Characteristics of Moodle that you found most beneficial in creating your course
Moodle has several administrative functions that were quite useful in developing our course. First of all, it allowed us to enroll students into our class manually, but also allows self-enrollment, which would release some of the burden on an instructor. Second, all of the resources that we needed for our course could be placed in one area, making it easier for us and the students to access needed information. Students can look up assignments, check their grades, take quizzes, and participate in forums without having to go to several different websites. This also allows for a great deal of flexibility, since students don’t have to do everything in class, at a particular time.
Moodle allowed us to create our course in a few different formats, such as by topic, by week, or in a social format, as well as LAMS and SCORM. Our group chose to use the “topics” format for our course, although we could have used the “week” format as well. We did not set up any groups in the actual course we created, but if the course had actual students, we likely would have set them up in groups in order to allow them to focus their collaboration. Other than being able to have all course resources in one place, my favorite things about Moodle are the grade book and quizzes. The grade book keeps the instructor from having to manually enter grades. That, coupled with the online quiz function, is a real time-saver for teachers, since you can set the quizzes to be automatically graded.
Editing in Moodle
For the most part, I found editing in Moodle fairly easy and self-explanatory. However, one thing that I did not like was that if I wanted to change the font anywhere in a course description or lesson summary, it had to be done one paragraph at a time. Also, I was not able to change the title of the lessons in the sidebar; I had to stick with whatever the default was for that particular course format.
Brief Description of Our Course
Our course is titled California History: The Missions, and was designed to be used by 4th grade students. We decided to use social studies as our subject matter because it lends itself well to discussion and project-based learning at this grade level. Students are invited to tour some of the missions using Google Earth, and write about one of those missions. They are also able to take part in a discussion as though they actually lived during that time period, and to create an informative PowerPoint presentation about a mission. All of the activities are based around California State Standards for social studies and language arts.
Feedback you received from your participants - aspects of the course that participants liked and any aspects of the course that you would change
Since I had no access to any 4th grade students to test out the site, I had my daughter, an 11th grader, and my nephew, an 8th grader, test the site. Both of the participants liked having links and resources right on the main page, and they found it easy to navigate. One of my participants thought it would be better if the video were embedded within the site, rather than having to click on a link and insert a code. One other comment was that it would be nice to have examples of the different deliverables on the site, in order to give a reference point for students. Interestingly, my older participant felt that the site might be too difficult for 4th graders, while the younger one thought it would be easy for 4th graders to navigate the site and complete the assignments. When asked if they would enjoy taking a class using this type of format, both participants responded that they would like it, and one said that it would be “nice having to do more work online and prepare for real-world expectations.”
In light of the comments of my participants, I have to agree with embedding the video into the site. When my participants tried to play the video on the Discovery Learning website, it didn’t work for them, although it had worked when we initially tested it. Other than that, I was fairly pleased with the course and the site, as I think it would be a benefit to students in learning to use an online format, as well as promoting some independence in learning.
Any aspects of VDILS you used within your course
We incorporated the following VDILS elements into our course design.
1. We described the goals for each session. Each day had a different objective, along with corresponding activities. This made it clear to our learners what they would be learning through the course of the lesson.
2. Explain the learning strategy. For each lesson, learners were informed of the step-by-step methods they would be using in order to accomplish the objectives. These included:
a. Describing the learning activity, which included some reading, writing, posting to forums, and web-based activities.
b. Specifying the deliverables. Students were told exactly what was expected of their assignments.
c. Explain how to present deliverables. Students were given rubrics to guide their assignments, and when complete, they had instructions as to how to turn in those assignments.
State in detail the contribution you made to the total effort in completing the project
My contribution to this project involved most of the administrative tasks. I set up the Moodle site, including adding graphics, adjusting the settings to our needs, choosing the layout, and putting resources onto our site. I took our course information and created a syllabus for our course. I also was responsible for doing the final editing to make sure everything was spelled correctly, and that all of our resource links were working. When we were working on laying the foundation for our course, I was responsible for creating the collaborative interactions, the deliverables, and the assessments and rubrics.
State in detail the contribution that other group member(s) made to the total effort in completing the project
Deborah and Mario created the actual lessons that we provided for our course. They created the quiz, both the questions and the actual quiz on the Moodle site. They also put some resources on the website, such a link to the video, the webquest site for “The Next Mission,” and the Mission PowerPoint template. Mario and Deborah also acted as the subject matter experts on this project, as both of them have taught 4th grade for several years, and have a great deal of experience with the curriculum.
Course Success
All in all, I am pleased with the way our course turned out, especially in light of the feedback that we have received. I think that creating courses on Moodle, even for elementary students, would be beneficial in creating more individualized instruction for all students. The course we set up was created for the whole class to participate in, but I see so many ways that a learning path could be created that would work with students at their optimal level.
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