using moodle
Phelps, W. (2010, Oct.) Using Moodle. CESL Colloquium, Language Media Center, So. Illinois University.
Since I am the organizer of the CESL Colloquium, I post this to show that it happened, but more importantly, in order to save my own notes for future reference. A lot is going on in this area, and much of what was said could be explored further or better explained. These are merely my presentation notes.
Moodle is a CMS (classroom management system) or a VLE (virtual learning environment) and is a huge database that must be downloaded onto your server before it's of any use. It is like Blackboard, which costs universities upwards of $100,000 per year but which is plagued with problems, to the extent that teachers who rely on it are begging to know more about Moodle, which is free, and open source. Our university uses Blackboard and actually pays people to explain it & teach teachers how to use it. CESL however uses Moodle since our students are not technically university students, thus are locked out of Blackboard. Full professors even in our own hallway ask me about Moodle and want to know how it can be accessed.
Moodle was originally a PhD dissertation project of a guy, Martin Dougiamas, who was working on WebCT at the time. The first version, 1.0, appeared in 1999; now they are at 1.9.9 + and working on 2.0 which may come out in December or soon after. There is a consortium of people who work on it. It was described as "like a Ponzi scheme only everyone shares information instead of money, and it's easier to get to the top of it."
If you innovate or write code that people approve of, it gets integrated into Moodle; an example is the code that allows us to do attendance. This was an interesting sidelight, by the way; most of us teachers consider complex attendance numbering (ok, we give 2 pts/class hour, but we sometimes have 2.5 hours a day) the bane of our existence. But it is a challenge to Moodle programmers, and someone in Russia had figured it out (but, unfortunately, explained it in Russian)...Moodle is available in 88 different languages (better than BB, not as good as Wikipedia)...50,000 people or groups are using it in 210 countries. One TA here at SIUC was impressed by it in her short time at CESL, so downloaded it onto her own server, and continued to use it in her teaching elsewhere.
The presentation went over what it does; how to get answers; how to figure out how to use it; how to use its forums; how to upload links, movies, papers, assignments, etc.; how to use functions that it has such as Chat, Choice, Database, Forum, Glossary, Lesson, Quiz, SCORM/AICC, Survey, and Wiki; how and where you can download it (must have MYSQL and PhP) and even the hosts (
BlueHost and
JustHost) one might use to get one's own web server. Finally we also got to see Bill's
own domain and his family's favorite youtube,
Hey ya, by Obadiah Parker.
Labels: blackboard, cesl, siuc, wikipedia
105 arrives
It's a busy time; I'll be the first to say, I'm letting this poor blog rust a little in the fall dew. A lot of personal issues keep me occupied; at work, I'm the new grammar coordinator (see below) which brings an enormous material-shuffling responsibility which I'm not quite caught up on. For a variety of reasons I'm way behind on everything, but I thought I'd comment on the aspects of the world that I see rushing by like rocks in a river that one is rafting on.
Google docs - my first apology is for not putting my writing on google docs better, more clearly, more cleanly; I need a lesson, and haven't had time to get it. I'm a fan of google (this blog remains, years after others have faded or become unavailable)...and I've found no better place to put things. But I haven't had time.
Facebook - CESL Facebook continues to be quite a sleepy spot, with few new pictures and an occasional ungrammatical post. As some students post great pictures on their own sites, I don't even link to them or point them out. Why should I? Would this really help CESL? Or are we better off having a sleepy, but decent, spot?
In the larger picture, Facebook now has a "Places" option and once again makes you part of it whether you're aware of it or not, and you have to be well aware of all the privacy controls on the inside of your account, to change anything. With this "places" option any of your friends can know exactly where you are (and why, again, would I want this?)...and this of course assumes that all our friends have secure accounts, which are not subject to the kind of tampering that makes one of my friends, already, try to sell me some kind of spam junk. No, I'm sure all my friends are ok, and so are theirs, and theirs, although I'm also aware that quite a few accounts have been broken into. But, again, why would I want
all these people to know where I am, all the time?
