Knowledge Management
in Moodle
MoodleMoot 07
Miles Berry
25th October 2007
Head, Alton Convent Prep
The Open University, Milton Keynes

Outline
• Learning environments
• Knowledge
• Managing knowledge
• Organizing
• Sharing
• Creating
• VLEs and knowledge management
• Moodle and knowledge management

Knowing that Knowing how
• Explicit • Tacit
• Subject knowledge • Teaching methods
• Test scores • Personality
• Outcomes • Processes

Epistemology
• Empiricism
• Experience as the only source of knowledge
• Rationalism
• Reason as the foundation
• Constructivism
• Knowledge is contingent on convention, human
perception and social experience

“In the information society,
knowledge forms the
foundation for
education and culture.”
Smith and Wild, 2001

Knowledge Mapping

“For the majority of firms in
the west, the priorities are
the ‘capture’ of employees’
knowledge, exploitation of
existing knowledge resources
or assets, and improved
access to expertise.”
Quintas, 2002

How to externalize the insights
“Locked in the heads of
individual teachers and
protected by the
privacy of their classrooms”
Hargreaves, 1999

VLEs as Knowledge Maps
• Lesson planning
• Online resources
• Assessment data
• Podcast / Vodcast
• Pupil - teacher interaction
• ...

A VLE is not an MIS
• The knowledge teachers use day to day
• The knowledge at the core of the school’s
activity
• It’s not about accountability;
it’s not about control, and yet...
• Accommodating the “inherent complexity,
sophistication and subtlety of professional life
and work in educational institutions”
• Constructed within and owned by the
organizations that use them

“School-devised systems ...
tracked individual pupils and
allowed schools the flexibility
to input internally generated
data ... i.e. such tools were
easier to customize to the
school and its particular
needs and circumstances”
Kirkup et al, 2005

Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge sharing
within the organization
• A key to organizational success
• Meaningful to professional practice
• Necessary for shared decision making

Knowledge sharing
beyond the organization
• VLE tools for professional development
• Creating and sharing resources with others
• Collaboration on instructional design
• Permeable boundaries

“We learn particularly well
from the act of creating or
expressing something for
others to see”
Martin’s 2nd Law

Knowledge Creation

“The co-production of
knowledge with colleagues is
a natural part of a teacher’s
professional work.”
OECD, 2000

“A social group constructing
things for one another,
collaboratively creating a
small culture of shared
artifacts with shared
meanings.”
Moodle Docs 2005-7

“By digitising their creative efforts this
generation of young people can share
the fruits of their labour with a
worldwide audience.
They can post videos on YouTube or
GoogleVideo, upload photos to Flickr
and link back to their friends
on MySpace, FaceBook or Bebo.
They are connecting, exchanging and
creating in new ways.
Demos 2007

Innovation
• Learn from other
• countries
• contexts
• phases
• Experiment
• Reinvent the wheel
• Learner voice and choice
• Autonomy rather than accountability

Data Mining
• Log files...
• Trends, patterns, exceptions
• Correlations
• Better informed decisions
• Management
• Teachers
• Parents
• Assessment for learning
• Web 3.0

VLEs and KM

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
3 11 7 5 5
our vle used for lesson planning
13 9 6 1 3
our vle brings together online resources that our pupils need
4 6 10 6 6
our pupil assessment data held in our vle
5 13 6 4 3
our vle used for pupil teacher dialogue
9 12 1 6 3
other teachers can access data teacher adds to vle
10 11 5 2 3
senior management can access data teacher adds to vle
9 10 4 5 4
we use our vle to share information amongst teachers
11 10 3 5 3
we use our vle to share resources amongst teachers
3 5 8 8 8
we use our vle to share information with other schools
4 13 6 5 3
our staff use vle to work collaboratively with each other
2 5 7 10 7
our vle used to work collaboratively with other schools
2 9 7 8 5
we regularly analyse data from vle
3 4 11 7 6
we look for trends and exceptions within data in our vle
4 8 11 3 5
use vle has allowed us to make better informed management decisions
4 11 10 3 2
use vle has allowed us to make better informed decisions about pupil support
5 6 3 8 9
our vle fully integrated with our management information system mis
8 5 12 4 2
ur vle has had more impact on quality teaching and learning than our mis has
3 15 6 7 1
we ve changed way we teach because vle
3 15 5 8 1
we ve modified vle to fit in with way we teach
4 13 10 2 3
our vle has resulted in better management knowledge we have
6 10 11 1 3
our vle has promoted better organizational learning or development
3 9 17 1 2
our vle has promoted pupils construction knowledge
4 2 11 6 10
our school has knowledge management policy
5 7 9 7 5
most teacher s knowledge about they teach locked in their heads
4 9 7 7 6
most teacher s knowledge about their pupils locked in their heads

Findings 1
• Little consensus about KM;
those that saw teacher’s knowledge as more tacit...
• Didn’t give SMT access to teachers’ data
• Didn’t use VLE to inform support decisions
• Didn’t integrate VLE and MIS
• Few schools had KM policies,
but those that did...
• Analyzed data regularly and
• Looked for trends and exceptions

Findings 2
VLE use includes
• bringing together online resources, and
• use for teacher - pupil dialogue,
but not
• lesson planning, or
• assessment data
although these seemed best to promote
organizational learning and KM

Findings 3
• VLEs are used for sharing data, information
and resources within the school
• 2/3 provide access to data for other teachers
and SMT, particularly where respondents had
participated in VLE development
• Those who share data inside the school also
work collaboratively beyond the school

Findings 4
• Once a school becomes used to internal VLE
mediated collaboration, they become willing to
extend this practice beyond the school
• Collaboration amongst sta is a crucial
dimension of organizational culture if the
VLE is to be used to manage shared
knowledge

Findings 5
• Not many analyze VLE data or look for trends
and exceptions
• Relatively little integration with MIS
• Limited contribution to decision making
(but better with Moodle than other systems!)

Findings 6
• VLEs do have an effect on teaching
• VLEs support KM and Organizational
Learning
• There’s less impact on pupils’ construction of
knowledge or attainment, but...
• The introduction of a VLE alone will not
be suficient to impact learning and
teaching, but embedding the VLE within
the organization’s culture and practices
might

Moodle and KM

Moodle
• Moodle content embodies the knowledge of its
authors
• Moodle courses embody the knowledge of
their teachers
• Moodle embodies the knowledge of its
developers

Knowledge mapping
• Courses!
• Lesson plan labels
• Podcast/vodcast
• Revision wikis
• Gradebook
• Outcomes
• Tags

Knowledge Sharing
• Forums
• Wikis
• Resources
• Workshop
• Notes
• Repository
• Community Hub

Knowledge Creation
• Wikis
• Forums
• Blogs
• Log files
• Courses...
• E-Portfolio
• Version control

Integration and
Interoperability
• Courses
• Content
• RSS
• iCal
• PLE
• MIS

For more details...
E-Mail:
mberry@bcs.org
Blog:
eduspaces.net/mberry/weblog
School:
www.altonconvent.org.uk