Moodle, … “Why do I have to … ?”
Author: Shawn
In the last few months, I have gotten a lot of “Why do I have to ( … )?” questions. So would like to summarize a few ideas here to clarify what I think is important because I.T. in all its forms in education is still facing an underlying reticence to adoption.
This also relates to a posting Bill made about what CALL is, and in moments of frustration I want to use the word “luddite” but have to stop myself knowing that is counterproductive and just amounts to name calling. So here is an attempt to reach out. My original reply to that is here.
For me, all these questions have the same ring as “Why do I have to go to school?” So let’s begin there. Why do we send kids to school?
It is a safe supervised social environment. We do not just send kids out to the playground everyday and hope they will learn something by just being out in the world. We know they need some kind of supervision that provides structure to their learning and prevents or protects them from harm. Most also agree that being out in the world, in a social context is important for learning. So there is the “social”, “supervised” and “safe”.
So as a model, let me answer “Why do we have to use Moodle?” from a student or “Why should I use Moodle” from teachers and even the “Do I have to be on Facebook?” from others.
The answer is simple. No. You don’t have to.
There is the rub. It can all be done old school without I.T. but unfortunately the world does not stand still and teachers have to keep up. So there I said it, the dreaded “have to”. But let me qualify that I am saying it for the teacher. I certainly want the teacher of my kids to keep up with what is happening in the world and be able to guide and “supervise”, that is the definition of the job isn’t it?
I prefer to rephrase the question into “Why would I want to (…)?
When trying to explain what Moodle is or what a CMS or LMS is, I like to use Facebook as an example because it has become familiar to so many, even those who do not want to use it. Facebook provides a platform for people to interact socially, share thoughts and post photos, etc. You see what amounts to a massive group blog (that is a “forum” in Moodle). Or you click on a tab to see photos, or videos, or other content. Those pages work the same as other content management systems (CMS), or learning management systems (LMS). Okay, I will stop with the tech jargon and get back on topic because that is exactly the moment people say “Why do I have to?”.
What Facebook lacks as an educational environment is what the playground lacks. The “supervised” and “safe” elements to go along with the “social”. Facebook is not bad, I am not demonizing it anymore than I would demonize the community playground. And if you think you can keep your kids safe by keeping them home away from the playground you are deluded. The playground is now coming into your home, on the PC. It does not have to be Facebook, it can be Mixi or some other online environment. The point is that these online social environments are here to stay. It is the adults, the teachers and parents who “have to” provide guidance.
So back to why you may “want to” use Moodle. An LMS like Moodle is an online environment that is supervised by an instructor, students interact in the same manner as on any social website and so have a measure of safety that is not there on the Facebook playground. The teacher can delete inappropriate comments … you cannot do that on Facebook. So that is why I do not use Facebook in the classroom. Moodle alows me to moderate and be the teacher.
Students of all ages are facing an online social world. But many of them are out there on “the playground”, never having “been to school” and having learned how to interact with respect. So that is why I want to use a tool like Moodle. So I leave the last question to you the reader.
Why might you want to … ?
English Central Review
Author: Bill
I had attended the JALT CALL conference at the beginning of June and was introduced to English Central by Dr. Charles Browne. I admit at first I was skeptical about using this with my students. Often the students complain of boring material or hard to use interface, sometimes even both. The students found the interface quite intuitive and were actively engaged with the videos.
English Central is a website / webapp. Think of youtube with interactive features added. They take videos, trailers, commercials, etc and transcribe them as well as translate them.
Some of the features are:
Students receive multiple forms of input via images, audio and transcriptions.
After listening and reading they repeat the phrases and receive a score.
They can also review and compare their spoken language against the video.If they have trouble with a particular word, they can click on the word to see how it is broken down in syllables.
The students can choose to see the translations or transcriptions or not. They can choose to take a quiz at the end or not.
The teacher has some tools at his/her disposal as well. They are Students, Groups, Goals and Channels.
Students: Allows you to invite students to your Video Channel or delete students as needed.
Groups: Allows you to make groups (classes), add/delete students to these groups.
Goals: Allows you to set goals for each group or for everyone. You set the number of videos to be watched as well as the difficulty.
Video Channel: This allows you to select videos and make your own channel based on your own criteria, subject matter, or difficulty.
I had only used this for the last half of the first semester, but will use it for the second semester to give it a more thorough testing. I see that it should be out of Beta soon, so it will be interesting to see what features are added. During the Beta testing everything is free but after the Beta test they will offer a paid version as well.
Video Downloading Combination
Author: Shawn
An aggragator website, a browser, and a couple addons.
1. Your Firefox browser
2. Adblock Plus
4. An NDN site like The Houston Chronical (link below)
This combination gets those video clips for your class Moodle. Firefox with Video Download Helper gives you the ability to save those items, and Adblock Plus prevents those advert videos from loading every time you choose another story to watch. You save time searching for recent content published by various sites. Currently I am using THIS SITE which has a good selection of videos, including a Technology category.
It is the intent of this blogger to help teachers use content in a manner consistent with fair use guidelines in an educational environment. I recommend content be provided in a password protected classroom site and not distributed on the Internet.
A Free Moodle Setup How to
Author: Bill
This is a quick write up the workshop I gave on June 27 @ Osaka Tech Day Plus. 
I have made some screen captures, link below, to show how to set up a Moodle course for free. This is through a website (www.gnomio.com), which allows you to set up a complete Moodle system for you to use, though there are some limitations. Please read the EULA when signing up. This is done with Shawn’s idea of a minimalist Moodle in mind.
So close and yet so far… MS and more limits.
Author: Shawn
When Microsoft announced that Office 2010 online would come with 25 GB of free space, I drooled. But gosh darn it that one little feature I use all the time is just not there! Comments on my grade sheet. I’ve just gotta have the comments to record anomalous events related to grading. Now come on Microsoft, Google Docs preserves the comments. And Office 2010 is a flagship product. Wasn’t this supposed to be the online answer to Google Docs?
Well I guess for now I will have to stick with Google Docs or my DropBox. Too bad. Another example of MS putting a limit on something they provide that ends up being a game killer for me. See Here for the last one on Hotmail.
Click on image for full size view.
A Nano, a Moodle, Groups of 3, a widescreen monitor
Author: Shawn
This is an update to the Generic User approach presented at JALT CALL 2010. I hate to use a cliche but a picture is worth…
Here is how I save time evaluating student presentations. A wide screen monitor helps. Each of them has done a self evaluation using the Generic Login account. They post their name as the “discussion topic”. The other students are then assigned to comment on one of the groups – they are anonymous because they are all logged in as Generic User.
Then I can come in and comment, 3 at a time. The video popup is on the left and I open each of the Feedback links in a new window on the right to allow me to switch between them as I watch their video. Video was taken on my iPod Nano and converted to an FLV file for loading into the Moodle with FormatFactory.
Click on Image to see how it works…