Upcoming Workshops & Events

Upcoming Workshops & Events

Are you planning to use Moodle for the first time for a summer course? Or would you like to explore course setup and layout ideas that you can use to enhance your Moodle courses? There are many upcoming workshops at Learning Systems that can help you take advantage of the potential of Moodle.

Moodle Workshops

As well as face-to-face Moodle workshops, Learning Systems also offers many online, self-paced courses. Workshops can be taken on a variety of topics, and are structured as 099, 100, 200, or 300 level depending on the difficulty. Instructors, TAs, and administrative staff are all encouraged to attend. Some of the workshops that are currently being offered to help you with Moodle for the Summer 2012 semester are:

Moodle 099: Pre-planning
Online, self-paced
May 1-31, 2012
If you're brand new to Moodle, this workshop is for you! In this online self-paced workshop we will introduce you to many resources and tools to help you prepare your materials for Moodle. After this workshop, you will be ready to pursue Moodle 101 and learn how to build your course.

Moodle 101: Fundamentals
Face-to-face
May 9, 2012, 10:30am-12:30pm
May 23, 2012, 10:30am-12:30pm
This workshop will teach you the fundamentals of Moodle and get you started building your Moodle course.

Moodle 201: Getting the Most from Resources and Activities
Face-to-face
May 17, 2012, 2:00-4:00pm
This face-to-face workshop will introduce course set-up and layout ideas that you can implement to create an effective online learning environment in Moodle. We will use these tips, tricks, and ideas to create a sample Moodle course. You can later choose the resources and activities that you feel will be effective in your course (copying over the items that you find most beneficial, to your real course shell).

Moodle 301: Collaboration Tools  NEW WORKSHOP!!
Online, self-paced
Upcoming offerings to be announced and advertised here - watch for this new workshop over the summer!
This online self-paced workshop explores Moodle activities that can be used to foster collaboration among your students. We will cover how to create groups (and group activities) in Moodle, as well as creation and potential uses of discussion forums, OU Wikis, and OU Blogs.

For more information and registration, please visit our workshop page.

Published April 2012.

Moodle 2 is coming

Moodle 2 is coming

Moodle users across UVic will be happy to hear that we have started moving towards version 2 of this popular learning management system, which will offer many of the features that our users have had on their wish lists for a while. Another important reason for the upgrade is that Moodle 2, which is an open-source application, will soon be the only version supported by the development community. This matters to UVic because supporting an obsolete application entails higher risks and costs.

While moving to Moodle 2 is a large and complex project for systems administrators, developers and support staff, it will likely be seen as a simple software upgrade for teachers and students. In all likelihood, importing content from past courses into new courses built in Moodle 2 will be similar to the process that teachers are used to in the current version of Moodle. In addition, all teachers will, of course, be offered extensive support not only to re-use content from past courses, but also to become familiar with the new look-and-feel and features of Moodle 2. In short, change may be inevitable, but we'll make sure you get all the support you need to make yourself at home in Moodle 2 "in no time flat".

Below is a high-level view of UVic's strategy for moving to Moodle 2. Please note that all dates are approximate, and that any of the steps listed may change as the project evolves.

 

Published April 2012.

Accessibility support area is now live

Accessibility support area is now live!

The accessibility area of our Moodle support website is now live and ready for you to explore! The URL is http://elearning.uvic.ca/moodle/instructors/accessibility

This area contains information and practical ideas for instructors, TAs, administrative staff, and others who are working to create inclusive course content. You'll find accessibility tips for Moodle, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, multimedia, PDFs, and Excel.

 

 

 

Published April 2012.

Moodle Moments

Moodle Moments

Let's take a moment and explore a Moodle tool - we will look at pedagogical uses of the tool, and how it might be used to enhance your Moodle course and motivate your students. This newsletter's Moodle Moment will focus on the Glossary activity.

You may have seen the Glossary in Moodle's activity list, and thought about the traditional sense of the word. It's true, the glossary can be used to create a dictionary of terms for your course; you can even have students contribute their own definitions! But there are also many other creative uses. Moodle's Glossary activity allows you to enable comments from students, automatically link entries throughout your course, choose the display format that suits your use, and even rate entires.

With the Random Glossary Entry block, you can display random entries from the Glossary on the front page of your course. This can be a great way to feature glossary entries, and keep your course content fresh! Learn more about the Random Glossary Entry block.

