One thing I am finding as my students try to access the site is that maybe we have taken too much for granted that they know how to navigate around a place like this. I am now trying to get feedback from them which I hope to incorporate when we are teaching others how to log in.
Some problems arise from my attempt to use groups in a sensible way, which of course is not a Moodle way. Since I had made some of my activities "Separate groups", they couldn't submit unless they were part of one - which they didn't know how to.
Also I found that some students were browsing through the course without actually having enrolled, which again was fine until they tried to see or submit an assignment or grade. My learning from that is that we should very much limit guest access to the courses - probably to zero!
They will always tend to click on the links without reading them - we should probably try to make better use of the site news forums to provide help with the different options in the course.
Some get the hang of it rather quickly, but I am worried that the learning curve will deter some students from using the site, so we must make sure they are all with us!
Friday 26 October 2007
How do we use the VLE?
Linked to the previous post is the discussion as to what level we want to use the VLE.
Our main drawback at the moment is the lack of computers in our lessons - even if each lab was equipped with a teacher's PC, there would be no way for students to log in to the VLE during a lesson, and booking the IT Rooms is not always possible.
Therefore, I believe that the contents of the VLE should support the students' individual learning at home, and the teacher's monitoring and assessment of a student's progress. Here are some ideas of what the VLE could include:
Our main drawback at the moment is the lack of computers in our lessons - even if each lab was equipped with a teacher's PC, there would be no way for students to log in to the VLE during a lesson, and booking the IT Rooms is not always possible.
Therefore, I believe that the contents of the VLE should support the students' individual learning at home, and the teacher's monitoring and assessment of a student's progress. Here are some ideas of what the VLE could include:
- Revision sheets with the highlights of each unit (possibly compiled by students?)
- Links to external sites providing support material, or interesting connections to the topic.
- Quizzes or other self-assessment material, especially at the end of a unit
- Homework assignments to be submitted online - hence testing ICT skills
- Students' self-reflection of their progress (possibly by means of a learning diary/blog)
However, I don't think it is necessary to have:
- Worksheets or questions to be done in class - unless an IT room is available
- Experiments
Any further thoughts? Over to you, pal!
A step back
I think over the last few days we both got a bit carried away trying to invent a structure that would accomodate all other members of our Department and even beyond. This is extremely valid, but it is taking a lot of our efforts and at least I know I am not focusing enough on preparing a decent pilot test for my current students.
I believe we should stop for a while and reconsider our timescale for deployment. Here is a proposal:
Phase 1: Andy and Rafa create a basic working structure and prepare full content for ONE unit for each of their Physics courses. In the process, we share resources and record problems we or the students encounter in the handling of the site. The process is fully documented (hence this blog) and students are asked to feed back at the end of the unit. Timescale: however long one unit takes (5 weeks?)
Phase 2: The results of the pilot group are shown to the Science Department (possibly at an INSET) and to relevant members of SMT (Aiden McCoy for accreditation in the TLA scheme?). The structure is made available to other willing members of Science, while we continue to develop our own resources and assisting others in their course creation. Timescale: to be decided (a term? half a term?)
Phase 3: Once a solid structure is in place for the Science Department, the VLE is shown to other members of staff, particularly SMT and IT Administration. If the project is to be used school-wide, it will have to be a school-wide decision and probably cannot run on a private server like scienceheaven. It will then be up to school leaders to decide on the implementation of the whole thing; if they don't want to go the full route but don't object to us doing it, we continue working our ways smoothly and quietly. Timescale: what is the age of the Universe again?
I believe we should stop for a while and reconsider our timescale for deployment. Here is a proposal:
Phase 1: Andy and Rafa create a basic working structure and prepare full content for ONE unit for each of their Physics courses. In the process, we share resources and record problems we or the students encounter in the handling of the site. The process is fully documented (hence this blog) and students are asked to feed back at the end of the unit. Timescale: however long one unit takes (5 weeks?)
Phase 2: The results of the pilot group are shown to the Science Department (possibly at an INSET) and to relevant members of SMT (Aiden McCoy for accreditation in the TLA scheme?). The structure is made available to other willing members of Science, while we continue to develop our own resources and assisting others in their course creation. Timescale: to be decided (a term? half a term?)
Phase 3: Once a solid structure is in place for the Science Department, the VLE is shown to other members of staff, particularly SMT and IT Administration. If the project is to be used school-wide, it will have to be a school-wide decision and probably cannot run on a private server like scienceheaven. It will then be up to school leaders to decide on the implementation of the whole thing; if they don't want to go the full route but don't object to us doing it, we continue working our ways smoothly and quietly. Timescale: what is the age of the Universe again?
