Moodle in Real-life (part 1 – The Start) @west4me
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William Cunningham, who runs an extremely elaborate and developed Moodle with his third grade students, gave me the pleasure of an interview via email. This “Moodle in Real-life” story will be told in several parts, the 1st is below. All posts refer to William’s Moodle install at this link: http://www.hallsville.org/elementary/cunningham/moodle/
William is a third grade certified eMINTS Teacher located in Hallsville, Mo.
Related:
- William’s Twitter: @west4me
- Blog: http://moodleiselementary.blogspot.com/
- New classroom project: http://www.hallsville.org/elementary/cunningham/moodle/wordpress/
Part 1: The Start
MoodleMonthly: So William, how did you get started using tech in the classroom?
William:
I began developing web pages for my class and I was writing them by hand in a simple text editor. I quickly realized that all I was doing was creating lists of links to other peoples sites. I wanted a way to interact with my students and a way to quickly deploy changes.
MoodleMonthly: When did you begin using Moodle?
I started looking and learned about content management systems, which led me to Moodle. It was perfect, I could create interaction between my students and I. It also allowed me to quickly make changes without the need to edit html and then FTP to the server. I was sold.
This is just the first part of an email interview series which will be released this week. Tune in for another installment tomorrow.
In case you missed it: #moodle4iphone Video
http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/moodle4iphone-video-exclusive/ – Thanks to Carlos Kiyan for the video.
“How we implemented Moodle” Preview by @moodlerific
In the next few weeks I will be writing several short posts sharing my experience with implementing Moodle into a school district. I work in Osseo Area Schools, which is a 20,000+ student school district just outside of Minneapolis.
Our Moodle implementation was funded and guided by a 2-year grant we were awarded. The grant stated: “This grant will provide training, installation, tech support, and equipment, to implement and sustain a Blended Learning Model of instruction for students.”
My co-worker and I were the two main people in charge of the implementation. My co-worker, Ryan Semans, helped write the grant and was the Moodle trainer. I worked with more of the “back-end” and technical tasks.
Over the next few weeks I will be breaking down our implementation experience into main parts. Of course, every district is different and is in a unique situation. We were fortunate enough to have funds provided by a grant. This is in no way the best and only way to implement Moodle but it worked well for us and I hope you are able to take something away from our experience!
Disclosure: These are my personal thoughts and opinions and they in no way represent those of Osseo Area Schools.
Next time on “How we implemented Moodle” – Idea to Reality (a blended learning model, equipment and sustainability)
What If The Cool Course Competition Was Judged By The American Idol Judges? @moodlenator
The good news, we would be on TV and would have over 15 million viewers weekly! The bad news, the elimination rounds would be brutal. Long lines of Moodlers circling the outside of stadiums, trying to acquire a wireless signal to tweet their experiences. Ryan Seacrest interviewing the most bizarre of contestants before they show their sites to the judges. Like the course designed for Judge Judy fans, the How to Get on Judge Judy Course, which did not get past the Moodle bailiff.
Next step is for the viewers to call 1-900-Moodle # to vote on their favorite courses. Once we spent all our minutes and monies to vote for Uncle Bob’s Antique Refinishing Course, the real judges step in, and this is what they thought about the Coolest of the Cool Courses.
Best Application of Moodle Activities.
1st – Stuart Mealor with Concepts of ICT
Judge Randy “DOG!, I love the acronyms. But, we’re talking about activities, and DOG, your activities bark, fierce! I loved the Learning Diary and your “How big is your hard drive” choice activity. “
Best Use of Media
1st – Edward Pickering-Symes with Climate Change Course
Judge Kara D “ I love your choice of media. The interactive map quiz is awesome. The Detective kit is way cool and Clim City is just plain hot!
Primary & Secondary
Primary: 1st – Christine Pannen with Deep Blue – rund um die Ozeane der Welt
Secondary: 1st – Martin Kurz with IT-Unterricht
Judge Ellen: “I love these sites! I can’ t read German, but, I love these sites! I love the looks, it works for kids and teenagers. And, it works for adults like me, who act like kids. I’m sure I can’t do justice to your sites, so I wont try. I do appreciate your efforts, and I understand your audiences. Nice job!
