Online learning - an introduction
These are notes from my session with Performing Arts, 27th February 2008.
Online learning – getting started
Session outcomes:
• Identify uses for online learning in your teaching.
• Find help for your own Moodle development.
What is Moodle?
Moodle is a virtual learning environment (VLE) or Learning Management System (LMS). It is an online space where you can extend the teaching and learning that goes on in your classroom to a virtual space, and where you and your learners are not restricted to the walls of the college or the timetable. Beautiful.
What can it achieve?
It can be a space to store resources (like handouts and assignment briefs) BUT it is better used as a space for activities, like discussions, reflections, collaboration, writing and formative assessment. It has the added bonus of mixing in digital media (audio and video) with traditional text. When students write online there is no need for submission of work – it is simply there. Contributions to forums can be used as assessment evidence. It is a cool tool and students expect online activities to be part of their daily lives.
How do I get into Moodle?
Go to moodle.ccm.ac.uk and click on your area.
Log in with your college network username and password.
The space is split into FE, HE, Staff and The Arden. To enrol on an existing course (aka – having a nosey round), click the ‘all courses’ link on the right side of the page, choose a course and ‘enrol’. WARNING! The ‘all courses’ link is tiny so you have to look hard for it! If you want to look in NC Music, it is under ‘Arts – Music’. The enrolment key is ‘music’.
How can I set up a Moodle area for my course?
In the college VSR (virtual staff room) click on the elearning link, then the ‘request a course’ link. Or go directly to http://staff.ccm.ac.uk/help/moodle.asp (The VSR is getting a makeover so this link may not work).
Fill in this form and a course will be set up for you.
WARNING! Before you are ‘known’ by the Moodle system you should log in to one or more of the Moodle spaces at moodle.ccm.ac.uk , then do the course request thing.
When the course is created (by a man in a back room somewhere) you will see the course name next time you log in to Moodle. Now you can start pimping your page; click the ‘turn editing on’ button and edit away in your browser.
How do students enrol on my course?
The initial enrolling process is a bit of a faff, but not too painful.
This is a one-time registration process. After this is done, logging in for a student is with their student number for BOTH username and password.
There is a ‘help’ video at http://homepage.mac.com/ccmmusic/moodleenrol.mov
1. Go to moodle.ccm.ac.uk
2. Click on your area.
3. Use your student number for username and password. If this doesn’t work, go to the learning centre and ask for your network password to be reset.
4. This takes you to the Profile page
5. Please make sure you have entered information in all the following boxes
• Email address- City College E Mail only please. This is just your ‘student number’@citycol.com’
• Enter something in the City or Town box
• Enter something in ‘description’ - any comment will do
6. Upload a photo by hitting browse and adding a picture of yourself - though not essential, this gives you more of an identity other than ‘Mr Spongehead’
7. Click ‘update profile’
8. From your profile page, click the CCMFE link (top left)
9. Click on ‘all courses’ which is under ‘course categories’ on the right of the page.
10. Scroll down and find your course and click on the name
11. Students may need an enrolment key, which the tutor sets up. Click ‘enrol me on this course’
12. Congratulations - you are now enrolled on to MOODLE. In future all you need to do is go to moodle.ccm.ac.uk , click on your area and enter your student number as username and password.
Is there more to online learning than Moodle?
Yes indeed! There are numerous free web tools and services that can be used in conjunction with Moodle. You may already be familiar with YouTube and Flickr. CCM is getting its own video sharing site – OurTube, as well as a podcasting service.
Here are a few that light my fire at the moment:
Ning – a DIY social network. Ning has more ’social’ aspects than the learning management system that is Moodle. Users get a homepage where they create an online identiy. It is easy to upload and share digital media (photos, audio, video), it promotes blogs and discussions, and it is generally less formal (but more snazzy) than Moodle. At CCM, the music team is using a Ning to connect students across all courses. www.ning.com. There is a teachers’ Ning at classroom20.ning.com
Wikis – these are online writing and collaboration spaces. www.wikispaces.com
Blogs – another online writing space, not just a web diary! Try edublogs.org and there are many others.
Jing – a video tool to make screen capture movies – useful for lesson recaps. www.jingproject.com
Where do I get help?
Like any new techy process, there is a bit of pain to go through to get started, but nothing that involves heavy-weight nerdiness. There are help documents and discussions in the Staff Moodle, there is a Moodle administrator (Tim Blackburn) and elearning guru (Steve Butler).
Pete Whitfield also has some funding this year (07-08) to support elearning development, so please feel free to make use of that.
pwhitfield@ccm.ac.uk 07958 708661
Any learning session should gather evidence of knowledge, so please respond (by posting a comment to this blog) to this quesion: How could online learning be most effectively used in your curriculum?