Thursday 25 October 2007
Other sciences need resources too
I have noticed some good websites being used by other members of staff in our department, especially Helen. I'm going to ask them to send me links and I'll start building up the resource pool there too so that it will make the transiation from geeky and techy physics to the other sciences a bit easier.
Ya know. Give em a head start and all that...
Ya know. Give em a head start and all that...
Upload of resources for next year 11 course complete
Year 11 P2.10 resources completed on teachers resources site and ready for importing into your own sites for next course. We need to work on some quizzes and put more websites and interactive stuff on in support.
Other roles
I think that the fact that we are both administrators is not the best idea in the long term Rafa. How will we ever know what it feels like to be among the riff-raff if we maintain this sort of loftiness?
I think that when we get the hang of this, we should at least create another account and start pretending that we're of the great unwashed so that we can get our heads around what the average man in say the biology department would need from moodle.
That's not to say I'm about to give up my admin privileges you understand...
I think that when we get the hang of this, we should at least create another account and start pretending that we're of the great unwashed so that we can get our heads around what the average man in say the biology department would need from moodle.
That's not to say I'm about to give up my admin privileges you understand...
Oh no! New grouping procedure means new course names needed!
This is turning into a bit of a nightmare because the groups/classes don't function properly.
Obviously having 3 copies of the same course is not the ideal solution and I've just stumbled across another problem. When naming the 5 letter course code I've added a T for the teachers metacourse and now that I've had to make the same course for year 10 in my area, I've stumbled across the repeated name issue, as two courses can't be called P1a29.
On a small scale like this I could name a course H1a29 as there is no course that will exist with that name but on a whole school scale this will obviously clash with some subject called history whatever that is.
Any ideas?
Obviously having 3 copies of the same course is not the ideal solution and I've just stumbled across another problem. When naming the 5 letter course code I've added a T for the teachers metacourse and now that I've had to make the same course for year 10 in my area, I've stumbled across the repeated name issue, as two courses can't be called P1a29.
On a small scale like this I could name a course H1a29 as there is no course that will exist with that name but on a whole school scale this will obviously clash with some subject called history whatever that is.
Any ideas?
Wednesday 24 October 2007
Los Alamos up and running!
Los Alamos is live!
Log on and I'll admin you for some extra fun and customisation! Let the good times roll!
Log on and I'll admin you for some extra fun and customisation! Let the good times roll!
Admin
Oh dear - I've granted you admin priveleges here too! Am I mad?!
Some help on the Testing beta site on Friday would be much appreciated. I quite like the idea of a new skin on the site, maybe something more physicsy like on the scienceheaven site - you up for it?
Some help on the Testing beta site on Friday would be much appreciated. I quite like the idea of a new skin on the site, maybe something more physicsy like on the scienceheaven site - you up for it?
Better with group or teacher first?
I think it should be Year 11 > Mr Hoangs Courses > Courses, rather than Mr Hoangs Clases > Year 11 > Courses as the course needs to take precedence over the teacher.
And so it begins..
And so it begins..
Grouping by category
Due to the total breakdown/failure of the group system it's clear that we'll have to find a way around this and I propose subdividing the categories into teacher categories below the year category.
So this will thus lead to
Year 11 > Mr Hoang > P2.10 - Blah blah blah
and
Year 11 > Mr Ribas > P2.10 - Blah blah blah
Both of these should be sourced from the Teachers area course, which I guess would be some sort of "meta"-course, insofar as it will not be a TAUGHT course as such but merely a store that will function to hold every resource you could possibly use for each topic/page, filed in the correct places.
Also Rafa you should have a crack at making quizzes - I found the drop down cloze exercises a great laugh to develop!
So this will thus lead to
Year 11 > Mr Hoang > P2.10 - Blah blah blah
and
Year 11 > Mr Ribas > P2.10 - Blah blah blah
Both of these should be sourced from the Teachers area course, which I guess would be some sort of "meta"-course, insofar as it will not be a TAUGHT course as such but merely a store that will function to hold every resource you could possibly use for each topic/page, filed in the correct places.
Also Rafa you should have a crack at making quizzes - I found the drop down cloze exercises a great laugh to develop!
Tuesday 23 October 2007
RSS
I can't seem to be able to add the feed url of the blog to my RSS reader. Is it because of the privacy setting? Are we too deeply under ground?
It might be nice to have the RSS for comments as well...
It might be nice to have the RSS for comments as well...
Rethinking the structure
After all I have read about groups, I think we have to completely lose the idea of publishing a course together and sharing it with students - all assignments get muddled up.
I think we should consider changing the categories to "11D2 Physics", "11D3 Physics", etc. I am not sure how easy it is then to copy resources from one to the other, but if we both have admin rights it shouldn't be too hard?
