Moodle Project Paper-Kohler

Administrative Functions
Moodle offers a variety of helpful administrative tools. These options not only set up how the course will be delivered, such as weekly or daily, but it also has the capability to create summaries of the participants’ activities. It basically creates a grade book for me. This electronic grade book collects all of the data students have input on quizzes, lessons etc. Moodle also documents the last time a student has accessed the site. I can even organize groups of students for potential group projects. Of these functions the only ones that were applied to this project were under settings. We used the settings to determine the format, the name of the course and guest settings.

Course Creation Functionality
We chose the format to be weekly. We added a couple of pictures at the top to try and brighten up the page. Following the introduction, we added a link to the syllabus as a pdf and as a text window. The course is then organized with three learning modules. We provided a description of each learning module along with student expectations. Below the summary on each module we listed links to necessary resources and links to the online activities and/or quizzes the learner would be doing.

Editing Functionality
I thought the editing features were very easy to understand. I even learned how to adjust the size of the photos I used for the campfire safety lesson. Also, I liked that there were descriptions of each function. This made it helpful to choose the most appropriate activities for our objectives.

Pros and Cons
Luckily I have had experience with using Moodle as a student. Otherwise I think I would have really struggled with navigating through it. I think the design aspect is pretty limited. As for the pros, I like how this LMS allows a course to reach multiple learning styles. It promotes discussion. It allows for multimedia. It also has the capabilities to have live chat, a feature that I have not yet used. I also like that Moodle collects data from the users. It not only allows for a place for students to upload assignments, it also allows students to see what each other has done and even peer grade each other’s work.

Course Description
Our course was called Campfire Safety and was designed to be a set of training modules for new YMCA employees. We chose to focus on the following three areas: campfire safety, drinkable water safety and environmental safety. We incorporated a lesson with branch questions, a quiz, assignments and multiple prompts for forum posts. We created rubrics for each of our deliverables: a video of starting a campfire, a blog post describing the effects of a forest fire, a forum post on completing the water purification process, and an essay describing the learners experience in a MUVE simulating a camping environment.

High Quality Online Course Rubric
According to the results provided by our testers, we scored exemplary in every category with the exception of the following: the organization of the course, providing an opportunity for communication between the instructors and students, and having a variety of tools that facilitates communication and learning. One tester mentioned that the site was good overall but she would have liked to see more pictures in the site. Another tester said that he was unfamiliar with navigating through this kind of site and that it didn’t seem very user friendly. As for changes, we should have posted more of the syllabus information on the front page of the Moodle. My testers were confused on where to go to find the objectives and contact information. Also, I would like to have more instructions on how to navigate through the site. I would like to keep the content. I am happy with the topic and the resources we have provided for the learner.

VDILS
To start, we set up a pre-quiz on camping safety in order to measure prior knowledge of the learner. We also tried to be very clear as to what the expectations and goals were for the class and for the learners. We also used clear step-by-step instructions on how to complete the deliverables. We should have been more specific on deadlines to complete the forum posts and assignments. We also used resources that would be easily accessible on the web.