Well, I nearly lost this blog. Left an upgrade a little too late and all sorts of nasties got into the system, Bluehost then shut me down.
Thanks to Bruce (hacking into the database, cleaning things up) and the wonderful people at Bluehost, things have been put back. A large backlog in my thinking. But I’m not really sure I need to say Everything.
Back here soon.
-Derek
Moodle 2.3 is due out soon. I’ve dabbled in the QA process. Didn’t do so well, the site resets itself regularly, you really need your own site to work on. But it was good to have a look around the implementation of some of the new features. There will be a slew of blog posts coming up so no doubt. Some nice new stuff, particularly drag and drop and section conditional release.
As to a few basic items: I’m in two minds. I’ve been working on a few sites from scratch, and there sure is a lot of clicking and manual work that could be easily steamlined. I get really tired!! My wish list:
I’ve made some posts recently on Moodle.org on these issues to see if there are workarounds. Sometimes there are. You will notice on my wish list the absence of things like bettwe assignments, mobile Moodle, removing MNet etc. Our priorities obviously differ. But these are pretty basis. I am not for instance asking Moodle to do odd fringe things like manage birthday greetings, look like facebook or wordpress (etc).
I know most of the time there are hidden fish-hooks the moment you start to develop design specs. Just to take one: “Inform teacher of new self-enrolments in a course”. All teachers in the course? Just non-editing teachers? Just editing teachers? Yet another table required.
Some of these requests have been around for over 5 years on he tracker, and even if we paid money for them to be developed, there is no guarantee they will get into the core. Even leaders amongst the Moodle Partners have created code that has lain dormant for many many versions. I suspect this is why the success tof a few of the Moodle versions like Joule and Totara.
I’ve looked at the model of CLAMP: www.clamp-it.org/
Many liberal arts schools have adopted the Moodle course management system because of its low financial barriers to entry. However, supporting and contributing to the development of this open-source software project can require significant resources of both time and money. The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP) is an effort by several schools to support a continued and sustainable process for collaborations on Moodle development.
I’ve thought of a similar version for the sector I predominantly work in (non-profit, health, school and polytechnic). Probably won’t happen, with there being no central body to work through and it’s just to hard to set something up from scratch, or just too expensive.
Create specifications for some of the functionality often needed and set these up as projects on Kickstarter. See what happens.
The first step is to define the project. Maybe something like this:
For instance, two such projects could be:
NOTIFY ME!! Create an teacher block purely and simply to run cron jobs to notify of new self enrolments. Provide a way for the block to access the teachers’s details, some simple text . . and run a cron job every hour.
EASY E-MAIL ACCOUNT DETAILS: Create an admin block that each hour runs a cron job to post out e-mail detail of all the new accounts created in the last hour.
I’ve been advocating the enhanced Moodle specs for small Moodles for several years now. It was a sad day when I left the customised Moodle at the UoC which had some of these needs hacked into the core. So then it became just to hard to upgrade to 2+, and along with scores of other languish in a very nice 1.9+ install, enhanced admittedly, but still lacking many goodies from 2.
We shall see.
I’ve had a quiet day today part way through a visit to Chuxiong Normal University. Two sessions so far: Thursday (Information Science Majors) and Friday (Physics Majors)
All these students will be teachers sometime. The hope: just to see a small demonstration in a class with interaction could trigger an interest in teaching a little differently.
After a false start (abandoned due to the February 4 earthquake) I made it to Wellington for a Moodle 2.0 workshop. Details here. If anyone from the TALO group is reading this (especially Leigh) then probably best to move on.
I still value Moodle as a Walled Garden. I see this as a feature, not a bug. Moodle 2 is a bit tough at first. But I’ve taken a philosophical view: new users (or even old users) must experience it first. Hence I do an EXPERIENCE > CRITIQUE (DESIGN) > BUILD trajectory. And I think now (for my sanity as well as the good of the populace) it is actual essential for real and meaningful learning. I try not to put myself in a position to do anything in less than 3 hours. With snacks, pen and paper and space preferably.
How can you build a course in something using tools you have not experienced as a user?
I do an excursion to a coffee course:
It’s really nothing fancy: most people can find some strong feelings about coffee (either for or against) and you can see a few things in action like forum posting, comments (in the comments block), watching a video, following a link, downloading a document and actually submitting an assignment.
Then glossary, wiki . . maybe.
