![]() I'd be interested to hear more from you down the track about how the high school students have taken to online courses (I've only used Moodle with postgrads). Your concern about the enculturation of online learning is especially interesting. ![]() Perhaps you have experienced (as I have, many times) what happens when even good technology is just slapped into a culture with the expectation everybody will just use it. I think the first thing to keep in mind is that the advantages of online learning are not always obvious. In fact, for many situations where there are face-to-face alternatives then online learning may complicate the situation too much for many people. Unfortunately this does not stop some implementers. When there are advantages, though, I think you need to know them and promote them widely and vigorously. Does it promote deeper learning of this subject? Does it allow more time flexibility? Is it providing voices to students who are normally drowned out? Is it promoting the use of electronic resources (and thus greater reusability)?. etc.įrom the other angle, the technology as a whole needs to be simple, consistent and persistent so that it keeps drawing people in. These are the types of qualities I'm pursuing in Moodle. I'm not sure what the problem is with content and department guidelines - I would assume that's up to individual teachers. ![]() I have posted up a course in Information Technology for year 12 students, as part of a 2 year course, including resources (theory notes), assignments based on competencies, quizes to test the competencies, forum and a journal. ![]() The student response is interesting! As they are all "into computing" anyway they enjoy using the application you have developed and majority of these students are also software programming students who are into php, so they are following the development of moodle with furvour. The learning atmosphere in the classroom has changed dramatically. Students are very self directed (clear goals and deadlines) but remarkably the students have responded to using journals to document their daily progress on the unit of work. Some have used the journals to store study notes for their later use. The effect of "1 day 12 hours" to go for an assignment has achieved 100% compliance rate ( a 1st) - I felt "displaced" for a while as my role mutated slightly (the need for chalk & talk is engrained). The students responded well to the immediate feedback given to assignments and journal. The amount of non productive work (social internet access etc.) has dramatically decreased - is it that they are using the computers anyway in a directed manner? The issue remains of dealing with students who finish the unit a lot earlier than others - do they progress to the next unit or extension work etc. Staff are very enthusiastic about their Course in Computing Applications - a good sign. Generally, the introduction of moodle has recieved rave reviews throughout the school. The journal concept has attracted most interest - students actually keep them up to date, a most unexpected thing in a secondary school.
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