Moodle and Me

I’ve decided to quit yammering on and put my money where my mouth is.

I’m preparing an installation of Moodle to use in my classes next year. My preliminary plan is to use the Moodle install to differentiate instruction and to allow students to choose what and when they want to learn something in mathematics.

I’ve tried to use Moodle before and I just found the package to be too large…and too difficult to play with as compared to Wordpress. I was wrong. I was just lazy. Moodle is no more difficult to use than Wordpress. The only major difference is that the use of Moodle on the net isn’t as prevalent as Wordpress. Hopefully I can help to change that.

So far, I’ve got the basic skeleton of the site set up and I’m still playing around with live teleconferening via WizIQ, creating my question bank for quiizes, adding links to useful sites and software, and finally…trying to figure out how to get the kids to teach themselves real world, and somewhat odd, mathematics applications such as cryptography.

Needless to say, I’ve bitten off a lot…and I’ll be needing a lot of assistance in getting this bad boy up and running for the 2009-2010 school years. So…is anyone out there in the Edu-Tech Blogosphere using Moodle ? If so…would you care to help a brother out ?

Tags: moodle, regular, teachers, wordpress

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Comment by Lynn Gerrish on March 5, 2009 at 7:43pm: I've been using Moodle for two years in my classes. Two classes are geared to be strictly online classes, with my other classes using Moodle to upload a few assignments, add journal entries, visit sites I list, listen to podcasts and view videos. There is so much that can be done with Moodle. Students can set up portfolios, chat in class, check their assignments and grades. I love it.

Comment by Jovan D. Miles on March 6, 2009 at 5:52am: @ Lynn...I'm really interested to know more about how you use Moodle for student portfolios. I'd really like to get my math students reflecting on their own learning.

@ Matt...do you just set up different classes for the posting of videos/websites or have you dedicated an entire section to that ?

I'd really like to take a look at both of your Moodle sites. Would you be so kind as to provide me the link so I can take a look around ? Thanks!

here is what I have so far...again...this is just the preliminary stages of design and implementation

http://www.milesacademy.net/classroom

Comment by Jovan D. Miles on March 10, 2009 at 2:42pm: Thanks for the link and the access Matt. You gave me some good ideas that I plan to borrow for my own install.

I've posted another blog concerning my thougts on what the "21st century school" should look and feel like after listening to the most recent 4 guys talking podcast.

Take a look. I'd really like to collaborate with you and others.

Comment by Eric Federspiel on March 17, 2009 at 11:41am: I've just been told by my district that Moodle is a better choice than WordPress MU. I've been exploring the Moodle website, and find it much more difficult to navigate than WordPress. Is that simply because the district has yet to install Moodle? The demo just isn't that helpful.