Today I started the Wiki collaboration by adding the following information about Moodle’s “acitivity” tools, along with tables for each activity. Some of the activities do not directly involve communication, but they all exhibit some form of interactivity between instructor and student, so I thought it would be useful to include all of them.

Here is my contribution:

 

Defining and reviewing the Instructional and Communication Tools available on Moodle

When adding content to a particular section on Moodle, instructors have two sections to use:

1. Add a resource…

The “Add a resource…” section details ways in which instructors can share files with students. Information on these can be found here (and below):

Book

Multi-page resources with a book-like format. Teachers can export their Books as IMS CP (admin must allow teacher role to export IMS)

Advantages	Disadvantages

File

A picture, a pdf document, a spreadsheet, a sound file, a video file

Advantages	Disadvantages

Folder

For helping organize files and one folder may contain other folders

Advantages	Disadvantages
allows instructors to ‘group’ similar files together, as a way of organizing content	students may be looking for a particular file that is ‘hidden’ in a folder (and thus cannot be viewed from the home page)

IMS content package

Add static material from other sources in the standard IMS content package format

Advantages	Disadvantages

Label

Can be a few displayed words or an image used to separate resources and activities in a topic section, or can be a lengthy description or instructions

Advantages	Disadvantages

Page

The student sees a single, scrollable screen that a teacher creates with the robust HTML editor

Advantages	Disadvantages

URL

You can send the student to any place they can reach on their web browser, for example Wikipedia

Advantages	Disadvantages

2. Add an activity…

This drop-down menu shows which ‘activities‘ can be added to your Moodle site.

Communication Tools in Moodle: How they facilitate, or put limitations on, communication (advantages & disadvantages)

As far as communication, there are number of ways students can communicate with their instructors, and with each other, in synchronous & asynchronous environments.

Assignments

Enable teachers to grade and give comments on uploaded files and assignments created on and off line

Advantages	Disadvantages
allows students to upload assignments in one place, rather than emailing instructor (where it might go missing) instructors can access assignment files and grade them within Moodle, for instant feedback

Chat

Allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion

Advantages	Disadvantages
allows for synchronous communication with peers instructor can manage and participate in chat	students in different time zones may find it difficult to commence a chat at the assigned time

Choice

A teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses

Advantages	Disadvantages

Database

Enables participants to create, maintain and search a bank of record entries

Advantages	Disadvantages

External tool

Allows participants to interact with LTI compliant learning resources and activities on other web sites.

Advantages	Disadvantages

Feedback

For creating and conducting surveys to collect feedback

Advantages	Disadvantages

Forum

Allows participants to have asynchronous discussions

Advantages	Disadvantages
Discussion Forums are a great way for students to express their opinions or give feedback about a particular topic It allows for asynchronous participation It can be monitored and tracked by the instructor	Student posts may not get replies, making students feel like they haven’t been ‘heard’ Student may post inappropriate language, or target particular users (‘cyberbullying’)

Glossary

Enables participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary

Advantages	Disadvantages

Lesson

For delivering content in flexible ways

Advantages	Disadvantages

Quiz

Allows the teacher to design and set quiz tests, which may be automatically marked and feedback and/or to correct answers shown

Advantages	Disadvantages

SCORM Package

Enables SCORM packages to be included as course content

Advantages	Disadvantages

Survey

For gathering data from students to help teachers learn about their class and reflect on their own teaching

Advantages	Disadvantages

Wiki

A collection of web pages that anyone can add to or edit

Advantages	Disadvantages

Workshop

Enables peer assessment

Advantages	Disadvantages

 

References

https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Activities

I purposely left most of the tables blank; I am hoping that other members of the course will contribute and add information to the various tools available. I hope that my format is suitable for this assignment, but I am welcome to further edits and changes to the overall format. I wanted to facilitate the addition of materials and comments, as I know that some of the people who are using Moodle are new to its overall structure.

This was a very useful activity, since I am currently using Moodle at my school. I entered the information about some of the tools that I have used regularly, but I am interested to see what other students have to say about the tools I am unfamiliar with. For example, I’ve never used a “SCORM” package; I’m not even sure what it is! I will be very excited to try out some of these resources on my current courses, as it will certainly add more variety!

Our group worked very efficiently and collaborated very well. It was probably the most positive ‘group effort’ experience that I’ve had in a long while! Everyone’s voice was heard, and respected.

Efforts were made on all parties when it came time to share ideas, brainstorm, reflect, research, and write. We used a variety of tools to collaborate. Our primary method was using a number of collaborative online documents (Google Docs). We wrote our thoughts and opinions, and gave a rough outline to our topic. It was heavily modified from our initial idea – comparing two separate LMSs – to our ultimate decision to describe our support of one LMS (Moodle) in a secondary international school BYOD environment. A number of our group members are (or were) overseas teaching in international school environments and we felt that Moodle ‘fit the bill’ quite nicely in that educational setting. We used “Comments” on the side-bar to make comments about each other’s work. We then decided to have a Google Hangout session (which I initially mistook for a simple chat session, and didn’t have a camera and microphone handy until my wife came home with a laptop, 10 minutes in!), which was quite effective as we were able to have a synchronous, face-to-face meeting about our thoughts on the paper. We split up the work the way that we saw best – having people work on sections they had the most experience or interest in. My section mainly detailed the usability and benefits of Moodle in a secondary school environment, which I have a lot of experience in (my current school uses Moodle). We set out our goals, and scheduled our next face-to-face Google Hangout 4 days later, in which we would have a ‘check-in’ to see how things were going.

Once we had an outline of our topic from the Google Doc, and various group members contributed to the ‘draft’ version (using colour-coded text so that we could tell who wrote what), and after we had ‘chatted’ on the Google Hangout, we made a new Google Doc, which would ultimately become our final draft. Once we felt it met all the requirements of the assignment, I was given the task of putting the final draft into a complete APA format on Word. After making some adjustments to formatting (removing extra spaces, adding in-text citations in APA format), I finished the paper and sent it to all group members for a final ‘read-through’ to see if it were ready for submission.

All in all, it was a very positive experience, and I look forward to future collaborations with other members of the course. I can only hope that some, or all, of the same people are in my group in the future!