Groups could then be used internally in the class, for example for lab partners, or if we do any more extended project work, groups could be used for students to share resources within a project but not with the rest of the class.
First consequence of this: we get a much larger site. This is when metacourses could come into play, but I will need more reading first...
I think we should consider changing the categories to "11D2 Physics", "11D3 Physics", etc. I am not sure how easy it is then to copy resources from one to the other, but if we both have admin rights it shouldn't be too hard?
Groups could then be used internally in the class, for example for lab partners, or if we do any more extended project work, groups could be used for students to share resources within a project but not with the rest of the class.
First consequence of this: we get a much larger site. This is when metacourses could come into play, but I will need more reading first...
Naming for worksheets uploaded
I'm giving them the page number first, followed by the name a the top of the worksheet if in the 360 folder - this means that we can refer to them ourselves from the folder.
For example the first sheet from P2.10 is called "Doing Work" and is from page 306 so I have called it
306 - Doing Work
This gives each page a unique reference number as well and distinguishes from resources that come from 360 and elsewhere.
Wooo-hoo! Shine on you crazy diamond!
For example the first sheet from P2.10 is called "Doing Work" and is from page 306 so I have called it
306 - Doing Work
This gives each page a unique reference number as well and distinguishes from resources that come from 360 and elsewhere.
Wooo-hoo! Shine on you crazy diamond!
Resource files
I can't find a way to upload all the files I want in one go i.e. the whole unit of P2.10 and have to upload them one a ta time.
This seems to be one weakness of the present approach and an argument for Frog or moodle on a local network (I'm not sure that will make much difference but it may)
This seems to be one weakness of the present approach and an argument for Frog or moodle on a local network (I'm not sure that will make much difference but it may)
Copyright issue
Just wondering Rafa - if we upload worksheets from the 360 Science folder is this an infringement of copyright? Probably is but should it concern us? It will be only available in a password-protected environment to pupils and teachers who are using them to study the 360 course and have paid good money to do so, so I can't see any problem there.
Naming convention for resource area
Rafa
I'm naming the teachers area courses (the shortname course identifiers) the same as the pupils course shortname but with a T on the end.
Also naming all courses with the word "Unit" at the start before the course name. I know it's inefficient but it sort of looks nice.
Whatever that's meant to mean.
I'm naming the teachers area courses (the shortname course identifiers) the same as the pupils course shortname but with a T on the end.
Also naming all courses with the word "Unit" at the start before the course name. I know it's inefficient but it sort of looks nice.
Whatever that's meant to mean.
Monday 22 October 2007
Uploading into teachers area
I'm uploading resources like worksheets into the teachers area.
What I'm doing is using a topic view rather than a week view so that it doesn't expire every week and I think we want to consider a topic view if we are to run a joint course to overcome that expiry date problem you mentioned today.
What I'm doing is using a topic view rather than a week view so that it doesn't expire every week and I think we want to consider a topic view if we are to run a joint course to overcome that expiry date problem you mentioned today.
Resource area
On the moodle live front, I am going to add a teachers course area and upload loads of worksheets and links categorised by unit etc.
This will allow us to just copy resources to the appropriate course when necessary. It is also a showcase of the capability of a VLE for storage and applicability of stored educational resources so that we can make a case for getting our VLE online here.
This will allow us to just copy resources to the appropriate course when necessary. It is also a showcase of the capability of a VLE for storage and applicability of stored educational resources so that we can make a case for getting our VLE online here.
Test site to go up
Also I am working on putting up a new moodle test site to be found soon on http://losalamos.scienceheaven.com/ (the obvious underground development link in there) - just having a few problems with the config.php at the moment as you can see - any help would be appreciated. This will allow us to mess with settings and other toys in a non-live kind of way.
2 Blogs
I will be sending you invites for two blogs in a second - one is my present scienceextra blog that I'm hoping to work on with my classes as way to keep the parents and other pupils informed of stuff in class and just to give out a learning award or two to the Geeky and Techies. The aim is to pick a small web team from each class, maybe 2 or 3 people to keep the blog updated at the end of the week, with RSS feed to go to the moodle site too obviously.
I am also giving you an invite to another blog that is private as a development site to run alongside our moodle. The idea of this is that we will have a ready-made list of tagged and categorised development notes when we have to present this to anyone. We can obviously filter by tag to find all messages regarding development or ideas for teaching or site developments etc and it will be an online resource rather than having to scour our inboxes at a later date.
I am also giving you an invite to another blog that is private as a development site to run alongside our moodle. The idea of this is that we will have a ready-made list of tagged and categorised development notes when we have to present this to anyone. We can obviously filter by tag to find all messages regarding development or ideas for teaching or site developments etc and it will be an online resource rather than having to scour our inboxes at a later date.
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