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:


  • 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!

1 comment:

Andytgeezer said...

I have been viewing the Virtual Learning Environment as also a virtual teaching suite in which the teachers can have access to all the resources they need to refer to on the course as well, hence the worksheets etc.

I think that it would be useful for these to be on here so that we could refer to them and pupils could have access to them, and I think the library of worksheets is the way to do this rather than single uploads here and there.

I guess in this way the function of the VLE is to support teaching and learning.

Obviously though, this IS supposed to to be a virtual LEARNING environment and as such you are absolutely right that journals, reflection and self-assessment are the main keys to making this a useful LEARNING tool.