Here are a few creative glossary uses that you might consider exploring:

• Frequently Asked Questions: The Glossary activity can be set up as a FAQ for your course. You probably have a list of common questions that are asked every semester - why not gather these questions and create an FAQ Glossary that students can refer to. You can reuse this collection from year to year, continually adding to the list. Read more about an FAQ Glossary.
• Bibliography: The Glossary activity can be used to create an Annotated Bibliography of resources. Each student contributes a resource, including a citation, summary, and/or critical evaluation. You may choose to limit this glossary to one resource, or use the glossary for any of the following: article critiques, book reviews, collection of useful websites, etc. Read more about a Bibliography Glossary or a Book Review Glossary.
• Quotations: Have students submit famous quotations from people in the subject area of the course. These quotes could be used to empower further thought - what does it actually mean? What's the context of the quote? Read more about a Quotations Glossary.
• Biographies: Ask students to contribute a biography of a leader in the field. They might include a description of the person, their achievements, images, and so on.
• Introductions: You can even use the Glossary activity to encourage students to find out more about their classmates! Each student contributes a glossary entry about themselves, including their name, a few sentences about their interests, and perhaps a photo.
• Words & Meanings: In an English class, you might ask students to contribute a word with its definition, part of speech, a sentence using the word, and perhaps a way to remember its meaning. In a language class, the glossary might instead be used to collect new words in the target language along with the definition, translation, and maybe even an audio clip of the pronunciation.
• Mini Research Projects: By asking students to contribute an entry on an assigned topic, you can build up a valuable collaborative resource. Entries might include information about the topic, links to useful information, and photographs.

Setting up a Glossary

If you are interesting in trying out one of these ideas, check out our Glossary support area for important information about how to set up a Glossary Activity.

 

Published April 2012.

 

Teaching Technology Toolkit Goodies

We have launched the Teaching Technology Toolkit area of our support website; a place for you and your colleagues to recommend software, websites, and services. We encourage you to explore the growing collection and we invite everyone from the UVic community to recommend or review their favorite website or application. Topics ranging from graphic editing, video conversion, multimedia and even social media are being added every day. Share your experiences!

 

Synchronous Tools Wrap Up

Synchronous Tools Wrap up

Instructors at UVic have been using a variety of ad-hoc and externally hosted synchronous tools - such as Elluminate, Skype and WebEx - for blended learning and distance education, as well as staff meetings and thesis defenses. Elluminate has been supported by Distance Education Services for their clients, including some schools in the Faculty of Human and Social Development.

Partly because of this increasing demand for a university-wide supported synchronous collaborative tool, in May 2011, University Systems was asked by the Educational Technology Advisory Council (ETAC) to investigate and make a recommendation on how the university should proceed.

For the last three months we have been reviewing, demonstrating, and collecting feedback for the evaluation of synchronous tools. Over 3,000 members of the UVic community have been invited to join us for short technical demonstrations of Adobe Connect, Blackboard Collaborate, and Skype/Bluejeans network. We are about to wrap up our feedback collection and begin compiling the results for a report to be submitted to ETAC in May.

We would like to thank everyone who attended our evaluation sessions and gave us their valuable feedback! We have seen a spectrum of uses and requirements from faculty, and learned a few new things along the way.

 

Published April 2012.

Instructional Technologist now at the Computer Help Desk

Instructional Technologist at the Computer Help Desk!

An Instructional Technologist from Learning Systems will now be available at the Computer Help Desk to assist with Moodle and other educational technologies. Come by the Help Desk at Clearihue A004 and Mandy will be happy to assist with your Moodle questions, or schedule a consultation to discuss your pedagogical use of Moodle and its features. She will also be available to assist students with their use of Moodle.

The Instructional Technologist will work out of the Computer Help Desk Monday to Friday. If Mandy is not available when you stop by, leave your contact information.

Published April 2012.

More Educause 2011 Reflections

More Educause 2011 Reflections

Continuing with the Educause 2011 Reflections article from the ed tech news - Spring 2012 Edition, two other presentations of interest, The iPad: Implications for Higher Education and As Learning Goes Mobile: The future about Mobile Education, focus on mobile learning and teaching using the iPad.

The iPad: Implications for Higher Education was presented by John C. Bansavich and Ken Yoshioka from the University of San Francisco. 
http://www.educause.edu/E2011/Program/SESS050

Bansavich and Yoshioka conducted a six-month study to review, experiment and identify potential uses of the iPad in higher education. Forty participants, including professors, associate and assistant professors, lecturers, librarians and associate deans took part in the study. 

