Moodle - How do you like it?

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Permalink Reply by Lezlie Harris on January 4, 2009 at 8:00pm

I have been using Moodle for a few months and I love it! It is easy to learn and use. I have embedded Youtube videos, links to websites, created assignments to be completed online or uploaded, created forums for students discussions, and other activities. My students love it. I can view the stats about when and where they go on the site. They are all over it! Just learn one activity at a time. Moodle.com has great help pages that tell you step by step what you have to do.
Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Paula on January 5, 2009 at 9:49am

Thanks for sharing your experience Lezlie! How old are your students? have you been able to test their oral performance with postcasts uploaded to moodle?

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Permalink Reply by Sabrina Fu on January 5, 2009 at 4:39am

You can learn more about Moodle from http://www.moodle.org.

Hope it helps!

Sabrina

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Permalink Reply by Paula on January 5, 2009 at 9:50am

Thanks! I will have a look! Have you used it for your own teaching?

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Permalink Reply by Jay Lin on January 5, 2009 at 9:44am

Moodle is great for courses involving lots of writing. I'm not sure for math or science. I teach ESL and I love it. I'm using a fraction of its tools only.

check out my site at esl.unlocklearning.net

Jay

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Permalink Reply by Paula on January 5, 2009 at 9:51am

Thank you all for your answers, I will have a look at the sites you suggested. I will be dealing with "developing oral performance" I am not sure how useful moodle will be or how I will manage with 100 postcasts at a time! I will have to be very organized!

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Permalink Reply by Ivan Nieves on January 5, 2009 at 9:59am

Paula,

Are you using a locally hosted moodle solution, or some version where a site hosts your moodle implementation for you?
Bandwith is the issue. Moodle has video functionality, but it is cumbersome. Not to mention the more you invest in posting videos online, the greater the demand you are creating for your institution's serving out the video. If you have your user base inside the same network that you are serving, it's not a big deal. At my school a teacher can upload as much video as they want to moodle, as long as the students are viewing it on campus. But for a teacher to post a long video on a class page, then require for homework that all her students view the movies in one night, across the firewall, . . . that would kill us, network-traffic-wise. I understand that there probably would be privacy and acceptable use concerns with posting those podcasts to youtube, but you might want to consider another tool. Knowing a little more about your setup would help.

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Permalink Reply by acrozier22 on January 5, 2009 at 10:47am

You could always get a Mobile Me account to post videos to as well and then link them back to your moodle site. I know this is an extra cost but it's great for mac users to uploading video.

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Permalink Reply by Colin Matheson on January 5, 2009 at 11:54am

I enjoy using Moodle. The thing that Moodle adds to standard web 2.0 is the ability to really monitor activity and use so Moodle can really help with organization.
What you might do is create an assignment on your Moodle and have each student upload an audio file as their submission. This will help keep you organized, but only you get to hear the audio.

If you want students to hear each other's work then you can create a forum and have students attach their audio file. This is a little more difficult for you to manage, but ends up creating a more open/collaborative environment. You will have to check your course's file upload limit.

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Permalink Reply by Darcie Priester on January 5, 2009 at 12:34pm

I've used Moodle as an adult student and am now creating an online course using moodle. I had some difficulty getting used to it at first when developing my course, but once I understood how to set everything up I like it. I agree with Lezlie, learn to use one activity at a time. I still don't know what all of them can do! I have also added videos, links to other websites, and worksheets.

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Powell on January 5, 2009 at 1:35pm

I have used Moodle in my 7th grade mixed-level Language Arts classroom for the past four years. My students range of advanced to special needs and each student is able to function in our online classroom. They love it and I LOVE it! Not only is a terrific tool for organizing information, it also engages my students in learning and provides an equalized platform for every child. Moodle provides a certain level of "anonymity" which enables students who otherwise might keep their thoughts to themselves a way to add to the ongoing classroom discussion.

The online format is condusive for snagging/keeping their attention thanks to the fact that technology is not intimidating to most teens (at all). In lieu of writing our daily agenda on the board, my students know to check our class news forum: Check It Out! If they don't know what's going on, all I have to ask is, "Did you check it out first?" It's a great way to shoulder THEM with the responsibility of their education.

I use the platform to conduct classroom debates, stream music or videos, link to other usable sites, collect their data, invisibly group by readiness (much easier online than in the physical classroom). My students have learned to embed data, so now they can use other Web2.0 or SaS applications to create and turn in products in our classroom.

Another way I use Moodle is for testing. As department chair, I have guided my whole L.A. dept away from excess paper consumption for common assessment testing. We use so much less paper as a team now...our administration is def. pleased :)

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Permalink Reply by Paula on January 5, 2009 at 8:21pm

I can`t thank enough for all the valuable information all of you have shared with me! All of them very positive. I see I may find Moodle interesting. As regards the set up that Ivan was asking about, I know very little. School is on holidays now in Argentina and I was only told very little before leaving last December. I will find out more in February, but I wanted to start on my own, to learn about it, and I tell you, you have been of very good help!
thanks a lot.

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