Grammar as a discrete topic - We remain one of a minority of programs which teach grammar as separate from writing, speaking, etc. Our students remain grammar-challenged at the top, whether that be because they were grammar-challenged to begin with, because a discrete class doesn't help them (and even
hurts them???)...or because whatever we've been doing, we haven't been doing well. I intend to find out and advocate for the best solution (furthermore, I'm interested in your opinion). I have the chance to put into practice several fundamental aspects of my philosophy: 1) grammar is more about applying principles when making sentences, than about filling in the proper form in a blank; 2) grammar is not rocket science; if the vast majority of American children can understand and learn it, adults can too; 3) when adults learn a complete system, questions about the big picture are inevitable, but answering these questions is basically a distraction from the problem at hand, which is stated in #1; and, finally, 4) every class must keep the big picture in mind, even while rushing through minor grammar points, pressuring the students, getting them to learn single isolated patterns; the big question is, are they taking everything they have learned, and using it successfully? I say, if we haven't applied these principles successfully, then we haven't
tested out whether a discrete grammar class can help a program. And I intend to try.
Self-organized system theory - I've done virtually nothing about this, being too busy. Too bad. It's a theory dying to be spelled out. And it may have to wait until I retire!
Google Wave - Came and went, without me even trying it. Too bad! If I had designed it, it would have had more pop art in it, I suppose.
Nings - seem to be out of the picture. Again, I barely knew what they were. My yahoo e-mail address was cancelled, because I didn't log on enough. Free things are taken away, faster than you can sign up for them. My new philosophy is: simplify! Either that, or log on regularly, just as a matter of course.
TESOL 2011 - Love New Orleans, love TESOL, might miss them both. Sorry! I did make proposals. But I always do, and my faith in their innovative character is running a little low.
Weblogs - I still use them. But there is so little interest from the rest of the faculty that I barely keep them current. I am having trouble, in fact, keeping them presentable, when students more often post on the
wrong ones than the right ones; when students confuse it with the moodle, etc. To me there is still great benefit in making work public. The light and the air hit it. People see it and read it. It becomes part of the scenery; it shows what we do, what we read and what we write. I'm proud of that. But I apparently am a voice in the wilderness here. And even with the advent of mass spamming (which plagues the blogspot system), it's still worth it.
Moodle - a great system here has spared me from whining and moaning about Blackboard and its monopolistic byzantine system. Instead, full professors are whining and moaning about Blackboard, and we are using a system called Moodle which is working well, downloaded for free. It's kind of like the way the university switched over from a private e-mail server that cost tens of thousands, to g-mail, which was free, and wondered for years how that was even possible. But it was, and they did it. This system also is plagued with some spamming; people need to figure out how to get these porn junkies off of the interstate. But in every other way, it seems to be a huge, and wonderful, innovation in the world of education. It's a system, a meeting place, a glass window showing everyone everything. Both enlightening, and dangerous.
Labels: blackboard, facebook, personal, self-organized systems, weblogs
another term flies
As I sit here, we are heading into a Thanksgiving break, and then, another Christmas break, which is really quite long, and gives us a little time to breathe, as teachers who really only have this one season. But I also would like to reflect a little on trends in the field, and what is happening around me.
First, I am lucky, I'm sure, to still be working in a rapidly contracting world, where jobs in particular are flying, and everyone, it seems, is looking for new and clever ways to make a living. I'm surprised more of them don't end up in places like China, Brazil, or Ireland, where they still have an economy and they hire bright people to do cool things. I frankly don't know what will happen to esl/efl around the world; the crashing dollar has traditionally been good for our field, but a complete lack of jobs elsewhere in the country might not be so great.
Second, the rapid gain of technology in all fields is of course both a curse and a blessing. Who has really integrated it successfully? The divide between the online teaching world, and the brick-and-mortar traditionalists, is getting wider, coming to blows even. Teachers are threatened by those who are willing to "do it online" for cheaper, and from any corner of the world, like Phoenix, or 'Smith University.' I actually am not so quick to criticize the quality of online instruction, or quick to ridicule the traditional teachers' fears; both are valid, and there is no way to reconcile them, really. Any talk about a "New Academy" (I've copied the link below a few posts) is a little early; nobody's changing, or if they do, it's over their dead bodies, pretty much. Administrations see the future and try to push teachers into "online development". Teachers see the future and dig in their heels, doing what they've always done. And I'm speaking even for myself, a leader in the technology-integration area. When I'm out of time, and the chips are down, I do what I've always done. It's "teaching" as I know it, and, I'm always short of time.
