Re: moodle

[jimjceleb@aol.com]

Carla,
You really have piqued my interest. I don't know anyone who has even mentioned Moodle . I thought someone was just goofing around when I saw it in the message box. If it can do what you describe here at the right price (free!) how can it stay a secret! Where I find it? I assume the book is easy to find since I have no one to turn to for information about the many errors I will make. Can this be set so that two or three teachers in different parts of the country could hold book discussions together?
Jim
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Carla Beard <carla@webenglishteacher.com>
To: middle-lit@interversity.org
Sent: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:41:15 -0400
Subject: Re: [middle-lit] moodle


Alex, 

Let me answer the easy question first: our tech guy suggested it, set it up,
and encouraged us to use it. He even used his own funding to buy us a Moodle
book. Granted, we had to share it among six teachers this (inaugural) year,
but the fact remains that he made it happen for us. 

Now the other question: what all do I do with it? 

1. I give objective quizzes/tests. Moodle grades them, tells me the scores,
does an item analysis, discourages cheating 3 different ways, allows for
make-up work at the student's convenience, and -- on the rare occasion (LOL)
when there's a mistake in my key -- allows me to correct my mistake and
regrade every single quiz.

That feature alone is worth the slight learning curve. Just think how much
paper I've saved by putting all my quizzes online. (BTW, Moodle is pretty
intuitive -- I thought it was easy to learn. I bought my own copy of the
Moodle book and almost never used it.)

2. I post assignments to which students can respond in multiple ways. A
student can post a response on Moodle that everyone else can see, and I can
post responses to it that everyone else also can see. I can also post an
assignment to which students can respond by uploading a file that only I
will see. The response could be anything digital: an essay, a slide
presentation, a podcast, a poster. (If I am in a bind, I can upload an old
worksheet, have the kids do it digitally, and have them submit their
answers. That's a bad use of technology, but sometimes it happens. At least
it saves some paper.)

3. I post a question on a forum (bulletin board) and let students respond
both to my question and to their own ideas. This worked nicely as both pre-
and post-reading activities. 

4. This past year through a fluke of the schedule I had a class of only 10
students. Only one of them really liked to discuss, though; the others paid
careful attention and had thoughts but didn't necessarily speak in class.
When I took them into a chat room on Moodle, though, they opened up, and we
had some good discussions. 

Security is very tight in these chat rooms. All conversation is logged, and
the room exists only for the amount of time I determine. I can set it up so
that only those with a password may enter. It's not like a chat room on,
say, MySpace.

5. We can create a class wiki to demonstrate learning and to use as a
reference. Mind you, the one time I tried this at the end of a unit on
Anglo-Saxons, it was a disaster, but the fault was mine: I hadn't structured
the requirements carefully enough.

6. We can create a class glossary. I actually haven't done this yet, but
it's on my "to do" list for next year. 

There are more options, but these are the ones I used during the one
semester I had it. In the spring I had to miss some school due to a death in
the family, and I set up a forum with the assignment. Students who were
struggling could post questions, and I would post responses in the evening.
What I found, though, was that other students also posted responses, so it
created a help network. 

In my next career, I would sell Moodle -- but it's free. 

Carla Beard


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