Techlearning blog

Really, what is a moodle and why are people talking about this ? The word Moodle is actually an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, although originally the M stood for "Martin", named after Martin Dougiamas, the original developer. [6]

Moodle is designed to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction. Its open source license and modular design means that many people can develop additional functionality, and development is undertaken by a globally diffuse network of commercial and non-commercial users, spearheaded by the Moodle company based in Perth, Western Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle

Here is a brief description about Moodle and why I think so many of my teachers will be using this. It is not because of the technology but rather because of the control a teacher or student will have for creating the content used in a particular course.

Last school year we implemented an online way for teachers to add their syllabus or class expectations to a webpage. While it was a great tool, only some of our staff ended up using it as intended. Then the year got busy and some people did not add to that page. There has to be value in what we are asking teachers to do, there has to be a way of making the process easier for teachers and a way to eventually save time for those same teachers. We have always heard that by using technology things will be faster, but so far teachers have not seen that pay off. While you can use Google to search out the term Moodle with these statistics “ Results 1 - 10 of about 8,960,000 for Moodle. (0.12 seconds) ” most teachers have not been able to realize that kind of time savings in their personal lives. Although wouldn't it be great to search my pantry for that can of olives in .12 seconds?

Speaking of time, for example, I am taking a Moodle course for 5 weeks, 3 hours each week, in addition there is the time spent reading and practicing using the Moodle. So, I know, right now, I am not saving any time. However, I see the implications of placing my content on my moodle and having access to it whenever I want from where ever I want. I don't have to be at school to access my folder, I don't have to be at my computer to access my folder, I can be anywhere on any computer and have 100% access to my folder and my materials. This is a time saver for me to have that access I need without any travel involved.

So, a Moodle, is a content organization and management system design for educators to use as an instructional place holder, instructional resources holder, a place to publish teacher and student work all in an online environment. Therefore, I can place my staff development materials at my Moodle space and have access to them at any time. I can also make use of the materials I place there for different groups. Since I have my materials in one place I can differentiate my materials for different learners and present them in different modes. Now I can see myself saving time by editing materials in my folder rather than creating new materials for different groups. (Each time you read that I can have my materials in one place substitute your own materials for those references. Have I hooked you yet?) This week while practicing and testing out the Moodle options I was able to create a worksheet, create and post a podcast, post an image, make a glossary, create quizzes with true-false, multiple choice and short response questions. Now, if I were teaching the same workshop more than one time, *** this is the bonus*** , or if I wanted teachers (my students) to have access to the materials we used during class time, by virtue of placing my materials in the Moodle, teachers (my students) will have access to the materials, videos and directions all the time, and I will have access to modify materials whenever I need to do this. Now there is a potential time saver. For me modifying is much faster, read a time saver, than creating new material.

For many of you some of this conversation may seem very technical, guess what, 4 weeks ago, it was technical for me too. That is the beauty and bane of technology, I never get comfortable enough to really KNOW something. The target is always changing, the landscape moves constantly, when I finally figure something out, there is something new to learn. No need to write directions and take too many screenshots of how to do things, because by the time you get the directions written and the screenshots to match the directions there will be a software upgrade, or some differences show up between platform choices of Mac OS X, Linux, XP or Vista. You see what I mean, I always feel like a beginner! But, because of the tenuousness of all this technology I am also confident that I will find someone in my huge virtual circle of friends who can help me. Keep that in mind, there are many of your virtual friends who will come to your rescue too.

In August of 2005, Jeffrey Branzburg published an article , How to Use the Moodle Course Management system, this is a great description with reasons why teachers may want to use a Moodle.

Here is an Introduction to Moodle, in a moodle, Humboldt State University in CA, has a very comprehensive website complete with directions and videos about Moodle. I checked out the Faculty Manual and found lots of good , easy to understand information. The FAQ section at Homboldt is incredible. If you just by pass the fact that all the answers contain Homboldt, then I think you will be able to make the answers fit your Moodle situation. Here is a Moodle about using Web 2.0 tools.

You can join a forum where lots of people like you and I are learning to use Moodle. It looks like a question is posted and answered in fairly quick fashion. Join a forum, register with Moodle and you will find your support system.

You may go back to school in the next school year with a whole new way of doing business and I bet after the first term or semester of using a Moodle you will see the time savings. Come back and see me in a few months, my Moodle will be in the beginning stages with lots of messy learning going on with lots of great results!

By the way, I'll take my Moodle with soy sauce and wasabi! Hold the pesto!