Evolving Education

Recently I attended the TUANZ conference where Miguel Guhlin was keynote speaker.  While I had been watching his blog for a while through subscription to his RSS feed, it wasn’t until he spoke and made it all seem real that I decided to get into the world of blogging.  So I started this site… and posted… once!  BUT to redeem myself I have started two other blog sites which I update a number of times a week and am just about to start my third.  Check out www.tonitwiss.com/newmediatech for my list of the coolest and latest Web2.0 developments – not even remotely educational!  That’s what this site is for…

So, when reading Miguel’s post a short while ago about Moodle I felt that really I should do something about replying – and kill two birds with one stone – and post to this poor neglected blog!

I developed my own moodle towards the end of last year, as the school intranet system was not up and running and I was too excited to wait!  So I secured the name myndrocket.com and some web hosting and Viola!  You can check it out at www.myndrocket.com/moodle/moodle but it’s all locked down (hopefully!) as I wanted to make sure I was keeping the kids safe as this was my own initiative if it all goes wrong it comes back to me – not the IT staff!

Miguel asked the following questions

What are your successes?

Too many to mention but here are the best:  In New Zealand we have standards based assessment – the students are both internally and externally assessed.  They can gain the following grades; not achieved, achieved, merit, excellence.  I trialled moodle with my Level 3 Media Studies class in the final term of last year – just before their external exam.  I taught the whole unit using Moodle and the results were phenomenal.  12 students (out of 37) gained Excellence in the standard they sat – compared with national figures of 10%.

 Do other teachers at your campus use Moodle?

No

How have you adapted your curriculum for teaching online?

Lessons are highly content based with more of the discussions happening on-line for homework.  We are getting into so much more depth within the lessons.  The students are able to consolidate the day’s learning at home particularly via discussion forums.  As a teacher it is an amazing feeling to see typically weaker students responding to a brighter students post by saying “Oh, I get it now… so what you are saying is this…”  Students have a lot more time to digest information without it being whipped away from them as soon as the teacher is finished with it.  Also, they are having in-depth discussions with students they wouldn’t normally talk to in class.  Moodle seems to bring down the walls between students.  Also, collaborative work can be posted onto the website – rather than making a poster to go on the wall it goes on Moodle and can be revisited time and time again.

What did you do first when starting with Moodle?

Uploaded all of the class notes.

How long did it take to train your students to use Moodle?

A lot less time than it took to train myself!  I navigated them through the site on my interactive board and then introduced elements day by day ie. the first day was just how to get a doc, then we did discussions, then assignments etc.

How do you monitor students in Moodle?

About twice a week I log in as administrator and check the logs.  I read all posts and messages between students.  I have shown them how I do this and they are aware that I am actively watching – but I have explained why; that this is new technology and if it goes wrong it is all on me to face the music.  It takes about 5 mins each time I check – so maybe 10 mins a week.

What are 5 strategies you would recommend to teachers using Moodle?

Start effective discussions.  I have found that the students (even seniors) really aren’t good at generating their own discussion topics.  So I will start a new Forum and then post a number of different topics that they can choose to discuss – they can still add their own – but usually they don’t.

Compress PDFs before you post them.

Watch out when you post links to URLs that shift eg. for us the news websites as they disappear after about 3 weeks and then you must pay a subscription to view archives.

If you say you will put work up – make sure you do.  If you don’t and they go looking for it and it’s not there they lose faith in it.

(Sorry only four)

Has on-task motivation increased?

Absolutely.  There is less down time in class – especially as kids can prepare by doing readings if they wish.  It is easier to set up classes so you teach at different levels as groups of students can work on projects set up on Moodle while you work with a small group.

How do you deal with technology access? Limited resources?

I teach at a very well resourced school.  I have 15 G5 Macs around my room and many students bring their own laptops (although they do not have internet access on their own machines).  All students have access to the internet at home – though not all have broadband connections.

Does it take more time to teach with Moodle or less?

Hmmm….  At first more… but then you change your style of teaching and stop doing things that you would have done without it.  For example – you still create worksheets but you might just put them on-line instead.  I upload as I go so during class if we go through a powerpoint or create notes using the interactive board I will up-load immediately after class or when there is a break from me teaching ie. when the kids are working on an activity.  It only takes seconds.  Once you get the knack of posting good discussion topics homework is a lot easier to set and assignments are very easy to mark using the assignment section

Have you had any pushback from parents, teachers, and/or administrators?

Nope – not yet.  The parents on the whole are really happy as they can see where their kids are up to.  Interestingly some students weren’t interested to begin with – so I just made everything available in print for the number that said they didn’t want to use it and gave them slightly different homework ie. instead of post to one discussion topic and respond to one other person’s post they might have to write a half page response to the topic (which I printed off for them).  Very quickly they all began to use it!

 And a question that I would ask… 

How do you work the hotpotatoes… I just can’t get that going…  I know it’s not very profound or anything but I do want to know!

So, thanks Miguel for turning me into a ‘blogging geek’.  It is now 11pm on a school night! and I am blogging.  Crazyness!