Course Site
E-Portfolio assignment #3: Moodle Course Site
SHIRP e-learning site available at: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/view.php?id=243
Date of submission: August 3, 2011
Course site reflection
Thinking back to when I began this course and had to develop my LMS proposal (which I used to help me in my reflection) to now seeing everything come to fruition in a fully functional e-learning portal has certainly been an amazing learning experience. Prior to this course, I had zero experience with Moodle and had only heard about it through the grapevine. Figuring out all the in’s and out’s of creating different aspects in my Moodle site was aided by the activities I completed in the ETEC 565 e-learning toolkit, grounding myself in the theory presented to us throughout the course (please see my references list at the end of my reflection), consulting the free e-book Using Moodle 2nd edition by Jason Cole and Helen Foster available online at: http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Using_Moodle_book, numerous YouTube videos (ranging from “how to” create quiz content for my information literacy quiz to troubleshooting issues within Moodle), the Moodle community discussion forums, as well as our very own learning community within ETEC 565.
I recall starting off slowly using Moodle to get a better understanding of its navigation and layout. I also found it useful to participate in the two Moodle live forums that John organized for all sections of our course. One of the important aspects I started off was to create a banner for my SHIRP e-learning site. Afterwards, searching for the right navigation icons to use and linking them to my Moodle html pages was developed. Probably one of the most difficult aspects (just like the creation of my ETEC 565 Digital Story) was working on the content for my modules. After figuring out the two major topics I wanted to cover: 1) Medical Library Resources and Services ; 2) Evidence-based Practice- the next steps were to create units within each of the overarching modules. I found that one of the things that helped me develop my content was to consider how I would teach them in a face to face setting. I also consulted our course modules in ETEC 565 as a source of inspiration and to get an idea for how the modules’ content should be interactive for learners. I also considered a way in which I could get the dialogue started immediately once students entered the e-learning portal. For example, after searching online I found Wallwisher- a way in which a virtual wall can be tacked on with virtual post-it notes (aka “stickys”). In this format, I’ve asked students what their e-learning goals are so that it can better inform and guide me in terms of the direction and course content I should develop for the students. After all, I think it goes back to the Bates and Poole (2003) SECTIONS framework, as it really is about the students- their learning needs and trying to address them in the best way I can using the affordances of this LMS technology.
Overall, I think that I’ve been able to meet the following e-Portfolio assignment #3: Moodle course site requirements:
1. Of a quality of work, as per the overall standards listed in the Course Introduction module
2. Splash page with a graphic user interface (GUI)
3. Two (or more) complete learning modules (module shells or placeholder pages not acceptable), largely built as HTML pages
4. Two general discussion forum topics
5. One additional group discussion forum for (at least) 2 groups (must set up groups; they need not be populated)
6. A reflection upon your experience completing this assignment posted in the Course Site page of your e-portfolio.
The only aspect I’d consider working on further (after the course) is using Amaya, Dreamweaver or the like to develop more professional-looking HTML pages rather than using the standalone HTML pages available within Moodle. Although, I did try to using Amaya (as my trial version of Dreamweaver did not suffice) I found that there was still a bit of a learning curve there for me to develop HTML pages from scratch and making them look professionally done. At work, I utilize Microsoft SharePoint to manage our internal library site and since there’s a default (standard) look and feel to everything, it is merely a matter of entering in content and changing (adding/deleting) blocks of content. For the external site on the other hand, I do use Microsoft Expression Web (an updated version of FrontPage) however as I have never actually built a website from scratch until now (my Moodle site) I can say that it truly does take a lot of work. As one of my colleagues remarked it may look easy, but once you actually start working on things then (and only then) do you truly understand the amount of work and effort it entails.
