moodlemoodle – a pedagogical tool, or post and run? dra. allyson roberts fcsh, 2008
TRANSCRIPT
MOODLE – A pedagogical tool, or post and run?
Dra. Allyson Roberts FCSH, 2008
Moodle in practice in Higher Education
• How can learning needs be supported by Moodle?
• How can learning tasks be designed to deepen learning - to avoid “post and run”?
• Some examples of practice
What is Moodle? - (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment)
• a place for creating learning opportunities
• enabling learning through doing• in a virtual environment.
The design of Moodle is based on
socio constructivist theory;
an inquiry-based and discovery-based approach to learning.
What do learners need?
• a sense of community
• dialogue with others through meaningful co-operation
• active learning – with meaningful, relevant examples and problems
• flexibility of pathways – individual and group
• choices of activities to tap into their strengths and needs
• to do things at their own level and in own time
• clear objectives and assessment
• feedback
• to reflect on processes and product of learning
(adapted from Palloff and Pratt, 2003)
What can Moodle offer the learner?
Different tools to support learning through:
• Socialisation• Individualised learning• Collaborative channels• Discipline related terminology• Opportunity for
collaborative/knowledge building tasks
• Reflective processes• Feedback, grading, comment
Socialising: promoting a sense of community of learners
Care and share
Get dialogue going and growing
Establish good practice of engagement
Individualised learning/varied approach
SCAFFOLDED TASKS DESIGN• Learning at own pace• Learning at own level• Getting personalised feedback• Repeating learning tasks• Approach learning task from different
orientations• Reflecting on product and process
Engagement with:
Co-learners
Profession/Situated learning
self
Tasks
Teacher/tutor
Learning resources
Engagement
• Constructivist approaches to learning advocate allowing learners not only to interact directly with information to be learned, but also to add their own information and construct their own relationships. (Chun & Plass 2000).
How can Moodle support this flexibility?
Engagement through Moodle tools
• Chat• Forum• Group spaces• Group writing tasks – wiki
THROUGH COLLABORATIVE – CO-OPERATIVE TASKS
• Planning• Sharing ideas and opinions• Making sense of learning
input• Small group setups 5/6• Collaborative text
productions
Chat session towards action research
Forum: to promote writing - 9 year-olds
Halloween rap
IATEF (SIGs)
Special Interest Groups
DISCUSSION FORUMS
(HOSTED IN Moodle)
Forum: Teacher Training and Education, IATEFL Exeter online
What do learners need?
• a sense of community
• dialogue with others through meaningful co-operation
• active learning – with meaningful, relevant examples and problems
• flexibility of pathways – individual and group
• choices of activities to tap into their strengths and needs
• to do things at their own level and in own time
• clear objectives and assessment
• feedback
• to reflect on processes and product of learning
(adapted from Palloff and Pratt, 2003)
Moodle supportThings Moodle!
1. Free Moodle download, supported by the Moodle community and hundreds of forums and examples of Moodle in practice.
http://moodle.org/2. A site for language teachers who want to play around using Moodle to get an idea of
how it works.http://moodleflair.com/moodle/index.php3. Introductory and Advanced courses in how to use Moodle, online with the E-
Consultants.http://www.theconsultants-e.com/courses/moodle/index.asp 4. Cole, J and Foster, H (2007) Using Moodle - Teaching with the Popular Open Source
Management System, O’Reilly Community Press.
Thank you to those on the Masters courses and to colleague Dr.David Hardisty, who inspires learning.