Moodle user group – 08/06/11

Phil Hardcastle

Moodle User Group – 08/06/11

June 21, 2011 | slide 1

Agenda

9:30-10:00 Coffee & Registration

10:00 Welcome & Housekeeping

10:00 -10:45 Moodle Moot 2011

10:45 - 11:15 Coffee

11:15 - 11:45 News

11:45 - 12:00 Planning for next year

June 21, 2011 | slide 2

Mmoot11

2 days at ULCC – links point to video of speaker

and presentation

Intro by Graine Conole

– New pedagogies for social and participatory media

Frank McLoughlin (City and Islington College)

IT’S THE CULTURE STUPID

Endpiece by Martin Dougiamass

– Moodle Development ProcessJune 21, 2011 | slide 3

Mmoot11 - Martin Dougiamas

Check out Mooch – Moodle hubs

Tuning of 2.0 will continue

6 monthly releases

Central team, more controlled development

Quality control of code

Quiz in 2.1

2.2 re-vamp of grading

Survey combined into one module

Mobile (iphone) app being developed – out with 2.1

User manual

June 21, 2011 | slide 4

Mmoot11 - Development

The Unified VLE: the Good, and the not-really-so-

Bad and Ugly

Adopting, Migrating and Integrating

Moodle, including IMS LTI

From Messy repository to Quality Interaction

Serving & including your communities: Mahoodle

& more

Moodle and Drupal CMS Integration

Cloud formations for curriculum transformation

June 21, 2011 | slide 5

Mmoot 11 - Training

Fast effective Moodle induction

The challenge of cultural change: Getting beyond

resistance to Moodle

“It’s not as scary as I thought!”

June 21, 2011 | slide 6

Mmoot11 - Assessment

Can Moodle do it all: course, assessment, SOW

and lesson plans?

Monitoring student progress & annotating

assignments online

Moodle for RARPA (Recognising and recording

progress and achievement)

Achievement takes off with customised PLP and

Flight Plan

Using Moodle to administer GCSE Controlled

Assessments

June 21, 2011 | slide 7

Mmoot11 - And more...

Moodle 2

– Mastering the Moodle 2 Workshop Module

Portfolios

– Google App/ Moodle ePortfolio Implementation

Usability

– Eye Tracking Moodle: Improving usability & what do

students really see?

Teaching

– Teaching with Moodle: Best Practices in Course Design

– Blended Learning – A Cross College Approach

June 21, 2011 | slide 8

Eye Tracking Moodle

Centre of the page is best

Reduction from 3 to 2 column layout - no-one

looked on the right

Topbar navigation menu for frequently used items

Optimisation of course menu - all items can be

folded up

Strengthen the personal area - in top right -

photo, personal stuff

June 21, 2011 | slide 9

Eye tracking cont’d

Re-design & consolidation of help and support

FAQs/Video tutorials

Combine admin block and organisational stuff -

settings, management, groups and

groupings, gradings, backup and restore

Help – top right

June 21, 2011 | slide 10

Screen layout

June 21, 2011 | slide 11

Priority objects on page

Headlines & Titles looked at first

– Text evaluated for length

High info pictures

Then pictures

Then navigation elements

June 21, 2011 | slide 12

Eye tracking cont’d

Eye catching materials - text should have

enumerations, listings - students looking for this

Break difficult text apart - use pictures/white space

- helps to process

Use different colours for different instructions

Visual attention is drawn to human faces - use

them cleverly to draw attention to important bits of

your course.

June 21, 2011 | slide 13

Best Practice in Course Design

What are your ideas?

From your experience what would

you advise about course design

with Moodle?

June 21, 2011 | slide 14

Best practice in course design

Ideas are still evolving

Consider your audience

Do what you can – don’t do it all....

Limit font styles to 3 - this includes colour - increases the

cognitive load for learners

– Otherwise students spend more time processing what's

going on.

Maintaining consistency -

– Course page is a launching pad for content - not the

course info on there

– Simplicity is good.

– One topic at eye levelJune 21, 2011 | slide 15

Course design

Don't be the one doing all the work! Don't make

lots of quizzes

Students can create quizzes - question creator

role

Do let students participate and collaborate

Don't make users scroll side to side - be aware

that your wide screen is not everyone's wide

screen - test it on different monitors - think

netbooks

Value of logs - user activity will not show when

links are in labelsJune 21, 2011 | slide 16

Course design

Labels to guide students

Don't be afraid of white space - indentation

Use topic summaries for titles - use labels for info

Don't force users to scroll and scroll

Use images to enhance your course

Simplify delivery

Put as much content in Moodle containers as

possible - not Word or Powerpoint

Don't be afraid to branch out - use different tools.

June 21, 2011 | slide 17

Course design

Moodle 2 - do dock the blocks

Use completion tracking in M2 - enables students

to see what they've done and what's to do. Allow

students to develop a plan

Don't overdo conditional activities

Only one column of blocks

Use RSS feeds to bring in new content

June 21, 2011 | slide 18

Course design links

http://coolcourses.moodle.org

http://moodle2test.pteppic.net/course/view.php?id

=25

http://id.remote-learner.net

http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Teaching_Good_Pra

ctices_%28K-12%29

June 21, 2011 | slide 19

Mobile Moodle

Mpage – app for iphone

– http://www.moodlenews.com/2011/in-latest-release-

mpage-adds-file-management-and-upload-to-moodle-

capabilities/

Moodle Mobile

– http://www.moodlenews.com/mobile/

Official mobile app developed by Moodle HQ

– http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Mobile_app

June 21, 2011 | slide 20

News & Stuff

Conversionthingy2 update: Convert Moodle

backups from 1.9 to 2.0

– http://www.conversionthingy.net/.

Convert Powerpoint to flash for integration in

Moodle http://www.ispringsolutions.com/free_pow

erpoint_to_flash_converter.html

Use Slideshare

Big Blue Button – webinars through Moodle –

open source project

June 21, 2011 | slide 21

Planning for 2011-12

Development – M2 / Add-ins / Portfolio / ILP

Staff Training/Course development

Learners

June 21, 2011 | slide 22

Contact

Phil Hardcastle

– [email protected]

– Send in your ideas as to what you would like covered

next year!

Moodle user group reports

– http://moodle.rsc-em.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=84

RSC Website

– http://www.rsc-em.ac.uk/

June 21, 2011 | slide 23