Designing my Moodle "Integrating ICT"- before I kicked the cat!

Management of my time was essential and an

Open-minded approach too.

Often trial and error required:

Daring to learn something new.

Learning Management System mastered!

Even by a technophobe- it’s true!

You can view my Moodle “Integrating ICT” at http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/view.php?id=183

My Moodle Manifestation…. a reflection

The Journey

Mmmm Moodle.  Since June 8^th I have been on a technological learning journey.  It has been a most ‘excellent adventure’ where I have explored and developed an LMS course for teachers who want to learn how to integrate technology (ICT) into their everyday lessons.  It has been no walk in the park- and I almost gave up, a few times.  I have pulled out hair, cried, yelled at the cat for no reason, banged on my keyboard, annoyed all my tech-savvy friends with copious inquiries and in the end I have created something that I am proud of.  In fact, I looked at it again now and thought “wow!  I did that!” and I did it while I changed jobs, lived in Doha during the week and flew to Abu Dhabi on the weekends, while I vacationed for 2 weeks in the Maldives with intermittent wi-fi and for 2 weeks in Sri Lanka where promised internet facilities turned out to be the accountants office and the local cuisine culminated in a 4 day mini-retreat in the luxurious lavatory…..

Rationale for this Course:

The primary reason for this course is the glaringly obvious need for teacher training in ICT integrate in Abu Dhabi schools.  The teachers are so keen to do it and often have excellent equipment with which to do it but they don’t know how to do it.  As clearly stated in my Proposal on my ePortfolio “Moodle will enable the teachers to learn through synchronous and asynchronous communication providing them with flexibility to facilitate course completion.  Moodle as an online learning environment caters to those learners who are confident and extroverted as well as providing those who are shy ‘think time’ enabling them to participate when they have prepared their responses.”  I believe that this course will give supported, practical activities for teachers to see how easy it is to integrate ICT into their curriculum.

Course Design

• Front Page

Welcome to Integrating ICT is the first thing you will see when you enter my Moodle course with an animated introduction I created at xtranormal.com entitled Welcome to Integrating ICT and followed by a very amateur comic created at pixon.com entitled Integrating ICT.  I thought it would be good pedagogical practice to try some of the tools introduced to us in Module 4.  I believe that this also adds some pizzazz to the rather dull front page.

• Starter Activities

After the teachers, my students, have been wowed by my introductory multimedia tools they will see “TO Begin” which is where they are formally introduced to the course objectives.  They have 3 tasks to complete:

1. Four survey questions which I created using the ‘Choice” tool in Moodle
2. The course overview reading
3. Participate in an Icebreaker activity in their first discussion forum.

I enjoyed creating these starter activities because it enabled me to think about my overall goal for my course and what I wanted it to ‘look like’ and it forced me to play with and thereby learn to use some of the tools that the Moodle LMS affords.  I learned how to create Choice survey questions, set up a discussion (without groups) and add an online text page.  I’m on my way!

• The Splash Page (du duh)

Oh me, oh me did this give me grey hairs!  What’s a splash page?  What is a GUI?  I had no idea about the definitions of these words let alone how to create!  This terminology was a foreign language!  First up, define.  Okay so a splash page IS a GUI and a GUI (which stands for Graphical User Interface) is, simply put, interactive visual indicators or  as I like to call them “clickable pictures”!  Great, so now I know what a GUI is, how do I make one in Moodle?  Search, search, search!  Trial and error.  I finally discovered how to insert my icons/images using the ‘Label’ tool and subsequently how to link this icon to the internal page in my Moodle where the information was.  YES!  Then I decided to put them into a table with labels underneath them to keep it neat and tidy.  This ability to make site navigation so interactive is one of the reasons why Moodle is so user-friendly and functional.  I also just realized about 5 minutes ago that the animation and cartoon I included were also part of my ‘Splash page”- see always learning!  I have to say that I spent a large amount of my time editing how my Splash Page looked- it seemed fine in editing mode  but ….. let’s just say that a lot of tweaking was required to get to where it is now but the addition of some animation, images and icons certainly increased the appearance of the text dominated moodle design.  Steep learning curve.

• Learning Modules

There are three learning modules completed at present: Module 1- Using Word Processors Educationally, Module 2- Paint for diagrams and Module 3- Digital Stories and Web 2.0 Applications.  Each of the Modules has a Q/A forum, activities with resources and an assessment.  As each Module is created so the activities must be completed within a week and each activity in each Module is time released to ensure that this is strictly adhered to.  I have planned it so that there is one day overlap between Modules.  I like the fact that the teachers will have the freedom to complete the tasks when they have time within their week but with some structure to keep them on task.  Therefore, the activities were designed so that they are not terribly time consuming.

• Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication

I wanted to include some synchronous communication, however, the dynamic nature of this particular student body (busy, working teachers- the majority of which have many children and family responsibilities) I only included one Chat activity at the end of the course.  I thought this would be a nice way to have the teachers reflect on their experiences and create a social network for future support.  Each of the three learning Modules includes a Q/A discussion forum and Modules 1 and 2 have two discussion forums directly linked to their assignments.  Module 1 forums are general discussion forums but I included one group discussion forum in Module 2 using randomly selected ‘visible’ groups.  I felt it was absolutely essential to make discussion forums an integral component of the course since it is not a f2f or even a blended context and the teachers will need a means of support.  I chose one group discussion forum for the most ‘intense’ activity since the teachers would not have time to review and discuss all of the projects but I left them visible so they can see what the rest of the class is up to if they desire.  I also included a Wiki in the third module as a place to post their digital stories- this could become a means of synchronous communication for the students if they took initiative to organize themselves.

• Assessments

I included 3 assessment activities in the Moodle course and one opportunity for synchronous reflection. The assessment activities were developed to assess the skills of the teacher and used a variety of True-False, Multiple Choice, Matching, Short Answer and Essay style questions.  I believe that quality assessment is imperative to effective online learning and subsequent feedback on the assessment activities is an absolute necessity.  You can peruse my account of developing the first assessment activity.  I can say that the second and third assessments were much easier and quicker to create.

The Final Countdown

I can’t believe how much I have learned in this process and how valuable this new skill will be for my career in educational advising/consulting.  I am beginning a new contract with a new group of primary/prep science teachers in a new school with a new team so I am hoping that I will be able to use this course this year (I’m sure I will need to adjust the time release as it is Ramadan here at that time!).  In my flight path at the beginning of ETEC 565 I said “1.What I want to learn: LMS:  I can’t wait to learn how to use Moodle!  I am hoping that I will be able to develop my own course for the local teachers on easy ways to integrate ICT (in English) into their lessons.”  I think I can say i have achieved this goal with flying colours- yay for me and my Moodle!