‘Walking the talk: A model for Academic Staff Professional Development using Moodle’ - Susan Brosnan and Timothy van Drimmelen at Moodlemoot AU 2014

1. ‘Walking the talk: A model for Academic Staff
Professional Development using Moodle’
The Staff Development Gateway
Susan Brosnan and Timothy van Drimmelen
#mootau14 #usq

2. • Regional University located in Toowoomba approx. 1.5hrs west of Brisbane
• Founded in 1967
• A distance education provider since 1977
• Fully online programs since 1997
• 2 Faculties with 11 Schools
• More than 200 under-grad and
post-grad award programs
• Every course has an online presence
University of Southern Queensland
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3. On Campus
7,235
Online
20,000
USQ Staff & Student Statistics
Total: 27,235
Source: Sustainable Business Management and Improvement - University of Southern Queensland
https://intranet.usq.edu.au/bi/staff/Dashboards/FTE/FTE%20by%20Month.aspx
Academic
491
Professional
913
Total: 1404
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4. Background to Project
Mid 2012 a decision was made that no ‘staff’ facing resources would sit on
the existing public facing USQ website and should be moved to an internal
solution
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5. USQ’s three Moodle instances
USQStudyDesk
• Student
Portal
• All Course-
based
activity
_____________
USQStaffDesk
• Staff portal
• Staff facing
for PD
activities
______________
USQOpenDesk
• OER/OEP
• Inter-
institutional
activities
_______________
USQ LEARNING OBJECTS REPOSITORY (LOR)
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6. The Staff Development Gateway Project
• 2 part-time .8 staff members (Senior Project Officer and a Technical
Project Officer)
• Media Services (Graphics, Photography and Multimedia) and Learning
Systems and Support
• Commenced in November 2012 – October 2013 (11 months)
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7. Audience and Objectives
• Aimed at Academic and Professional Staff
• To deliver a solution to house staff facing resources across USQ within the
current Learning Management System – Moodle
• To promote autonomy
• Be flexible and adaptive
• Engage and share knowledge with peers
• Easy to use and easy to navigate
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8. Why ________________?
• We teach in it! Nothing new to learn!
• Enables us to showcase our excellence
• Content can be updated and live ‘instantly’
• Allows for multiple authors (currently 24) (previously only allowed 3)
• Demonstrates good practice in our teaching and engages the teacher to
become the ‘learner’
• All resources sit within existing collections in the Equella Repository (LOR)
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9. Project Objectives
• Simple, clean interface that doesn’t require the user to ‘think’
• Google – perfect example
• Content should be broken into small vignettes of information and not
overwhelming
• 1/10 second for like/dislike
• Should allow for different learning styles, follow the
Read it, Watch it, Try it framework
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10. What is the Staff Development Gateway?
• A collection of courses, pages, books and multimedia resources for staff
• Currently compliant with tablet devices and should be fully mobile
responsive with our next upgrade to Moodle 2.7 – expected by early 2015
• Collaboratively designed as a ‘services’ oriented gateway which showcases
the excellence of LTS, LEM, ICT and HR
• Demonstrates to the lecturer what’s possible in their courses
• Enables relationship building with Academic Staff
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11. Like a peek?
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12. The Technical Stuff
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HTML
(framework)
JavaScript
(engine)
CSS
(style)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_GT-R

13. #mootau14 #usq
CMS
(Hierarchy)
Moodle
(Linear)
Moodle
(Hierarchy)
Moodle PageMoodle BookMoodle Feedback

14. Our Wins and Gotcha’s
Wins
• Creation of the Moodle Page
Editor
• Moodle Breadcrumbing Manager
• Creation of the USQ Vibe
• User Interface in development
Gotcha’s
• No search functionality
• Migrating this course, breaks a
lot of things
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15. Questions?
Questions for the Developer?
http://moodlemoot2014.netspot.com.au/ sandpit area -
“Walking the Talk: A model for Academic Staff Professional
Development using Moodle”
#mootau14 #usq

16. #mootau14 #usq
Timothy van Drimmelen
University of Southern Queensland
P: 07 4631 1772
E: timothy.vandrimmelen@usq.edu.au
Contact Us
Susan Brosnan
University of Southern Queensland
P: 07 4631 2715
E: brosnan@usq.edu.au

17. #mootau14 #usq