Virtual Classrooms

I try to be creative and innovative in my approach to teaching . . . I've just about perfected the game show approach to education (name a tv show and I'll think of a classroom application!!) . . . but I'm not convinced about the Ultranet-everything-online-24/7 approach. I don't think that the majority of students are ready for it . . .

. . . however, today I took the next step in my personal evolution in online education . . . I now have a virtual classroom on moodle! I know it's been around for a while but I have had neither time nor inclination to use it. I've taken the plunge and established an online VCE H&HD class. My students all successfully logged on and started exploring. The next test will be to see how many of them actually make use of all the 'extra' stuff I have put there for them to extend themselves.

For my part I have had a lot of fun gathering resources and working out learning sequences . . .

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Comment by Tammy Moore on March 26, 2009 at 6:25am: Congrats on the Moodle! I think you will have fun. One nice thing about Moodle is it sure will give you planty of ways to see if it is successful. You can see who used what resources and when. If you do any online quizzes you have some really wonderful item analysis tools that let you analyse the success or failure of questions. If you utilize the tools, I think you will find it will begin to find it will save you a lot of work in the long run. I use the quiz feature to give the kids a way to see if they are understanding the concepts before the exam. I have it set up so that they can take it as many times as they wish and only the highest score goes to the gradebook - great study incentive. You can set up the quiz to self score, so it doesn't add any more labor time in for you beyond setting it up. The kids get immediate feedback in tha they can submit their answer to a question immediately upon answering it or finish the whole quiz and then submit to get feedback right away on the whole. I can access their answers and see everything they answered and how many tries it took to get the right one. That is very helpful to me to see where they are struggling. I use many more tools in Moodle than that, so if you ever hit a stumbling block or have a question, feel free to contact me. :0)

Comment by Helen Digby on March 29, 2009 at 4:42pm: Thanks Tammy . . . as I said I am new to moodle even though I know it's been around for a while. I appreciate your comments and support . . . the quiz feature is the next thing I want to experiment with!!

Comment by Helen Digby on August 30, 2009 at 6:44pm: Well, talk about an explosion of technology . . . I wish I had jumped in to Moodle ages ago :-)

We are nearly at the end of our year 12 (high school graduation) ... and I have been using moodle extensively to create courses for my Human Development and Literature classes. I had hoped that the 'better' students (those that rank highest in assessments) would have used the extra stuff I put on the virtual classroom to extend themselves. This actually turned out to be quite idealistic and completely unrealistic . . . however . . . my best moodle users . . . the ones who keep me motivated to work on the moodle . . . are my lower ranked students. They tell me that when they don't quite 'get' something we are talking about in class, they go on the moodle and play a game or read an article I have posted and things fall into place. It gives them time to think and process without the pressure of the bell going and interrupting them!

I also have a class timetabled on a day when I am not actually at school (I work part-time . . . don't panic -it is a very small class of 4 literature students). I have been using the lesson and quiz features to create sessions for this day . . . I also log on for 10 minutes during their session so they can ask questions (and it's rare not to find a location to log on to the internet no matter where I am . . . even if I am shopping - u gotta love macdonald's!!). This has been quite effective and means we can dedicate our time in class together to discussing the texts in detail.

This term I am introducing my Yr9/10 Health Ed students to their virtual classroom . . . *takes a deep breath and dives in*