MET Blog of Louise Thomson

The unit that I am creating in my Moodle course site is one that will focus on perspective.  Students will examine the gold rush in the Cariboo from the perspective of different groups who were present and will not just look at life as it pertained to the miners.  I chose to have the students work in a forum that would utilize a jigsaw strategy wherein each pair of students would learn about their person and then teach the other groups about that person by introducing themselves in-role. 

I wanted make sure that the other students read and thought about the experiences of these major gold rush characters so I have required them to respond to each of the other group’s characters in-role as well.  I have provided some suggestions for how they might go about this but think that this format will provide a lot of opportunity for students to display some critical thinking skills.

I also fully intend to create my own character, fictional or otherwise, and participate in the forum myself.  This will allow me to ask students questions and try to challenge their knowledge of the time period.  The asynchronous aspect of the forum environment will allow students the time to go and research the answer to any questions they may be given.

From the teaching perspective I feel that using a forum will allow me to easily track participation as each group will have its own thread.  Groups failing to participate will be obvious. 

In addition to this I would also like to have the students create blogs in their own voice as another way to demonstrate their learning.  I have been unable to figure out how to set up a blog in Moodle yet so I will continue on with my quest!

***An update to this post…For now, I have given up on the blog as discussion with fellow classmates and my online research shows that an internal blog format is something that Moodle is still working on.  My school district is quite restrictive about allowing the students to access blogging sites so I have chosen to insert a chat into the course shell instead. 

As part of the Gold Rush unit my students will be reading the novel Cariboo Runaway.  The chat format will be one that I think the students will find engaging as it is something they have not experienced in the classroom.  It will be conducted during class time in the lab and will test the students understanding of the novel as well as their ability to respond to higher-order thinking questions that relate the fictional characters to real characters from the Gold Rush that they have studied. 

The chat function may be limited by the fact that students who have a better understanding of the novel may monopolize the discussion so accountability will have to be built in by requiring a number of contributions from all students.  Another limiting factor may be the typing issue but they have spent enough time on All The Right Type haven’t they?

To: Decision Maker

RE: Choosing a Learning Management System for the delivery of Grade 5 Socials curriculum

Dear Ms. Maker,

My colleague and I, both grade 5 teachers, are proposing to design an online delivery format for the curriculum for grade 5 social studies as a way to make the process more engaging and learner-centered for the students.  This means that we will need to critically examine the options for Learning Management Systems (LMSs) available for our use.   For the past several weeks I have been reading reviews of two different systems and looking at the current literature on their application strengths and weaknesses.  This proposal will recommend that we, as a district, choose and provide support for teachers using the LMS known as Moodle (available for viewing at Moodle.com).

My initial research began with an examination of both Moodle and another LMS known as WebCT/Vista.  Both offer many similar features but reviews of Moodle and my own observations show intuitiveness in the Moodle platform that is not present in WebCT/Vista (Edutools and Mac Update sites).  Moodle also seems to require little in terms of administrative support based on these reviews.  This platform will allow my colleague and I to upload web-based tools, utilize its online testing system, and have our students create weblogs and wikis and have chats with their classmates about their projects (Perkins, 2006).  In terms of constructivist learning the Moodle platform will allow the students to collaborate on their learning and to co-create products as they work through the modules.

Moodle’s main advantage over WebCT/Vista is that it is an open source product and does not require the district purchase a license to run it.  The district is currently using an open source software (OSS) product called Open Office for word processing, spreadsheet applications and presentation tools in our schools.  As you know, OSS products are not proprietary.  The District’s server will be able to host Moodle which will allow for administrative ease (Perkins, 2006) and discussions with the technology department have demonstrated that little will be required on their part to upload the software.  Ongoing technical support will be available through Technology Services.

As we would be setting this course up for our own use we would not require anything in terms of release time for pre-term setup but we would ask that during the initial course phase of course implementation we would be allowed four half days each of release time with TOC coverage so that we could consult and attend to challenges that arise as we begin implementing this project.

The long term goal for this project is to create a dynamic learning space that other teachers can share and build upon and that will inspire an interest in the field of social studies in our students.  We feel that this format will help us create a community of learners who will construct meaningful learning experiences.  We hope that you will support us in this endeavour.

Sincerely,

Louise Thomson

Resources

Edutools.  Retrieved May 31, 2009 from http://www.edutools.info/static.jsp?pj=4&page=HOME

Mac Update (Moodle and Blackboard Reviews).  Retrieved May 31, 2009 from http://www.macupdate.com/reviews.php?id=12048

 Perkins, M., et. al. (2006), Using a Course Management System to Improve Classroom Communication. The Science Teacher.  v. 73 no. 7, p. 33-7.

I am a fairly new teacher but not a fairly new person (!) who is currently teaching at an elementary school of 300 students in a small community.  I had to fight pretty hard to get into this course and am quite happy to be here but I also have some fairly high expectations from this new course.  I am a practical person who often refers to herself as a “bottom line kind of girl”.  Thus far, I have found my experience in the MET to be predominantly theoretical in nature.  While I agree that understanding the theories is key to being a good teacher most of us have probably already encountered these theories in our Education degrees.  I was particularly attracted this course because of the promise of practical applications.

I have some limited experience with synchronous communication but really want to gain more in this area.  My experience with LMS is limited to its use as a student.  I have never had the opportunity to design or manage one of these environments and am hoping to gain some proficiency with this here.  I am not a social networking user.  I have not tweeted or poked anyone.  While I have no real interest in these applications personally I am openminded to their potential use as an educator.   In terms of assessment I am always interested in exploring new ways to assess student learning and have a real commitment to a variety of assessment tools in order to address a wide variety of learning styles. 

My broader goals for my MET experience is to gain knowledge and skills that I can use to join the tech leaders in my school district.  I want to be a 21st century teacher in my 20th century school district.

To attain my goals of becoming proficient in the technologies we will encounter in this class I will need some human resources.  The support of classmates with a variety of expertise has proven very helpful in past MET courses and I fully expect that the depth and variety of experience of my fellow students will prove invaluable on this part of the journey as well.