The life and times of MET student

Although it was a bit of a struggle to figure out how to set up various communication tools on my Moodle site, eventually I managed to set up a few different activities that use synchronous and asynchronous tools to support student interaction.  Firstly, I set up a one-minute response blog for students to complete after each Math lesson.  The activity asks students to quickly record in their blogs what the most important ideas of the lesson are, what points are unclear, and if they found the lesson helpful/interesting.  This is a useful formative assessment activity, providing students with a chance to reflect on key concepts, and providing teachers with an opportunity to see where there are any misconceptions/confusion, so they can re-clarify during the following lesson.

I also set up a Science activity to help conclude a Grade 5 unit studying the human body.  I posed a problem where students must work in small groups to explain why their assigned body part is important and what its functions are.  After posting their group’s response, students are instructed to read other group’s postings and provide feedback.  I chose to use a Q & A forum to support student interaction in this activity, so that students must formulate their own responses (as a group) before viewing other groups’ work.  Also, this communication tool allows for students to provide constructive peer feedback.

Finally, I set up a synchronous communication tool on my Moodle site in the form of a chat room to provide weekly online office hours.  In the heading for the chat room I included that days and times that I would be online to help students with any school-related questions that they might have.  This tool helps to provide an easily accessible and secure space where students can feel comfortable addressing any issues in the class regarding homework, social, or other problems.  It also could encourage students who may not normally approach me in person to voice their issues.

On the Moodle site, there are several tools to help track student activity.  To track blog activity, I can view course or site blog entries under the Blog Menu block.  I can also track using blog tags, which I instruct the students to include in their entries.  To monitor forum activity, I can view student activity/participation using the “reports” tool in the Administration block, which provides a record of all student activity.  I can consult the Recent Activity block to track student activity as well.  If I want to view chat room activity, I can easily view archived chats using the “view past sessions” button included in the chat tool.

Although it was a bit frustrating at first, it turned out to be very useful and informative to explore the various communication tools that Moodle has to offer!