Course Site
I found this activity, in which we built a Moodle course, to be challenging, interesting and useful. This is my last MET course and to finish in this way, building a product where I could use what I had learned in the last two and a half years, was a fantastic experience.
From the start I wanted to do more than just meet the course requirements. I wanted to build something I could actually use. To do this, I have tried to fill the course with everything it needs to be used at the start of next semester. This meant a lot of work, but I am really proud of the results. This virtual component is meant to replace the workbook that students currently complete as homework. The Moodle course is designed to be more collaborative, and produce more authentic communication in English as students read, write, listen and speak with authentic purpose.
Because I wanted to make a useful product, some of the material is in Spanish. This is not to confuse anyone, but it is so that my beginner English students have a scaffolded introduction to the online course. I put the rubrics, calendar, and policies in Spanish and all the instructions in the first week in both English and Spanish. After that, everything is in English. I don’t expect my students to be able to work independently with English instructions, but since this is a blended course, I intend to go through the activities in class to clear up any doubts. To further support students, in the first section there is a hidden resource that will be a glossary of terms used. Any difficult word in the course will appear highlighted and the students will be able to refer to the explanation simply by clicking on it. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and this addition to the course will have to be completed at a later date.
I have gained much experience after designing my first course, and there are some things I will do differently next time. The HTML editor in Moodle doesn’t appear when using a Mac, so I started pasting HTML code. However, when I switched to a PC, I had a lot of style issues. I wasted a lot of time and a few of the pages have font size issues that I can’t solve. I will use a PC in the future and not add any code. What is more, after creating a hyperlinked splashpage, I had the idea of adding hyperlinked icons to every page to help students navigate. It took a long time to get everything linked correctly, and I would not do it again though it looks nice. There is a trade off between interface design and activity design, and I would focus on the later next time. That said, one outcome of this activity is that I have found that I like programming, and my next goal is to learn to program Flash. I have ideas for activities that I haven’t found available free online and I want to make them.
I believe that my course meets all the requirements, though selected release was problematic. I now understand that this can be interpreted broadly, so I have achieved selected release in the following ways: Firstly, activity 12, the quiz, is programmed to release on a certain date. Also, the forum for activity 7 only accepts peer ratings during a certain time period. The reflective exercise at the end of the month is hidden as it is unfinished and I do not want students seeing it until it is ready. Finally, I added some code to activity 10, so that it is blocked until the 23rd of the month. I could have done this to all the activities in the module to meet the assessment criteria to the letter, but then you would not be able to see my activities, and this would be a shame. As an afterthought, I hid the last two weeks of the course just to make sure.
I wanted to complete the grade section of the course, but I found it very difficult to work out the system without having some “dummy” students to play with. This along with the reflective questionnaire at the end of the course and the glossary are what remains to be finished before the trial. However, this project will not truly be over until I have tried it out and made adjustments. It is one thing to plan didactic activities, but watching them unfold will be another learning curve altogether.
Here is the link to my Moodle course, I hope you enjoy it!