The critical question for my sessions has been “OK, put your teacher hat on now. You’ve experienced a forum. Of what value could this be in your classrooms”
Upcoming workshop: Monday and Tuesday of next week. Four hours, including 30 minutes to get logged on and a really nice healthy afternoon tea. This time I think is the critical mass to prevent inoculation and actually infect. Get some experience of good practice. Build some relationships.
However, with the latest school project, bringing the science department and the social sciences online (with Moodle) I have made a course subject specific, and I am on the scrounge for some screen snaps of good Moodle courses.
I spent a week in Auckland in late March considering this question. Moodle shut down on me. Where better to work then Columbus Coffee
OK, the challenges of TIME, pressures of Goals not aligned with activities . . .
More will surface on this I am sure.
I’ve pondered for weeks how to make a first post on Moodle 2. Here is my wish list. I got the idea from Mark Deschler’s wish list post. He has some great comments on how to get involved. I’m always surprised with 1,000,000 people on Moodle.org why so few vote in the tracker.
You will notice there is nothing here about Mobile access, web 2.0, RSS. The people I work with at the moment are not really there yet.
There is a little angst over some aspects of Moodle 2: the filepicker, the navigation, the lack of plugins, video mishandling. But there is progress coming.
This is my top priority. It was in train for Moodle 2.1 but has gon from the roadmap now. Most of the items in this list have a tracker items, some have code as well.
Obviously the Open University ForumNG (docs.moodle.org/en/ForumNG) has a lot of these features. There has been talk of getting this into the core. (moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=137549) Continue reading
For admins mainly. MUA. Moodle Universities Aoteraroa akoaotearoa.ac.nz/communities/moodle-universities-aotearoa
Not strictly Moodle: Greater Christchurch Schools Network. (Built around the Christchurch Loop)
www.moodleinschools.org.nz/ Moodle in Schools: MoE supported site.
ecdf Supported Moodle sites repository. (Higher Education)
Wellington Loop Moodle.
I have not been quite sure of the future of this blog. Personal or Work? Business? Personal learning? Probably a mix.
I have moved on from the University of Canterbury. Below is my old bio. (From uctl.canterbury.ac.nz/derek-chirnside which is still there as I write this). I’ll be sorting a new version soon. If I had bothered to update it for 2009, it would have said: “Moodle is in, we now are making the transition to using Moodle. We have a model for the transition: dividing up the faculties, each with a UCTL contact, introductory workshops and specialist follow on workshops. Hundreds of courses making the transition in one way or another.
Now I’m doing a contracting work, mainly around workplace learning, staff development and organisational learning – all with an online aspect, and all involving some form of Learning Management System. (Organisational Learning: there’s a surprise – I’ve been interested in this for a while, but never really had a chance to use any of this except more at a personal level)
I have a background in Physics teaching, having made a switch from Chemistry and Maths. Since 1977 I have taught in a range of schools and settings including intermediate, High School and one year (1998 – at the Department of Physics and Astronomy and CPIT) in Tertiary.
In terms of Educational Design, prior to 2000 I did not even know such a field existed. However I found I had been doing it for years in a range of teacher professional development projects (including Denis Chapman’s wonderful Riccarton Project) and many national science and physics education conferences. in December 2000 I took over from Alan Cutting at the Christchurch College of Education working in quite a remarkable context: the POLO distance education programme.
In the distance education side of my life I am indebted to Prof Mike Wells (now Professor Emeritus, Montana State University-Bozeman) who taught a distance course I was part of in 1998 (“Real World Problem Solving”, via First Class) Here he modeled many of the practices I later adopted as my own. I was ready for 2001 when the courses at the College moved to having a serious online presence with the development of Interact, our home grown learning management system.
In 2002 I was part of the establishment of Learning and Information Services at the College of Education: one of the few institutional restructures I have seen that produced an unequivovably better result than what was left behind. With Maureen, Rosemary, Kerry, Glen, Bruce, Donna, Rob, Fiona, Angie, Des and Tim we sought to integrate services and support around flexible and distance courses. This was conceived over some wine and cheese during an Educause conference in Adelaide.
In 2005 I shifted to the UCTL at the University of Canterbury, first on secondment and later as part of the merger.
My role here at UCTL mainly centres around course design, both online and in flexible or blended courses, with some staff development and policy involvement. My specialty areas are blogs and wikis in knowledge management and learning, communities and e-learning.
