Administrative Functions in Moodle
As graduate students in a completely online educational technology Masters program these past two years, our cohort has used Moodle, Blackboard, and a number of other learning spaces to augment our experiences as learners. However, this course was the first time most of us used Moodle from an administrative standpoint. We functioned merely as instructors of a course, not administrators of an entire system, so it is difficult to comment on much of the behind-the-scenes administrative functionality. I believe Moodle administrators assign roles, set start and end dates for classes, and control other permissions allowing or denying access as needed to both students and instructors. Administrators make the decisions that determine how all the other users of the Moodle will be able to use its many features.
Course Creation in Moodle
There are several formats allowed for course creation. Ours were initially set up with the weekly format, but we were able to customize this to focus on the segments we wanted our course to cover. This also means the course Moodle can be used again in the future with only minor modifications. Which format an instructor chooses to use will depend on the needs for the class and its participants.
Editing in Moodle
Editing in Moodle takes some getting used to. First, of course, one has to “turn on editing.” Each block within a course can be edited by clicking a small icon near the bottom of the box. It’s a hand holding a pencil or quill. It’s very small and can almost go unnoticed at first, especially given that many user interfaces put editing tools at the top or along the side. Also at the bottom of each block are two drop-down menus for adding resources or activities. This again requires some mental training, as there are many options in each menu, and an instructor must sometimes search these lists to find the function desired. A simple summary is that resources include links and files while activities include other segments of Moodle, such as quizzes, wikis, discussion forums, and other components the instructor chooses to add.
Pros and Cons of Moodle’s Functions
One thing we learned the hard way was that if you delete a file and replace it with a file bearing the same name, the OLD file will be available instead of the new one. So file names will likely need to have versions built in to them in order to make sure students receive the most recent PDF or other such file. Another tricky aspect of editing the Moodle is that what you see while editing is not exactly the same as what you will see when it is live. This is true in the course information as well as in components such as quiz questions. It takes a bit of trial-and-error to get accustomed to how you need to place things to get them to look the way you want them to. Finally, when using a Moodle wiki in your course, it is not at all intuitive how you get students or other users to add their own pages to the wiki. Unless LMS such as Moodle wish to be confined to higher education or maybe high schools, they need to become a lot more user-friendly to make them accessible to younger students and less tech-savvy educators.
Our Course Moodle
Our Moodle (700_12: Structures of Life) was designed to accompany in-class learning for California third graders, namely Karen McKelvey’s class for part of her science curriculum. It is a sort of pilot for blended learning. Prior to the segment covered by our Moodle, her class will have begun Investigation 3: Meet the Crayfish by learning about crayfish, with special attention paid to their bodily structures. This is part of the FOSSweb inquiry-based science curriculum used in Karen’s district (San Diego Unified) and in many others across the state. I found it interesting that in learning about animal adaptations for survival, these young students will also need to adapt their methods of learning to include online methods which, for many of them, will be completely new experiences. The process of adaptation by organisms over time is mirrored in our use of technological adaptations in the field of education. There are three activities covered by the Moodle; these take students through learning about adaptations in general, learning about specific adaptations in certain environments, and finally adaptations in both plants and animals worldwide.
Characteristics of Moodle We Found Beneficial
To carry out these activities, and to make the course both collaborative and independent (somewhat) of the classroom, we chose discussion boards and wiki pages for student interaction and assessment. There are both individual and group projects, and there is a quiz at the end to gauge overall comprehension by each student. Students take the knowledge they gain and create new products to showcase their learning. Almost all the content required for the course was delivered via the Moodle or through links from the Moodle. Two exceptions are the textbook (but links were provided to audio recordings of the textbook articles being read) and a video Karen only had in VHS format that we had no way of hosting on the site in the time we had to develop our Moodle. The video will be watched in class anyway, but having it on the site would have been our preference.
Once we got used to the interface and editor, we enjoyed the ability to insert images (highly engaging for younger learners) into both our quiz questions and the Moodle page itself. We felt the images we used help cue learners and direct their focus. We also liked the fact that we were able to easily set up discussion groups and wiki projects that would involve ALL students more readily than a traditional classroom setting would. While there will always be some students who never speak up during class time, requiring discussion forum and wiki participation gives each learner a true voice within the class.