Another sticking point for a lot of my colleagues from ETEC 565 was the selective release aspect of our Moodle site. Now, I think that closing the eye icon has made my future modules 3, 4 and 5 appear as “not available” to students. Once I have populated the content for those modules then I would update those by opening the eye icon to enable access. Also, as my vision for the site is largely a self-paced e-learning site, it makes sense to me that all modules should be accessible to everyone (healthcare practitioners) at all times. After completing the initial information literacy quiz, they can decide for themselves which module they would like to work on based on their own learning needs (as this will differ from person to person). In addition, as these online modules will complement and in some cases supplement the existing suite of f2f delivery of training sessions I think that it also makes sense that in the near future there should be some credits or credentialing (perhaps through their licensing body, association, etc) attached to the completion of modules so that it offers an added incentive for healthcare staff to finish e-learning modules in a timely manner.
Also, there were a few times that I found using Moodle was not very user-friendly. For example, when pasting my module content from Microsoft Word to Moodle in the WYSIWYG box I noticed (with frustration) that spacing ended up all wonky (i.e. words were spaced together, sentences lost their original proper spacing structure, etc) which I then had to manually go into each HTML page and manually insert spacing to ensure it was properly formatted. Additionally, I alternated from using different web browsers from Internet Explorer 9 to Safari to Opera (as the editing box in Moodle wouldn’t work properly at times for me to insert a link using the menu in the WYSIWYG view, etc). I noticed that in both Safari and Opera there was no WYSIWYG box and so I had to utilize my HTML skills to make revisions. Furthermore, I ultimately decided to leave the topics format instead of the collapsed topics. However, with the addition of more modules I would probably change it to collapsed topics so that students could toggle view the modules rather than be faced with the infamous Moodle “scroll of death.” Yet, the images I had set up disappeared in the collapsed topics structure so that was one aspect to contend with. In addition, after consulting the help feature within Moodle, I figured out the different aspects of the Group Mode feature. I found that the group mode can be defined as one of three levels:
- No groups – there are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community
- Separate groups – each group can only see their own group, others are invisible
- Visible groups – each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups
For this aspect, after trying out the different formats I settled on the “visible groups” feature as each group can not only work on their own they can check out what other groups are discussing.
Also, I learned that the group mode could be defined at two levels: 1. Course level wherein the group mode defined at the course level is the default mode for all activities defined within that course; and 2. Activity level where each activity that supports groups can also define its own grouping mode. If the course is set to “force group mode” then the setting for each activity is ignored. The other aspect I learned was about the different types of discussion forums I could set up including:
- A single simple discussion – is just a single topic, all on one page. Useful for short, focused discussions.
- Standard forum for general use – is an open forum where any one can start a new topic at any time. This is the best general-purpose forum.
- Each person posts one discussion – Each person can post exactly one new discussion topic (everyone can reply to them though). This is useful when you want each student to start a discussion about, say, their reflections on the week’s topic, and everyone else responds to these.
- Q And A Forum – The Q & A forum requires students to post their perspectives before viewing other students’ postings. After the initial posting, students can view and respond to others’ postings. This feature allows equal initial posting opportunity among all students, thus encouraging original and independent thinking.
Ultimately, I chose the standard forum for general use so that each group member could not only reply to their colleagues’ ideas but also post their own discussion threads. I found that this type of forum would offer the greatest flexibility for multipurpose discussions as students generate and post new ideas.
Lastly, although it was not a requirement to populate the groups in the additional group discussion forum, I saw that as an additional learning opportunity to figure out how to do so. Thus, I took the next step of actually assigning some students from ETEC 565 as a sample to set up two separate groups to examine case study discussions related to my second module on evidence-based practice. Furthermore, I tied in one of my ETEC 565 e-learning toolkit activities (on accessibility) and after finding out that my Moodle site was fully compliant I integrated the W3C icon and link to illustrate that I had taken the care to create an interoperable Web page. In the end, as our course draws to a close I have found this constructivist approach of learning on our own, drawing from our experiences and being self-directed to be an invaluable learning opportunity. This experience has encouraged, motivated and inspired me to recognize that the amount of effort that you put into an endeavour (such as building a Moodle LMS course site from scratch) is directly correlated to the final result which I can now view and download as a zip file for future use.
References
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