Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques

By Susan Smith Nash and William Rice

In Detail

Moodle is the world's most popular, free open-source Learning Management System (LMS). It is vast and has lots to offer. More and more colleges, universities, and training providers are using Moodle, which has helped revolutionize e-learning with its flexible, reusable platform and components. It works best when you feel confident that the tools you have at hand will allow you to create exactly what you need.

This book brings together step-by-step, easy-to-follow instructions and learning theory to give you new tools and new power with Moodle. It will show you how to connect with your online students, and how and where they develop an enthusiastic, open, and trusting relationship with their fellow students and with you, their instructor. With this book, you'll learn to get the best from Moodle.

This book helps you develop good, solid, dynamic courses that will last by making sure that your instructional design is robust, and that they are built around satisfying learning objectives and course outcomes. With this book, you'll have excellent support and step-by-step guidance for putting together courses that incorporate your choice of the many features that Moodle offers. You will also find the best way to create effective assessments, and how to create them for now and in the future. The book will also introduce you to many modules, which you can use to make your course unique and create an environment where your students will get maximum benefit. In addition, you will learn how you can save time and reuse your best ideas by taking advantage of Moodle's unique features.

Unite the power of Moodle and the truth about how people learn and start building unforgettable online courses

Approach

This book contains clear guidance for all who want to put together effective online courses that motivate students and encourage dynamic learning. There are clear, step-by-step instructions with helpful screenshots and diagrams to guide you along the way.

Who this book is for

If you want to unleash your teaching talents and develop exciting, dynamic courses that really get students moving forward, then this book is for you. Experienced Moodlers who want to upgrade to Moodle 1.9 will find powerful insights into developing more successful and educational courses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Release date: Jan 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781849510073

Susan Smith Nash

Susan Smith Nash has been involved in the design, development, and administration of online courses and programs since the early 1990s. Her current research interests include the use of learning objects, mobile learning, leadership in e-learning organizations, and energy and sustainability technology transfer. Her articles and columns have appeared in magazines and refereed journals. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1996, and in addition to e-learning, Nash has also been involved in international economic development training, interdisciplinary studies, international energy education (renewables and non-renewables), and sustainable business and career training. Her book, Leadership and the E-Learning Organization, was co-authored with George Henderson, and published by Charles Thomas and Sons. Her most recent books include Klub Dobrih Dejanj (Good Deeds Society/Sodobnost: Ljubljana,Slovenia) and E-Learner Survival Guide (Texture Press: NY). Her edublog, E-Learning Queen (www.elearningqueen.com) has received numerous awards and recognitions.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewer

Preface

What makes this book different than a typical software tutorial

How Moodle can help me in ubiquitous learning

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who is this book for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Developing an Effective Online Course

The Moodle advantage

What will we accomplish with this book

Some Moodle requisites

Standard modules

Instructional principles and activities

How does learning take place in an online course?