Aspects of VDILS in Our Course
- Define the session goals. Objectives are listed in the syllabus and in the first block of the course Moodle. Students know the outcomes and how they will reach these outcomes before they get started.
- Explain the learning strategy. Students receive step-by-step instructions for each activity.
- Describe the learning activity. Each activity is described in detail. The directions tell students what they will be doing in each activity, such as creating a multimedia wiki page or listening to an audio recording of their textbook on the FOSSWeb site.
- Specify deliverables. Each learning activity results in some kind of deliverable. For example, students post to a discussion forum before and after watching a video about adaptations. There are two wiki projects (one done by each individual and one done in a group), that incorporate knowledge acquired during student exploration.
- Explain the use of media. Students are told they will watch a video in class. There is also an additional video available as a link for students to watch at their leisure.
- Explain how to present deliverables. The deliverables are explained in the course syllabus and students know that these deliverables (i.e. wiki and forum posts) exist as part of the Moodle since they are an integral part of the platform.
- Establish a personal communication protocol. The course syllabus explains how to communicate with the instructor.
My Contribution to the Total Effort
I initially began setting up the blocks within the Moodle and I created and linked to discussion boards, wiki activities, and other files and external links. I also began writing the quiz very early on, as I needed to learn how to do this on-the-go, as it were. I created a syllabus and design document and made these available for my partner, who was our subject matter expert. I located and inserted images where needed, sometimes creating screen shot images from the FOSSweb site’s resources. I wrote the entire quiz with great input from my partner. When we neared completion of our Moodle, I helped edit, revise, and test the site. I fixed broken and incorrect links and modified files (such as rubrics) to get them working on the site.
My Partner’s Contribution to the Total Effort
My partner for this project was Karen McKelvey. Over the course of our Masters program, we have worked together on almost every project, by choice, because we work well together and we both have very high standards for our work. Karen was our SME (subject matter expert) for this course because its content came directly from curriculum she covers with her third grade students. All the content came from her, so when I set up the Moodle initially, she went in and filled it all in, in well-written and beautifully presented style. She had access to lynda.com for Moodle tutorials, and with each new function she learned about, she modified the settings to the Moodle, completely setting up the grading and record-keeping sections, which I had not even found until she showed me where they were and how they worked. She located and uploaded PDF files, web links, and other resources. She created artwork and co-authored the syllabus and design document. She did almost all the rubric creation. She was so fast and expert with it, that my contribution to that ended up being mainly to proofread and revise with Karen in Google Docs while we spoke via Skype. Finally, Karen checked and re-checked our Moodle course with me before we considered it complete.
Evaluation of Our Course Using the Rubric
Since we had no access to students of the age of our intended Moodle audience (and they would have needed extensive training in using the Moodle just to evaluate it), we sought out colleagues from both our schools to evaluate our Moodle. My school has two third grade teachers, and both are teaching summer school, so I was able to meet with them easily. Karen’s school has four third grade teachers. One of them is Karen, and another was unavailable, so we used the two remaining teachers from her school. All of our evaluators were impressed with our course Moodle. Several of them expressed uncertainty in their own comfort level with using such a tool, but once we helped them overcome their fears and explained to them how each part would be used by students, they really saw the potential for more effective instruction and learning. They all liked the images and felt they made the site very attractive and appealing. They also liked the information provided by the course, noting that it was very complete. Once they saw how the links worked, they loved the links to FOSSweb resources. (My school does not use this curriculum, and my colleagues wanted to know more about it. Karen’s colleagues were impressed with how easily we linked to the online materials from FOSSweb, with which they were already somewhat familiar.) They commented on how thorough the syllabus was and how it guided students and parents through what was expected as well as directing students and their parents to resources and other information. The teachers expressed satisfaction with locating materials and following directions, though they would have preferred the video be embedded in the site to make it available for any students who may have missed the in-class viewing or who wanted to watch it again at home, even multiple times. Finally, our reviewers appreciated the variety of activities and their emphasis on communication and collaboration, as well as the involvement of multiple modalities in learning. Several expressed a desire to use more of these kinds of tools with their own students.
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