Moodle at PWSD Collaboration, Online Education and Classroom Extension.
Outline
What is Moodle
How Moodle came to PWSD
Needs Moodle can fill
Who is using Moodle now?
What is it Jon Does?
What’s coming up next?
How Moodle came to PWSD
The Need The Promise AISI projects needed a way to share and work when they were not together. PREP was on schedule to deliver document sharing and other collaboration tools. The Failure After many attempts, PREP under IBM was laid to rest.
The Solution
December 2006 Jon was approached to build a place for AISI to work using Moodle
With Jon building and Joan Coy training and promoting collaboration finally got off the ground. By
Needs Moodle can fill
Collaboration Deliver full courses online for credit. Classroom extension Support brick and mortar schools with learning objects, online testing, extra help, discussion groups and more. Online education
Bring professional learning communities together
Share documents
Discuss ideas
Co-author materials
ePortfolios
What Moodle is not ….
An Asian noodle dish
A Portal
A “good” file repository
Dreamweaver replacement
A for-print exam bank
An ePortfolio solution,
but more on that later.
Who is using Moodle now
collaboration.pwsd76.ab.ca
282 real users, who have accessed the site since September 2007.
19 Active professional learning committees
Site visits are nearly doubling each month since July 2007 and we are currently receiving an average of 126 visits and almost 5000 hits per day!
collaboration.pwsd76.ab.ca Stats
eCommunity.pwsd76.ab.ca
3 full-time core science courses (BCP)
4 course supplements (blended learning)
2 school websites
6 trial courses (just playing in the sand)
This site just got started and has not been promoted yet around the district. It was build to host the BCP courses.
Teacher comments
“ Collaboration such as we have done is great! In small schools, we often work in isolation. The Moodle site overcomes this problem to some extent”
“ Meeting, working and sharing ideas with a large number of math teachers is beneficial in test development. Moodle is an excellent tool for communication. The shared resources allow options within the classroom.”
These are teacher comments from the qualitative questionaire completed in June 2007. The population is the16 teachers from Numeracy Division 4
What exactly does Jon do? What it takes to keep Moodle running.
Technical
Install and support
Machine setup – virtualization
Server OS
Moodle packages
Database backend: mysql
Add-ons: scripting languages, feature extensions
Security
Anti-virus
Backup
Access rights
Troubleshoot
Network bandwidth / or speed of access
Communications
Help desk
Email and call support for users
Support AISI coordinators as they build their areas.
Create starting areas or templates for schools or PLCs
Presentations or in-service work
Present at AISI meetings
Visit schools
Meet with any group wishing to start a PLC
Author
Site Design
Create constant navigation across all areas
Create and update front page
Maintain site-wide theme
Course and Content Author
Create training materials
Publishing BCP courses (with help from Joan and Wanda)
Create science professional learning communities
Create science course extensions
Other
Predict and prepare for future needs
Research how others are using Moodle
Test out new add-ons or extensions
Trial installs of new additions of moodle
Gather data for presentations
Did not work for today
Promote online collaboration
Moving Forward
The current Moodle role should be divided.
For me, I’d like to decrease in technical.
Increase in authorship, seminars, in-services, and team building.
What’s coming up next
Short Term
Collaboration
Complete the in-servicing of all AISI
Establish science learning communities
Online Education
Complete the hosting of BCP courses
Establish several new offerings with PAVE
Classroom Extension
Complete the hosting of online assessments for Science 10, 14, 24, and Biology 30
Find and work with one or two teachers who would like their students to blog or discuss online.
Technical: oodle meets mahara The time has come for ePortfolios Athabasca is using ELGG We’re looking at mahara.org
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