Link to my Moodle course: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/view.php?id=482

Moodle Intro Module Reflection:

Introduction:

I enjoyed the challenge of making an introduction module for a class site using Moodle. I spent some time thinking about what ideas I could come up with when picking a topic for the course and decided upon creating a professional development course for teachers working with Aboriginal students. I chose the topic due to it being of particular personal interest. I decided that the course was original and it would be fairly easy to develop and post content.

I took the time to reflect on my course afterward and went back to look up and apply the theoretical frameworks studied in the course. This lead me to realize the necessity to examine the “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” (Chickering, 1987)

1. Good Practice Encourages Contacts Between Students and Faculty.

2. Good Practice Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students.

3. Good Practice Uses Active Learning Techniques.

4. Good Practice Gives Good Feedback.

5. Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task.

6. Good Practice Communicates High Expectations.

7. Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning.

Applying these principles from a top down approach will not lead in successful course development. “The Seven Principles cannot be implemented by technophiles alone, or even by faculty alone. Students need to become familiar with the Principles and be more assertive with respect to their own learning. When confronted with teaching strategies and course requirements that use technologies in ways contrary to the Principles, students should, if possible, move to alternatives that serve them better. If teaching focuses simply on memorizing and regurgitating prepackaged information, whether delivered by a faculty lecture or computer, students should reach for a different course, search out additional resources or complementary experiences, establish their own study groups, or go to the professor for more substantial activities and feedback.” (Chickering, 1987) This lead me to the realization that trying to focus on flashy content and good visual activities were the wrong direction for my course. When designing I need to focus on encouraging student creativity and interaction while creating a course that is well organized and engaging for students.

Something I thought would be helpful was to include an in depth student guide to using Moodle. I thought about creating my own or even doing a screencast when I tried doing the screencast the Moodle course kept lagging and not working properly for me. Rather than reinvent the wheel I opted to include a link to a training institute’s pdf version of a student guide.

To introduce students to the theme and content of the course I included a customized Animoto video. I felt that this would catch the students’ interest and motivate them to get involved. The first section of the site is highly visual with a picture and button style links to the introductory content they will need to get started. I decided to put most of the introductory information on different sections of the course rather than include them all in one section. I did this because certain content like the course outline will need to be viewed regularly.  If the course outline has it’s own section it can be selected from the home page and from the navigation pane whenever a student wishes to. If it was only included in the introduction the student would always have to go back into the introduction section in order to get the content they are looking for.

Solving a Problem:

I took advantage of the online community when I encountered a problem with something I couldn’t figure out in Moodle. I was trying to make a course outline in an HTML table but could not get the grid lines to show no matter what I did. I did a simple search in the moodle.org discussion forums and found the answer I needed quite quickly. The vast open user community is in my opinion a great benefit to using an open source program like Moodle.

Conclusion:

I found the experience of this assignment to be a challenging learning experience. I enjoyed the process of testing and trying out new features in Moodle and to almost instantly see how the course experience would be. The more I use Moodle the more comfortable I am becoming with developing course content. I found the experience to be a humbling recognition of how much time I require to develop quality course content and how little time I have to spend doing it during this season of life.

References:
Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39(7), 3-7.
Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S., C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6.