My 565 Moodle Reflection: My Moodle Course Site
Introduction
At the beginning of the course I thought it would be quite a difficult task to complete the assignment on the LMS course site. Last fall I took a 2 day Moodle in-service through my school division but didn’t have the time to spend learning and playing with Moodle so I had built it up as a daunting task. I was not confident in my skills. I didn’t really know where to start. I had no idea what Moodle had to offer, as far as I knew it was a pdf repository. Now, after taking ETEC 565, I am so proud of how much I was able to complete on my Moodle course site. I feel so accomplished! I finally made it after a tough couple weeks, yippee! 🙂
What I didn’t anticipate was how much fun it would be creating my course. Once I had the pedagogical background and had a template of how and where to start, I found it went very well and I really enjoyed it! I actually can’t wait to finish building my whole course (only 5 units left)!
A few bumps along the road of course, building my first quiz for our quiz assignment was a real learning experience for sure! Once I got the hang of it and figured out the limitations of each of the types of questions, it went much smoother. I love having a digital test bank and the timely formative feedback that the quizzes offer!
I experimented creating web pages in Dream Weaver then transferring them into my Moodle. I found this was easier at times but I had some difficulties with code at first until I got used to it.
One challenge I really found very frustrating was typing math equations with math symbols in Moodle. Moodle offers very few math symbols so it was lots of cut & pasting from a word doc. Another challenge that was time consuming, because of the math symbol issue: having to convert the assignments to pictures then upload them to Moodle. I had to do this many times because of the math symbols needed that even MS Word doesn’t offer, especially for the Vectors Unit with the vector symbols and graphs. I miss my add-on “MATH ML”!
Splash Page
I loved creating my splash page! It was lots of fun learning how to create an interactive and visually stimulating splash page with links that provide direct and easy access to the different the course materials. I do like being able to upload the pictures though and it is quite easy to do so. One thing I had to find out the hard way with pictures was filing them first in the correct folder and not moving them once they are used. I lost all my pictures to my splash page when I decided to clean up my files in the Moodle file folder and created a splash page folder. I found out I should have created the folder and moved them first. I had to redo my whole splash page which wasted over two hours including redoing all the links. Great learning experience!
Learning Modules
The Math 30 Applied course consists of seven different units so I have designed my Moodle to reflect each of these including an introduction, a glossary and a review section. With the stated requirement for the LMS course site, I have decided to complete Unit 4 Vectors (Trigonometry) and Unit 6 Sinusoidal Data. Trigonometry & Sinusoidal Data are related to concepts with a dynamic and highly visual nature so that’s why I decided to start with these two units and not in chronological order as in the course outline. These two topics give me a chance to utilize different multimedia tools and online resources in a meaningful way. Please refer to my Multimedia Resources for an inventory of the resources I used to build my units in Moodle.
I decided to include a Toondoo for a unit introduction. I think the kids will love it. I know I had lots of fun creating it. My math units are quite long with 6 or 8 lessons each and many activities but I wanted to design my online course to mimic my face-to-face course as much as possible topic-wise and time-wise. We use a workbook in class and each unit has a practice test we do in class before the actual unit test. I’ve designed my Moodle to accompany the workbook we use in class.
Each unit is built with an introduction which includes the unit outline. The unit outline includes the sequential order of the lessons & activities including: quizzes, glossary words, unit review, practice test assignment and unit test (the last 2 done in class). The lessons and activities include the notes, examples, practices, assignments, discussions, videos, tutorials and games. I also felt it necessary to include many reminder links for my students to seek help at the end of each unit and lesson outline.
Selective Release
Moodle doesn’t come with “automatic” selective release for an entire module. I searched on the Moodle website regarding selective release and from what I read it doesn’t exist currently as it does in WebCT or Vista. It seems that a more operational release mechanism is coming out soon, so that is encouraging! So for now, the best we can do is close the eye to hide a module. I have chosen for my Unit 4 on Vectors to be selectively released.
In class I would time release each unit and students would have 2 to 3 weeks to complete the unit, depending on our in class timeline.
General Discussion Forums
I have a few different general discussion forums for my students. My forums include: Introduce Yourself, General Course Questions, News and Announcements, Cool Vectors Stuff and Cool SineReg. Stuff. The rest of my forums are lesson and outcome specific.
Group Discussion Forums
I have created four groups: Einsteins’ Apprentices, Math Wizards, Calculator Junkies and Pythagorean Theorists. These groups each have different topics to discuss and then meet together in the main discussion forum for the unit to summarize their group discussion topics.
Overall Reflection
As LMS becomes increasingly popular in the technological world due to its educational value, it is important for me to equip myself with these new technologies for my career in the education field. Although I found it difficult, frustrating and clumsy to insert math formulas, equations and symbols without the add-on MATH ML, overall it serves well as an e-learning platform and I found Moodle straightforward and easy to use. I can definitely see how it can improve student learning.
Overall, after completing this assignment, I am very happy with what I have learned and explored. I believe this was the most practical and beneficial course to be of great significance and impact on my teaching. We have Moodle in our school division and I am excited to finish this course that I’ve started during ETEC 565 (only 5 units left!). I plan to use my Moodle course in a mixed-mode blended form this fall if possible. Based on the course readings combined with the tools in the e-learning toolkit, I am now ready and eager to enhance my students’ learning experience technologically, theoretically and pedagogically.
References
Moodle.org. (2010). Using Moodle: Selective Release. [Web log comment] Retrieved from: moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=14756