Moodlemoot.au 2012 Day 1

It is my very good fortune to be attending the Australian Moodlemoot on the sunny gold coast. There is some wonderful news about the pending release of moodle 2.3. Features such as Drag and Drop single or multiple files either into the file chooser or even directly onto the course page. If you drag a folder over the course page, it creates a folder with all the files included automatically. I have recorded some quick notes from each session I attended today and pasted them below. They have been completed on the fly, so forgive the editing.

Moodle Moot AU 2012 Day 1

Riding the Wave

Welcome

Professor Belinda Tynan, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning, Teaching and Quality), University of Southern Queensland

Wide range of delegates, tertiary/business/schools, rapidly growing community, 500 delegates – 10% from Overseas

Keynote - Moodle as a platform for innovation
Martin will discuss recent and future developments in Moodle and talk about the forces that are driving Moodle development.
Martin Dougiamas, Moodle Founder & Lead Developer

Goal – to promote social constructiveness and collaborative communities

 Moodle as a platform-

Open source course management system

Focus on

Plugins

               Like apps for Moodle OS. Easy to install on moodle site without hacks that make upgrades difficult. Plugins database will be checked thoroughly, and then reviewed. Moodle 2.3 gives automatic notifications of plugin updates.

Processes

Usability

Integrations

               Repositories –

               LTI – plugins sitting on other sites that operate within moodle

               Open badges – digitally signed on course completion

Moodle 2.3

               Sections initially display tile only, then display down levels when clicked

               Activity chooser, single menu. Fuller help descriptions for each activity,

               File picker smoother, drop box connection, google docs, flicker, (plugin add audio). Makes it work well with an Ipad.  Add a file drag and drop capable from a desk top. Can actually drop right into the course. If you drag a zip file can open up up as  folder or scorm activity. Images have thumbnails,. Drag an URL to the course. Click on resource name to edit it on course page.

               Repositories – alias link to drop box file. When you update the dropbox file it is updated automatically in moodle. Also aliases to files in moodle, that can be used in several courses, so one copy of file to update if changes mades across all courses.

               Assignment module – only one type of assignment, and then select the options. Old assignment module still there but disabled, existing assignments upgraded to new moodle. Marking guides, like a rubric, and reusable . Student files can be edited and dragged back.

               Book module added to core.

My Moodle iphone app no longer supported

Mobile moodle. Web Services API secure access to the moodle courses.

Moodle mobile   html5+phonegaps = all platforms, uses REST web service. Open source, modular, extensible.

Standard moodle works well in tablets.

Two New Moodle 2 Plugins: The Participation Forum & Participation Map

Asyncronist – depth comes from time to reflect and especially for esl, time to compose.

Social constructiveness,

Students build on each others contribution. Students bring their own experiences to a common educational goal.

Quantitive

Number of posts

Replies

Gropu total posts/# topics

Qualativly participation map

Looking to get more contributions to students discussion – lot more replies

Map allows you to quickly see the participation

Automate the rating based on participation. Keeps incentive , no subjective judgements

Builds foundation of engagement, over 90% participation.

Teacher’s role is to create the educational value

               Setting up engaging discussion questions

               Moderating discussion

               Maintain a visible presence

               Teacher can concentrate on quality rather than the assessment

Student motivation to get up to 90% participation

               Constructive alignment between formative activites and summative activities

               Situative  - social obligation to support group

Quantitative

Assignment 2.3 - Introducing the All New Assignment Module being Released in Moodle 2.3

 4 types combined into 1 flexible assignment type

Can now have multiple assignment types in 1 assessment i.e upload 2 files and add text supporting your upload. Students submit when finished. Can be changed mid stream.

Coming in soon:

Individual extentions

Team assignments – one student submits, grade applied across all, based on moodle groups

Blind marking – teacher does not see the student name when marking.

Due dates and cut off dates

Integrating Moodle, BigBlueButton & Skype to deliver and assess presentations and role play

Swivel – stand for iphone follows speaker

BBB – integrated into moodle, see it in class calendar event, ePresentation tool with added functionality for the teacher to control the presentation.

Skype plugin  - skype id in student profile, from moodle you can have a skpe activity, students open, and identify who they want to skype with.

Mp3 skype recorder – freeware, automatically records audio of a windows based skype conversation. (mac has a version – ecam $20)

Rich media self-assessment using the Lesson Module

Self-assessment modules using lesson module.

Based on readings or the weeks work, you can set up a series of slides with some questions, and then based on responses it leads on to further resources. The key idea that it has a pathway, and this can be different based on understanding shown.

Example shown seemed to require an extensive set up for the teacher, while the responses from the students were based on multi choice questions, so shallow???

In moodle 2.12 on there is the ability to stop students trying again if they are wrong, and therefore not going through the additional material.

Key idea is to use media rich resources from youtube or khan academy etc

Using Moodle Tools to Craft an Active Community of Inquiry

Allowing students to collaboratively problem solve

Garrison’s model – a social activity and a means for students to construct and confirm meaning together.

Often unit may start with embedded video content. Students take a position, and are then required to find literature to defend their position.

Tools such as chats or dialogues to foster the social community presence.

Design of the unit involves more than 1 tool. These need to be selected with consideration given to the underlying pedagogy, and the degree of teacher control that suits the teachers style.

EQUELLA & Moodle 2.3 integration: a new wave for the repository API

Equella is a repository/hosting service which has now worked together with Moodle to smoothly integrate. The advantage of using the repository is that moodle has a link to the resource, rather than actually uploading the content into moodle itself. By doing this when you update the resource, when students access it they get the latest version. Talking with Equella, their focus is servicing whole institutions on a licence basis. I not that moodle 2.3 also integrates with Drop Box which can be set up on an individual basis, and automatically syncs with your laptop.

Avoid Scrolls of Death without Throwing Accesibility to the Sharks

This was a hands on session that looked at various course format options that could be downloaded. 3 options were looked at

• ·        Grid view
  • o   This showed a box for each topic. These boxed can have images and be colour coded to convey different contexts quickly. Students click on the box to get to the unit of work, which then displays under the introductory topic
• ·        Single Topic View
  • o   This displays each topic as a series of tabs above the introductory topic. Students click the tab to display the topic
• ·        Collapsed Topic view
  • o   This display each topic as a heading only, under the introductory topic. Students click on the topic heading  to expand it, and click on the heading again to collapse it again
  • Flexipage
  • o   allows page to set up with different numbers of columns, column width, move blocks into any columns etc
    

All of these are available as a download from Moodle.org, and once installed by your administrator they are available for each course. They are selected by opening course settings and selecting the new format.

The link below gives a summary of format options, and the download details

http://moodle.org/plugins/browse.php?list=category&id=19