Reflection
Please peruse my sight and tell me what you think.
Although my full LMS proposal can be found on my blog in the LMS section, I would like to outline a few main points here.
I chose to use Moodle to develop my instruct the instructor course because it is free, easy to use and intuitive. My course will help literacy instructors develop their own courses to use in the literacy classroom.
As I finished my site, I added a splash page at the top of the course site using an object orientation to guide students. Initially I found the assignment simple since I just needed to add a chart with photos. However, it soon became apparent that my images were not displaying correctly. With some help from a classmate, I managed to have my images resized so I could re add them to site. Once there, I added jump links so students could move directly to corresponding pages. Although this task was overwhelming at times, I found it useful in the end because I am sure I will use this knowledge in future classes in order to make the course look more inviting.
Next, I created four complete content modules called Introduction, Lesson One, Lesson Two and Lesson Three. This is followed by a module programmed for selective release – Since Moodle does not have a selective release feature, I used the eye to hide all the modules after lesson three. Please take a look at Lesson Four for my sample of a selected release module.
I have included several general discussion topics in the first few modules:
1. A discussion called News Forum in the Introduction Module with two topics: What I Hope to Learn in this Course and Course Outline
2. A discussion called Ice Breaker in Lesson One
3. A discussion called Looking at your Moodle Page in Lesson Two
4. A discussion called Communication Tools in Lesson Three
One group discussion forum created for 2 groups which can be found in Lesson Three called communication groups.
Overall, I found it interesting and challenging to finish this assignment with all the right pieces in the right places. However, it was a worthwhile experience and I will use the knowledge I gained in many other courses.