A customized mobile app was developed for the iPad enabling access to a number of university services such as their Blackboard learning management system, emergency alerts, university news, maps, directory, calendar, athletics, library and information technology, housing, pool and many others.

A few of the questions the study sought to answer:

What are the potential uses of the iPad? The study identified that some of the potential uses of the iPad include going paperless; mobile access to electronic resources; and access to multimedia to supplement learning, especially for ESL students and those with learning disabilities.

How might iPads support teaching and learning in a course? The iPad is useful in the lab setting, for demonstrating nursing and other clinical procedures; one-on-one interactions with students to review their fine arts performance; small group exploration (instead of instructor led, being able to take information into the field or museum); teaching using multimedia with annotation functions; using interactive apps such as 3D Brain and DigitalNeurosurgeon; using apps such as “Pleco”, an interactive Chinese dictionary where students hand-write the character and receive the English meaning, hear the pronunciation and sentence to illustrate its use; completing surveys and questionnaires in the field; storing data in electronic form rather than paper; watching lectures and tutorials; viewing text-based reference documents; and accessing self-service banner for advising.

How can electronic textbooks be used on an iPad? Accessing electronic textbooks on an iPad provides the ability to annotate text, and if using publishers such as Inkling, go beyond viewing PDF versions of text books by providing interactive learning experiences for students. Ebooks on an iPad cost less than paper-based textbooks, and are portable.

The presentation, As Learning Goes Mobile: The future about Mobile Education was presented by Lee Rainie, from the Pew Research Center. 
http://www.educause.edu/E2011/Program/FS15

Rainie discussed the Internet & American Life project’s latest findings about how people, especially young adults, use mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet computers.

The project’s research results indicate that: “mobile connectivity is changing the learning environment by enhancing and creating new access points to knowledge such as eBooks and the Cloud; is a real-time information sharing-opportunism (learning more things more quickly, such as deals, traffic conditions or the status of a flight, and pain avoidance - avoiding a traffic jam, what is a good or a bad movie), and facilitates the coordination of group activities (hives of people making decisions on-the-fly); creates perpetual, pervasive awareness and access to social networks – the impetus to share, and sense that people are members of larger networks; is how they learn, interact and navigate with the world, how they do everything; is continuous partial attention in information streams; is stressful, but a way of life – continual multitasking; and supports immersive experiences in areas of interest (if diagnosed with a medical condition, you’ll delve into becoming an amateur expert on the topic.)”

Rainie pointed out that we are now in digital revolution three, the mobile revolution. In the United States, there were 327.6 million mobile phone subscribers in October 2011, which is greater than the total U.S. population of 315.5 million and has become the most rapidly and ubiquitously adopted technology in the world. Lee suggested that a good research question would be, “is the small screen experience good enough?”

The list of most commonly used apps include information updates, communication through social media sites, games, news and weather, maps, social networking, music, entertainment and food, banking, sports, shopping and movies.

The study indicated that new kinds of learners are emerging in the digital environment. They are more self-directed, more reliant on feedback, and more inclined to collaboration. Rainie also made the point, “learning has changed from where the expert source passes along information to the willing, subservient and patient student, to knowledge that is a learning process.  It is subjective and provisional. We are all in this together and there is a sense now that people are actively participating in their own knowledge creation.”

More information about the conference, including links to many of the conference materials, is available from the Educause conference website.

 

Published April 2012.

 

Moodle: Did You Know...

Moodle: Did You Know

Did you know ...

1. You can cross-list multiple Moodle shells together. If you are teaching multiple sections of the same course, you might choose to cross-list these into one "parent" Moodle shell. Students from all sections will have access to this shell and you will only need to update your content once! Find out more information about x-listed Moodle courses.
2. You can track unread discussion forum posts in your Moodle courses. If your courses involve a lot of discussion forums, it can be difficult to keep up with every new post. By changing this setting in your profile and in the individual discussion forums, Moodle will keep track of this for you and automatically highlight posts that have been made since you last checked on the course. Your students can set this up too if they wish. Find out more about tracking unread forum posts.
3. You can check how your students see their grades in Moodle. At any time, you can view your Moodle gradebook from the student perspective and see what your students see. This is done through the User report in the gradebook. Learn more about the gradebook user report.

For more tips and ideas, check out our Moodle FAQs for Instructors!

 

Published April 2012.