Tertiary
1st – Janina Dewitz with eLearning and Moodle Essentials +++Lite+++
Judge Simon: “I’m going to make this brief, brilliant!” The slide share/show of “The Art of Instant Moodles”, is perfect. Great educational lesson on copyright, I can relate to wanting to protect my work. But, the top piece by far is your file management lesson, superb!”
Overall, all courses are wonderful and there is a lesson to be learned from each and everyone one of them.
Give a shout out to @moodlehelen and everyone who helped with the competition. They deserve a huge thank you and congratulations. To quote a former Idol judge (Paula), “This competition is going to turn the Moodle industry upside down!”. Share your thoughts about the Cool Course Competition, send me a note @moodlenator.
@Moodlenews Welcomes @Moodlenator and @Moodlerific!
NEWS FLASH: TWO NEW WRITERS JOIN MOODLEMONTHLY
I’m really excited to let everyone know that Rhonda (@Moodlenator) and Mel (@Moodlerific) have joined the MoodleMonthly.com team. They’ll be posting at will in the future to tune in and enjoy their posts!
Their experiences and expertise will be a welcome addition to the regular Moodle coverage we’re already providing.
Welcome them in the comments!
Note:
I (@josephthibault) am off all week on my honeymoon. Posts will be automatic but if you want to spread the word, check out our new feature where you can post a comment on any post and @Moodlenews will tweet it out.
Did you see the #moodle4iphone video?
http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/moodle4iphone-video-exclusive/ – Thanks to Carlos Kiyan for the video.
#moodle4iphone VIDEO exclusive
Couldn’t let this one sit over the weekend. Check out the moodle4iphone video (~6 minutes):
- Logging in,
- navigating through courses,
- taking quizzes,
- checking grades, and
- working with the forum.
Looks like a dream. Subscribe to the Moodle4Iphone channel here. More information coming soon from http://iphone.moodle.com.au/
This video had 35 views when I saw it. How many will it be by Friday the 12th?
Thanks to Carlos Kiyan for the link.
Spread the word.
New version of the Moodle Dock released @kristianstill @moodledan
Kristian Still shared with MoodleMonthly that a new version of the Moodle Dock has been released to the public. Download the new Dock at http://bit.ly/96nL2a.
More information is available at http://kristianstill.co.uk/wordpress/?p=1392.
So, why the new release already? At it’s original posting to Moodle.org and the modules section, a lively discussion ensued which uncovered a few minor bugs and changes that needed to be made in order to facilitate widespread adoption. The popular aesthetic enhancement is now available with concise and clearer instructions and the codes been combed over once more by Moodledan. It just goes to show how valuable the Moodle community is.
A word to any developers out there hesitant to release their Moodle code: release early and often. The community is there to help.
Related:
- MM dock coverage: http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/moodle-i-dock-released-on-moodle-org-kristianstill-moodledan/
- Original Dock: http://kristianstill.co.uk/wordpress/?p=1348
- The Dock on Moodle.org: http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=3576
#moodle4iphone team looks to #apple for help
From Ignatia Webs (http://ignatiawebs.blogspot.com/2010/03/iphone-on-moodle-update-growing-team.html),
Dear Apple/iPhone people, we would like your support as well. Please do not misunderstand our humble team, we do not want anything for ourselves. We would however surely be happy if we could get the same mobile learning project out somewhere else in a low resource setting. For we have depleted the Tibotec REACH grant that we won for 2009 (it was funding for one year). So we would surely love to help start up a similar health project or why not a train-the-trainer project through mobile learning in other low resource settings. Such a project does not demand a lot of investment, the application we brought together also works on iPod touch.
If anyone at Apple is listening, this open source team is certainly deserving of assistance in expanding the app’s reach and applicability.
Introducing http://iphone.moodle.com.au/ @moodleman @lewiscarr #moodle4iphone
With growing momentum, the project team behind the Moodle Mobile iPhone Project has built out the official project website at http://iphone.moodle.com.au/. Details are still coming slowly, but the should be live next week according to Carlos Kiyan.
This project has grown from a collaboration between the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp and the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru toto include Learning Design Japan and two Moodle rock-stars in Lewis Carr and Julian Ridden (Julian hails from Pukunui Technology).
From the site:
As the project continues to build momentum the team is continuing to grow. This new website is here to help facilitate and demo the new Moodle4iPhone functionality.
No news yet, but stay tuned as there will be more to follow.
Visit the site at http://iphone.moodle.com.au/ and prepare for the Mobile Moodle revolution!
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