Using Moodle as a Collaborative Learning Space
Moodle Proposal
As part of the District wide commitment to teacher professional development, I would like to propose the adoption of Moodle as a Learning Management System for teachers within the Eastern School District to collaborate on course development, communicate and engage in professional discourse with colleagues and act a repository for courses and resources developed by teachers.
Context
The Eastern School District of Newfoundland Labrador is the largest school district in the province. It has 4,300 teachers and administrators servicing a population of 40,950 students. The Eastern school district is divided into 4 distinct regions, Eastern Region, Western Region, Burin Peninsula and Vista Region. The district currently uses First Class as its e-mail system.
Within First Class, conference sites are set up to keep teachers in touch with each other and as a place to post and share resources. Resources are hard to find and used by a small number of teachers. Due to the size of the board and its vast geographical area teachers, from within the board rarely, if ever, have the opportunities to collaborate, discuss curriculum issues or collaboratively design curriculum materials for classrooms. All schools in the district have high speed internet access and bandwidth in the district should be sufficient to support alternate collaboration mechanisms. The board has a well staffed IT department with branch offices located in each of the 4 regions.
Objective
One of the core values of the Eastern District School board is; “Innovation: Each person will encourage and embrace new ways that challenge traditional methods to ensure that our students and staff are exposed to leading edge/state-of-the-art inspiring/stimulating programs and technology. “According to the ISTE’s 2008 Standards for Teachers, teachers should “model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research ” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2008). Adoption of a Moodle Platform would provide teachers with an online space where they could collaboratively design courses, serve as a repository for resources and courses as they are developed for easy access by teachers throughout the district, and discussion forums to promote professional discourse.
Rationale
When evaluating Learning Management Systems, elements of the SECTIONS framework of Bates and Poole(2003), “A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology” was used. The criteria that were important to consider was;
•Ease of use and reliability: Currently teachers are not using an LMS so any LMS chosen would be new to the teacher population and require teachers to learn how to use the technology. Moodle offers a great number of support documents online as well as online tutorials. Tutorials can be accessed here. Open 2 Know Moodle Partner offers online courses for a fee to train in the use of the platform. The Eastern School District promotes the use of teacher mentors, so teachers from each region could be identified to complete training and in turn help teachers in their region. Teachers using Moodle can subscribe to forum RSS feeds to help follow forums of interest. Other LMS’s such as Webct/Vista provide online tutorials but do not enable users to subscribe to an RSS feed.
•Cost: Moodle will be the most cost effective platform to adopt due to it being open source and free to download. Moodle can be supported on a Lan / Wan system currently in use at the board. Other LMS’s such as Webct/Vista has a significant yearly license fee attached to them and therefore will be a yearly budget item. Teachers across the district will need to access training. Using a teacher mentoring program that is currently in place in the school district, a lead teacher and 8 other teachers, 2 from each district, could access online training for a fee. Professional Development sessions would be delivered by teachers within their regions to support teachers’ use of Moodle.
•Interactivity: Moodle and other LMS’s offer a wide range of interactive tools. According to Perkins and Plaffman (2006), “Using a Course Management system to Improve Classroom Communication”, Moodle provides features similar to other paid LMSs and is easier to use.
•Organization: The Eastern School District has a comprehensive IT department well equipped to maintain and support the Moodle platform.
•Novelty: Moodle will be new to teachers. However Moodle is based on web technologies currently being used in schools such as wikis, discussion forums, chat and therefore should be intuitive for most teachers.
•Speed: Due to the rapidly changing curriculum being brought in each year to the schools in various grade levels it is important to use an LMS that enables teachers to easily and quickly make changes to courses to meet the outcomes for students.
In addition to this framework Moodle has been field tested by the staff at Bishop Abraham Elementary, specifically to explore the chat room, discussion forums and mechanisms for adding /creating resources. All staff were new users of Moodle. Most teachers found Moodle easy to navigate and use after initial orientation.
Implementation Plan
| Time line | July – August 2011 * Internal review of IT infrastructure and resources * IT download and install Moodle on District server * IT Test platform for stability September/ October, 2011: * identify teachers in each district * training of lead teacher and mentors October/November : * Professional development sessions conducted by mentor teachers in each region * Moodle shell up and running for teachers to use |
| Budget | Online Professional Development * Lead Teacher – $795.00 * Teacher Mentors – 8 x $195.00 Total cost – $2355.00 |
| Hidden Costs | **IT infrastructure /resources to be assessed before implementation |
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the adoption of a Moodle platform by the Eastern School District would be the most cost effective LMS to use. Moodle offers all the necessary tools that other LMSs offer, is easy to use and will enable teachers to be connected throughout the district, and collaboratively create resources to enhance student learning in this time of ever changing curriclum.
References
Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success.77-105.
Course Management Systems Evaluation Site EduTools
Eastern School District: http://esdnl.ca/
National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (2008)
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm
Open 2 Know Moodle Partner http://open2know.com/course/view.php?id=192
Perkins, M., Pfaffman, J. (2006). Using a Course Management System to Improve Classroom Communication. Science Teacher, 73(7), 33-37.