Jun 02 2011
In the Sandbox with Moodle
When I think of all the online courses I have taken in my lifetime, it is hard to believe that I have not had to create a course myself that was fully online. My experiences have been as a student on the learning end of WebCT Vista, or Desire2Learn, or Blackboard, but never an Open Source platform like Moodle. But here I am now working within a new format – Moodle – for the first time. It has been a few years now since I have been in a classroom, but how I wish I had been exposed to the ability to create an online course for my students! So now I get to create my very own course, but I am going to consider who my “students” are – they are my colleagues – my fellow administrators who could certainly benefit from some online learning, or should it be the teachers that I have been conducting PD sessions for over the past few years? Budget cuts have forced us to rethink how we conduct professional development sessions – and so instead of face-to-face sessions, perhaps a Moodle format would work. Imagine, designing a course that would bring administrators up to speed in say, Web 2.0 tools, and other great learning technologies. It’s worth a try.
But first, I need to learn more about Moodle – from the Toolkit, the online tutorials I have found, and from my classmates in this course. Looking forward to playing in my new sandbox!
Sounds like you’re off to a strong start!