View my Elements of a Story Moodle site

As stated in my “flight path”, my original thoughts were to create a French verbs unit. This was quickly changed as I began to discover the tools that the moodle site offered. My “flight path” suggested that I wanted to find more ways to create an interactive and collaborative language arts program, and through quick discovery I re-evaluated my decision to create a Language Arts wiki and decided to create a Language Arts – Elements of a Story Moodle Site.

As this decision was made, I proposed creating a moodle site, based on interest and integration growing in schools. Over 83% of students, ages 12 to 17 are using the Internet at school (Zamaria & Fletcher, 2007). As this number continues to increase, the demand for teachers to develop technological lessons is increasing. I wanted to use a Learning Management System (LMS), in particular moodle, as a way to enhance my technology education, but also figure out how it could enhance my students’ technology education. I have had minimal experience, only a few hours to play around, with moodle before this course. Being drawn to moodle was simple as it “can help teachers, parents, and administrators communicate better and requires little money or training” (Perkins & Pfaffman, 2006, p. 33). Also, as stated in my proposal, having access to blogs, wikis, real-time chats, online or offline assignments, and using features similar to word processors would greatly benefit my students’ learning (Perkins & Pfaffman, 2006).

I used the Bates & Poole SECTIONS model (2003) to evaluate using moodle. In particular I liked the cost (ie. free) and removing barriers was easy, as the organization and ease-of-use for myself and students seemed quite simple. I followed the constructivist theory and tried to engage my students with as much collaboration and socialization as possible (Jonassen, 1999). When I first began making my moodle shell, I followed Driver and Oldham’s constructivist instructional model and worked through each part: orientation, elicitation, reconstruction of ideas, application of ideas and review (Driver & Oldham, 1986; in Biggs, 1996).
I also used the British Columbia Prescribed Learning Outcomes (PLOs), for reading- “explain how structures and features of text work to develop meaning” and for writing “write a variety of imaginative writing for a range of purposes and audiences, including short stories, passages, and poems modeled from literature” to form the basis for my unit (2006, p. 59).

My moodle site went through many revision processes. Once I had figured out my content, I began working out a template of a schedule. This again was re-assessed later as I discovered my layout of each module was quite overwhelming and confusing. Breaking each part up into “Weekly Activities” made my course very straightforward and not too overwhelming for my students. Additionally, I would only display one week at a time; a selective display. As I began to add content to each week, I re-evaluated my “plan” again, using Driver & Oldham’s model. I wanted to stick to this model, but I thought I needed to add more interactivities. I added more visual elements, including images and videos. Moreover, I wanted to re-evaluate “my plan” as I worked through module 3 in our course: assessment. Even though a quiz was a requirement for this course, I wanted to use this as one form of assessment. However, as Anderson suggests that “quality online learning provides many opportunities for assessment,” I decided to add more types of assessment (2008, p. 49). I added some participation marks (asynchronous discussion forums), and a plot-line project, and a written story assessed via a rubric.

I have continued to make minor tweaks here and there. I visited several other classmates moodle sites to get some ideas and continued to make changes. Overall, I don’t think that my course will ever be complete. After completing my digital story assignment, I have decided to use Pixton and digital storytelling programs, as a potentially third module. I wish to take my students beyond traditional forms of story-telling (which they complete in module 2) and try to find other ways to tell their story. As with my teaching, I am always reflecting on my practices and making constant changes. However, I think from what I knew about moodle before (very little) and what I know and have created now, I am very proud of my Elements of a Story Unit and I can’t wait to add more.

Resources:

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning. In: T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from: http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008_Anderson-Online_Learning.pdf

Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A framework for selecting and using technology. In A.W. Bates & G. Poole, Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education, 75-108. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2006). Grade 7 curriculum package. Retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/welcome.php

Jonassen, D. (1999). Designing constructivist learning environments. In C. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and models: Volume II. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Perkins, M. & Pfaffman, J. (2006). Using a course management system to improve classroom communication. Science Teacher, 73(7), 33-37.

Biggs, J. (1996) Enhancing Teaching through Constructive Alignment. Higher Education, 32(3), 347-365. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3448076.

Zamaria C. & Fletcher, F. (2007) Canada online! A comparative analysis of Internet users and non-users in Canada and the world: Behaviour, attitudes and trends 2007. Toronto: Canadian Internet Project.