Category: Moodle (Page 8 of 8)

 I’ve been hard at work creating Moodle materials. One thing that really stands out is just how powerful the program really is. The answer to just about every question about Moodle begins the same, “well, there are several ways to accomplish that”. Or “it really depends on what you want to do”.

Take for example the Lesson module. The Lesson module is a wonderful, powerful tool. Lesson allows the creator (usually the teacher) to create multiple pathways for students to follow. This means that the teacher can have students read a selection, and then answer a question. Based upon the answer to that question, the student could move to a page which would continue the lesson or be redirected to a page that would provide more background knowledge about the issue. Additionally, these questions can be automatically added to the gradebook. Or not. “It really depends on what you want to do”. In fact, when you are setting up a Lesson, the default will add an entry to the gradebook. But this might not be what the teacher wants to happen. In my experience, most teachers don’t use the adaptive nature of the Lesson module, they tend to provide a straight line for the students to work through. Lesson can be great for that too. Here, “it depends on what you want to accomplish”.

In general, I think that is a real strength of Moodle. The power to allow almost anything to happen means that different teachers can use the program in different ways. It means that more goals can be accomplished. It means that teachers are not limited as much by the program. However, it also means that the program can be complex. It means a commitment to learning how to use the program (and more so, how to use it well). Teachers already have a lot to learn. Teachers don’t have spare time on their hands to invest in learning how to accomplish things through Moodle. This is especially true if they consider what they are currently doing to be “effective enough”.

I hope that Moodle continues along it current trajectory of making things better looking and more user friendly without sacrificing the power that lies behind the curtain.

For the past couple of years, we’ve been working on the development of a format for Moodle that would truly lower the barrier to implementing and using Moodle. The idea was to create something very familiar for teachers and students to start with.

Well, we are getting one step closer. The Michigan REMC group has approved funding to start the programming. This has the potential of being a huge win for teachers. The new “social format” would allow teachers to quickly interact with Moodle. All the while, the full power and scope of Moodle will still be available.

If you’d like to know more, see this posting on Moodle.net. (I believe that you may have to register to view- registration is free).

There is still a ton of work to be done. However, big KUDOS to Chris Kenniburg and Bryan Smith for their work in getting this to happen. Also we greatly appreciate the vision to fund the project from the REMC group.