How people learn

Categories, classifications, schemata

Social learning

Emulatory learning

Communities of practice

Social practice

Experiential learning

Conditions of learning

Behaviorism

Course-building components in Moodle

Resources

Book

Link to a file or website

Activities

Assignment

Choice

Database

Forum

Glossary

Quizzes

Journal

Lessons

Wiki

Course Timetable

Instructional principles and activities mapped to Moodle features

Summary

2. Instructional Material

Selecting and organizing the material

Using forums to present your material

Creating a separate group for each student

Enrolling students

Creating a group for each student

Guiding and motivating students

Creating the learning environment

Asking permission and setting a policy

Type of forum

Single simple discussion forum

Standard forum

Keeping discussions on track

Use a custom scale to rate relevance

Split discussions

Will splitting change the meaning

Will splitting move replies you want to keep in place

Monitoring student participation in a forum

Who has posted to a forum

What postings has a student made

Summary

3. Collaborative Activities

Interaction involves collaboration

Uses of chat

Test preparation and online study groups

Creating study groups

Groups carried over to other activities

Key settings for study groups in chat

Assigning review topics

Kinds of questions

Reviewing papers and other assignments

Creating a one-on-one chat

Workaround 1: Using groups

Workaround 2: Hiding the chat

Guest speakers

Including chats from previous classes

Copying a transcript

Foreign language practice

Preparation for foreign language chat

Compiling and reviewing chat transcripts

Copying chat transcripts

Assigning a chat transcript as an editing exercise

Tips for a successful chat

Basic chat etiquette

Prepare for a definite starting and ending time

Limit the number of participants

Prepare a greeting for latecomers

Focus

Insert HTML

Summary

4. Assessment

Keys to successful assessment

Taking the fear out of assessment

Assessment with quizzes and distributed practice

Advantages and limitations of distributed practice

Opening and closing quizzes at predetermined times

Indicating that a quiz is closed

Use quizzes for frequent self-assessment

Exclude self-assessment quizzes from the Gradebook

Making a quiz—a learning tool

Questions must be specific

Adding feedback to quiz questions

Feedback for a multiple choice question

Feedback for a numeric question

Reinforce expertise with timed quizzes

Host a proctored, timed test from a secure location

Different kinds of network addresses

Full IP addresses

Partial IP addresses and private networks

How to determine a computer's IP address

On Microsoft Windows

On a Macintosh

OS X 10.3 or 10.4

OS X 10.2

OS X 10.1 and earlier

Mac OS 9

On a Linux computer

Summary

5. Lesson Solutions

Selecting and sequencing content for lessons

Create conditions for learning

Employ scaffolding

Use chunking to help build concepts

Get students involved early

Keep it lively

Keep focused

Use media strategically

Diagnostic and developmental/remedial content

Reward practice

Build confidence for final graded performance

Getting started: A simple example

Moodling through a course

Need for sequential activities

Activity locking versus sequential lessons

Lesson settings

General settings

Grade options

Flow control

Lesson formatting

Access control

Other lesson settings

Controlling the flow through a lesson

Use a lesson to create a deck of flash cards

Keep it moving

Lesson settings that help create a flash card experience

Use an ungraded lesson to step through instructions

A workaround

Summary

6. Wiki Solutions

Use a wiki to achieve learning objectives

Why a wiki

Wiki versus forum

Wiki versus journal

Wiki versus blog

An assignment

Let's agree to disagree

Individual student wikis

Creating individual wikis

Active reading strategies with individual student wikis

Creating a text file for the wiki's starting page

Creating multiple starting pages

Multiple text files create multiple starting pages

Creating links to other starting pages

Upload text files to wiki

Creating an individual student wiki in your course

Creating text files in wiki

Test the wiki as a student

Leveraging guided notes created by students

Suggested wiki etiquette

Summary

7. Glossary Solutions

Helping students learn: Schema building

Moodle's glossary functions

Automatic linking to a glossary

Course versus site glossary

Main versus secondary glossary

Managing students' contributions to a glossary

Ratings and comments

Adding memory aids to glossary entries

Student-created class directory

Student-created test questions

Summary

8. The Choice Activity

Moodle's choice activity

A look at the choice activity

Students' point of view

Teachers' point of view

Number of choices

Limit

Time limit

Publish results

Privacy

Allow students to change their minds

Student poll

Learning styles

Self-regulation

Choosing teams

Students' consent

Students' performance

Preview the final

Summary

9. Course Solutions

Building the course design document

Overcoming course anxiety

Important announcements

Moving blocks to the main course area

The goal

Comparing the two links

A caveat

The method

Using this workaround with other blocks

Section Links

Activities

The syllabus

Printer-friendly for letter and A4 sizes

Online calendar with event reminders

Summary

10. Workshop Solution

Workshop overview and use

Workshop basics

Listing your learning objectives

Planning your strategy

Grading peer assessment

Step-by-step example: Creating the workshop

What work do you want the student to submit

Assessing student peer assessment

Student grade: Peer assessment and student work

What are the criteria for assessing the work

What submissions will the student assess

If classmates assess each others' work, will they do it anonymously

Classmate agreement on grades

What is the schedule for submitting the work and assessments

Summary

11. Portfolio/Gallery Solution

Project-based assessment

Best uses of project-based assessment

Learning objectives and projects

Collaboration and cooperation

Examples of portfolios and galleries

Student presentations

Student image galleries

Student creative writing projects

Student research projects

Encouraging creativity: A sample assignment

The creative writing e-portfolio: My Hometown

Instructions to students

Procedures for collaboration

Our hometowns: A collective conversation

Supportive environments and intellectual risk taking

Tips for a successful experience

Summary

Index

Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques

William Rice

Susan Smith Nash

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Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques

Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: January 2010

Production Reference: 1130110

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road

Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-849510-06-6

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Parag Kadam (<[e-mail]>)

Credits

Authors

William Rice

Susan Smith Nash

Reviewer

Kent Villard

Acquisition Editor

David Barnes

Development Editor

Dhiraj Chandiramani

Technical Editors

Gaurav Datar

Alfred John

Indexer

Rekha Nair

Production Editorial Manager

Abhijeet Deobhakta

Editorial Team Leader

Gagandeep Singh

Project Team Leader

Priya Mukherji

Project Coordinator

Ashwin Shetty

Proofreader

Lynda Sliwoski

Production Coordinators

Shantanu Zagade

Aparna Bhagat

Cover Work

Shantanu Zagade

About the Authors

William Rice is a software training professional who lives, works, and plays in New York city. He is the author of books on Moodle, Magento, and software training. His indoor hobbies include writing books and spending way too much time reading Slashdot (www.slashdot.org). His outdoor hobbies include orienteering, rock climbing, and practicing archery within site of JFK Airport. William is fascinated by the relationship between technology and society—how we create our tools, and how our tools in turn shape us. He is married to an incredible woman who encourages his writing pursuits, and has two amazing sons.