I use ICT, but I resist people defining me in this light: I am interested in teaching and learning strategies, particularly those that assist engaged or active learning (both online and not). Learning theory has traditionally been classified in three: behaviourist, cognitivist and constructivist. I see a fourth as significant: social practice and situated learning.
Online learning, using online tools: should help improve learning outcomes, save time and help us feel better about our teaching.
Recently: Moodle trial, podcasting workshops, using video clips in online courses.
December 2008. Currently: I am working with Moodle transition (Gradebook, Groups, Forums and wikis), getting StudentNet set up for another year, helping with some case study approaches to classes and a new project with Massey.
2007 Oporto, Portugal. Workshop with THEKA (midway through a three year professional development project): Communities of Practice: leadership practices and planning. Link to Blog Post on this .
2007 Chuxiong University, China: Teaching Strategies to Support Active Learning
Two days of workshops, mainly physics-teacher oriented, but tons of others came.
October 2008: Podcasting Workshops (Tai Pe Tuni Polytechnic, Greymouth)
November 2008: The use of Web 2.0 tools (Blogs and wikis. tagging and RSS) to support ongoing Professional Learning. Karero Learning Centre, Greymouth.
More on UnConferencing: UnConferencing meets Teacher Professional Development
In the posts on MirandaNet about the axing of BECTA one of the contributors, Leon Cych posted this comment:
I’d much rather see teachers who have developed “open” expertise, sharing it with each other at a social event in a transparent way, rather than traditional models of training. If someone has found an innovative and useful way of working with software or hardware then they often develop a highly developed generic expertise and forge new pedagogies round that and often ways in which it has not been thought of by the software companies themselves. TeachMeets are rapidly becoming seed beds for grass root talents sharing and disseminating 21st Century skills.
I have seen this time and time again at TeachMeets (teachmeet.pbworks.com) and that model is finally beginning to catch on.
From the TeachMeet site:
What are the tried and tested structures from Teachmeets?
- 7 minute short presentation (sometimes 2 or 3 lined up)
- 2 minute nano presentation (3-5 one after the other)
- Break out sessions (@SLF 4 speakers took up 4 different locations, participants chose to listen to who they like)
- Random speakers – Classtools fruit machine.
And this, from teachmeet.pbworks.com/Organise
TeachMeet is an unconference, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need organising. Early on, get a small group together to get everything sorted out for your event
. . . . and some structure/rules:
Some rules might be: no PowerPoints, micro-presentations must last no more than seven minutes, nano presentations no more than two, no selling of products, everything must be happening in a classroom now.
We all know the best parts of conferences are, of course, the coffee breaks and social events, where you get a chance to pore over someone’s laptop for 15 minutes and learn one new really cool thing you can actually use, have late-night discussions over serious stuff, helped along by a few drops of amber. Why not just make this the conference itself? Provide coffee and tea all day long, lots of muffins and biscuits
In other words, PD by the people for the people, what’s happening now, presented by the people doing it. A great structure for an UnConference.
A final comment from Leon:
“Training” is a bit of a cul-de-sac, or rather a one way street, in my opinion. It is a single function or pathway to doing things. Much better develop an independent mindset that can think and route around what resources are available rather than going down a proprietorial route.
A way ahead maybe? Effectiveness, lower cost – and fun.
This is number three in a series. Some of the things I may not get a chance to share at OpenEd 2009.
These are some of the roadblocks put forward as real or perceived issues by teachers who expressed a keeness to share and to collaborate or work together on resources – or at least being open to the idea.
The main issue was finding the stuff that they really wanted when they wanted it. Several repositories were mentioned.
There were at least two issues in this respect.
With some resources there is a perception that style issues, idiosyncrasies and personal preferences of the writer mean they can’t easily be used by other teachers. “The effort to fix this is often too great”
“Style can get embedded and is hard to alter”
Similarly with context: there was a perception that many resources were just too context dependent.
One example: grammar exercises became quite differently expressed if they were part of an ESOL course, journalism course or an essay writing support package. You’d expect that. But there was a feeling that some resources were developed in such a way that meant they were still too context dependent. Worksheets with several questions unusable (maybe with a curriculum difference, or a grammar point not yet taught) in PDF format could not be edited.
“Tagging has helped – (But we are not there yet)”
Even so, there were some teachers quite positive towards the idea. It just had not quite worked itself into a solution for them yet.
Others however felt that there was some good progress in their area. It is here that I am particularly interested: what factors tend towards success? What can be done to promote this? I think there are three aspects to this that I can point to in the data.