Category Archives: Collaboration
Interested in Collaborating on Moodle 2
Everybody connected in some way or another with Moodle is aware that the system has undergone significant changes when it moved from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2. Some institutions are lucky to have significant resources at their disposal to cope with these changes – other institutions are not so lucky. Most of us have built up our training and support resources over a number of years. But the advent of Moodle 2 has put everybody onto the same starting point. To that end I have a suggestion for a collaboration. I suggest we sharing resources for Moodle 2. A logical suggestion considering the open source nature of Moodle.
We can potential share training resources i.e. training manuals and screencasts. In theory this level of collaboration is great, in practice though, there can be a great deal of difference between two different Moodle instances so my instructions on how to do x,y, or z is not applicable to your institution. That said, I do feel sharing instructional resources is a very useful idea and potentially a great starting point for collaboration between two or more institutions. However I have a specific suggestion on how to collaborate through Moodle.
I would like to collaborate on Moodle 2 orientated around an initiative led by Napier University in Scotland. This initiative is referred to as the 3E framework. The framework is based on an Enhance-Extend-Empower continuum. This was developed, with illustrative simple-but-effective examples that might be incorporated as a minimum (Enhance), through to uses of technology that give students more responsibility for key aspects of their learning (Extend), and to underpin more sophisticated, authentic activities that reflect the professional environments for which they are preparing (Empower).
The framework is best explained through examples. The link below provides such examples
http://staff.napier.ac.uk/services/academicdevelopment/TechBenchmark/Pages/examples.aspx
I would like to support this framework by crowd-sourcing screencast examples/instructions on the various features of Moodle relevant to the example on the framework e.g. if the example under groupwork at the enhance level
- “Make the group working more manageable and ‘visible’ by having each group post a weekly update of progress to a private discussion board visible to the group and tutor” -
The relevant moodle screencasts would be how to create groups and how to post a discussion forum.
If you are interested in either of these initiatives please contact me via the comment box below or via twitter through @glynnmark
Related articles
- Moodle feb 2013 (slideshare.net)
- 23 Moodle videos from Lynda.com (for free) (moodlenews.com)
What is Diigo?
Image via CrunchBase
This posts introduces Diigo and outlines how the social bookmarking tool, Diigo can be used in the classroom
Whiteway, A. (2009). An evaluation of using diigo.Com with students. Retrieved from
http://andywhiteway.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/an-evaluation-of-using-diigo-com-with-students
Related articles
http://enhancingteaching.com/2012/01/24/diigo-social-bookmarking/
http://enhancingteaching.com/2012/04/11/removing-the-scroll-of-death-in-moodle-with-diigo/
Dropbox
Dropbox allows users to store and share files and folders (documents, photographs, videos, etc.) on-line
Add files to the public folder to allow other invited users to be able to view and edit them
Documents are stored online – some security issues have been raised in the past
Need to download the installation
Users do need to sign up to a Dropbox account but that is only a minor irritation
Go to Dropbox
Listen to the IT gurus talk about DropBox - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9PfBkm618w&feature=related
Student generated content as an assessment
There are a variety of tools that can be used in moodle allowing students to generate reusable learning objects. Click on each of the each on the links below to find out more and how they can be used to get students to generate content to help themselves and their peers learn a particular topic :
Related articles
- Getting your students to find Youtube videos for their assignment (enhancingteaching.com)
- Assessing Collaborative Work (lynnmunoz.me)
Moodle Glossary
The glossary activity module allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary.
Glossary can be used in many ways. The entries can be searched or browsed in different formats. A glossary can be a collaborative activity or be restricted to entries made by the teacher. Entries can be put in categories. The auto-linking feature will highlight any word in the course which is located in the glossary.
For information on how to set up a glossary please look at the video below
The wonderful Michelle Moore from Remote Learner gave a presentation at MoodleMoot 2012 in Ireland where she highlighted the huge potential behind Glossaries
For more information on Glossaries please visit: http://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Glossary_module
PBWorks
PBWorks allows users to capture knowledge, share files (lots of various types) and manage projects. Use PBworks to set up your own wiki. For a quick review on wikis I’d highly recommend the YouTube video produced by “CommonCraft”
Google Docs
Google Docs allows users to upload existing and to create new web-based documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and to edit them on-line
Twitter in Higher Education
For the uninitiated, Twitter is a messaging service that limits you to 140 characters and spaces per post (or per tweet)
The advantage for a lecturer is that you don’t need to know the phone numbers of students to get messages onto their device: they are the ones who authorize their mobile phone from the website and they subscribe to your Twitter feed.er “tweet”).
Twitter is basically a potential alternative to email, instant messaging and discussion forums, as ways of communicating with students.
Students can also use this when doing their classwork, trying to understand the material. Tweet: “I don’t understand what this reading has to do with New Media? any ideas?” Other students then respond. (This actually happened recently in a class)
Students can follow someone else who is on Twitter, who interests them. For example if they are thinking about technology in education they can follow @topgold who works for LIT and Tweets about a range of topics including the use of technology in education
Twitter integrates with blogs and other Web pages, providing Flash and JavaScript code options that allow Web pages to access Twitter updates.
What are the downsides?
The most common criticism of Twitter is that it enables inane interaction. Tweets that say nothing more than “I’m eating pickles” or “Really tired today” are not uncommon, and, indeed, the value of such postings to the casual user is minimal. TO be honest I just don’t follow people who put up posts like this. However there even when you have an ideal set of people to follow, as an asynchronous broadcast service, there is no guarantee that any individual tweet will be read, let alone responded to.
The selection of video tutorials below are taken from YouTube and will help you to set up your twitter account. Click on the small box in the bottom left of the youtube screen to get the full list of youtube tutorials available through this list
For more information on Twitter please below a link to useful websites I have found on Twitter