Susan Smith Nash has been involved in the design, development, and administration of online courses and programs since the early 1990s. Her current research interests include the use of learning objects, mobile learning, leadership in e-learning organizations, and energy and sustainability technology transfer. Her articles and columns have appeared in magazines and refereed journals. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1996, and in addition to e-learning, Nash has also been involved in international economic development training, interdisciplinary studies, international energy education (renewables and non-renewables), and sustainable business and career training. Her book, Leadership and the E-Learning Organization, was co-authored with George Henderson, and published by Charles Thomas and Sons. Her most recent books include Klub Dobrih Dejanj (Good Deeds Society/Sodobnost: Ljubljana,Slovenia) and E-Learner Survival Guide (Texture Press: NY). Her edublog, E-Learning Queen (www.elearningqueen.com) has received numerous awards and recognitions.

I'd like to thank my son, Michael Nash, for his invaluable assistance, and my parents, Earl and Mona Smith, who have been guiding lights. Finally, I'd like to thank Turhan Baykan, for his vision and commitment to open courseware.

About the Reviewer

Kent Villard is the E-Learning Coordinator for the University of Prince Edward Island and has been administrating Moodle for four years. Kent particularly enjoys the process of converting traditional curriculum to work in an online form.

When he's not administering Moodle or evangelizing the Mac platform, Kent likes to spend quality time with his wife Denise and children, Maxwell and Samantha.

Kent lives in Cornwall, Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at <[e-mail]>.

Preface

Congratulations on your decision to use Moodle as your course management system! If you're new to Moodle, you'll be delighted with its ease of use and the flexibility. You'll also appreciate how easily you can reuse your course content and the instructional materials.

After you've used this book to help create and launch your first course, you'll see just how motivated students are when they take a well-designed course in Moodle. They'll be excited because they'll feel connected to each other as they share their own perspectives and ideas from the text.

You'll inspire confidence with your approach to e-learning because it will be easy for students to navigate the course and to take charge of their own educational progress. Your course design will help them develop an I can do it! attitude, and they'll feel self confident after going through different ways to learn the material, practice, share, interact, review, and demonstrate their competence. A well-designed course in Moodle creates solid learners, and it also gives you a great advantage as an online instructor.

What makes this book different than a typical software tutorial

If you follow the procedures in this book, you'll be getting the best of many worlds. First, you'll have the chance to have clear, step-by-step guidance as you start working with Moodle. You'll be able to work with screenshots rather than trying to sift through text instructions.

Second, you'll have clear guidance on how to use the different activities and resources in Moodle, and how to modify them to meet your specific needs. You'll love how Moodle accommodates all kinds of learning needs and settings. You'll also like the open architecture that allows you to reuse content and to modify it easily. This feature alone is an incredible timesaver, and this book helps you build your own reusable course templates and also helps create your own repository of instructional materials.

Finally, and in my opinion, most importantly, you'll receive guidance about how to create highly effective courses that help you create a truly dynamic and exciting learning environment. Your students will learn in a collaborative way, and you'll have the flexibility to meet the needs of students with diverse learning styles and preferences.

How Moodle can help me in ubiquitous learning

Ubiquitous learning comprises of e-learning, mobile learning, and hybrid delivery. So, can Moodle help one work with the growing need for ubiquitous learning? Moodle is a true open source solution. It has been around since a long time, as learning management systems go. It has never become obsolete, as opposed to other learning management systems.

Why has Moodle stayed relevant? The answer has to do with its flexible architecture that allows you to use an object-oriented approach, with instructional content that you break down into manageable, reusable instructional chunks, or learning objects.

Moodle also moves with the times. You can easily embed HTML code that allows you to pull in feeds and other dynamic content. Much like a blog, you can use Web 2.0 applications and integrate them. For example, you can let students embed HTML code that integrates an image repository such as Flickr (http://www.flickr.com), and they can update their portfolio whenever they upload their images to Flickr.

This is not to say that you're limited to juggling mash-ups and thinking of ways to integrate Web 2.0 applications. Moodle is much more powerful than that. The key is to think of how and where your students will learn, and then to think of the ways they currently use their laptops, smart phones, and handheld devices. That knowledge will guide you as you develop real-life applications.

For example, you can encourage interactivity and ubiquitous learning by structuring your course so that students can post from their handhelds (smartphones, cellphones, handheld devices, and so on). In this way, they can perform field work and share it at the same time. There are other applications, as well. For example, for a journalism course, they can conduct interviews, which they could post to say YouTube, and which can be made accessible in the Moodle course you've designed for them.

I don't want get into too many details about how to develop courses in the preface. I just want to inspire you to dig into this book and to explore it. Let yourself be creative and don't stop your flow of ideas just because you think something can't be done. Chances are that you can do it with Moodle.

I've been developing and administering online courses and programs since the mid-1990s, and I have to say that the reason that I've never lost my enthusiasm for e-learning, and why I'm continually refreshed and reinvigorated is because of the constant emergence of new technologies and software. I love the way that new tools allow me to experiment and develop new, enhanced courses.

Moodle is the perfect platform for experimenting with new and emerging technologies, applications, and tools. You can create the kind of learning environment that suits your needs, and you can expand it to make it an enterprise-wide solution that can power an entire college, business, or school.

Before we move on to the next section of this book, I would like to point out that this edition builds on an earlier version, which was written by William Rice. It has been a pleasure to have the chance to expand his text, and to provide a foundation of learning theory, instructional design essentials, and solid, road-tested instructional activities and strategies.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Developing an