The static web, and the blogs, for that matter, have the look and feel of foreclosed houses. I've become impatient with my own inability to get around and fix all the broken links, update wherever possible, keep things shiny and useful. The world moves onto Facebook and Twitter, and we, left behind in our old pictures and ancient design, have nothing to say, except, "we've been here forever." The blogs feel so much like "old media" that I have trouble presenting them to students as "fresh;" they, for their part, don't seem to mind, but I have less time to ask them, and we have trouble just getting their skills up to the point where they can really use English with each other, and they of course are seeing things a lot more in terms of tests, and particularly the TOEFL, which they need to pass yesterday if not sooner.
This talk about the "New Academy" being all more collaborative, also, doesn't sit well with me. I like collaboration; I'm all for it, and feel that when we work together we get the best of all our skills combined. But, I find it hard to set up and maintain. I think there are thousands of wikis out there that are, basically, blogs with 1 1/2 users; actually, there is lots of real collaboration out there too, but I'm not sure a single busy teacher like me really has access to ways to make it work in our favor. My own way of storing information, literally on blogs and static webpages, is hopelessly outmoded, but I haven't had time to explore diigo or even exploit twitter for all it's worth. The collective wisdom is rich and many-layered; but, the free moments of a teacher under pressure are so scarce, it's all I can do to produce my students' grades.
The program has a new Moodle; this is good; we were not doing well in getting Blackboard or getting our students to have access to it. The Moodle is interesting. I, however, have been too busy; I scarcely know it. I'm interested though. If my students can have instant access to all their grades, everything that's happening, everything I know or have to say, why shouldn't I give it to them? I do, after all, teach them English first, teach them how to make sense of this world, second. Sense, that is, as I know it, best foot forward, showing them our world. Our rapidly changing world. Have a good break; I hope you get some rest.
Barone, C. (2009).
The New Academy.
EduCause. http://www.educause.edu/Resources/EducatingtheNetGeneration/TheNewAcademy/6068. Accessed 10-09.
Labels: blackboard, cesl, facebook, internet, personal, weblogs
stuff to read
Francis, D. (2008, Nov. 8).
Obama: world's first tech revolutionary.
National Post. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/francis/archive/2008/11/07/second-thoughts.aspx. Accessed 11-08. Interesting comments.
Jarvis, J. (2008, Oct. 13).
The WWGD? World. The Buzz Machine. http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/10/13/the-wwgd-world/. Accessed 11-08.
Massey, L. (2008, Nov. 9).
What does the rise of "snack-size" communication mean for writers? Write Livelihood weblog. http://writelivelihood.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/what-does-the-rise-of-%e2%80%9csnack-size-communication%e2%80%9d-mean-for-writers/. Accessed 11-08.
Dawson, C. (2008, Oct. 30).
Classroom 2.0 and the joys of Ning. ZDNet. http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1928&tag=nl.e623. Accessed 11-08.
Ferguson, B. (2008, Nov. 5).
Blackboard update causes bugs for online courses.
Hornet, Fullerton College. http://media.www.fchornet.com/media/storage/paper921/news/2008/11/05/Local/Blackboard.Update.Causes.Bugs.For.Online.Courses-3525618.shtml. Accessed 11-08.
Labels: bib, blackboard, internet, writing
blackboard training
JP Dunn gave us a training workshop last Friday, as we are putting CESL onto the blackboard system. It was a long workshop, and it was very possible that I missed a few details, given the demands of the week. However I thought he did a good job showing it to us, and I learned quite a bit, as I will share if possible. Forgive me if this is more a notepad than anything else. Some of this information I didn't want to lose.
Blackboard bought WebCT about 18 months ago, and is merging the BB system with the WebCT system, so will surely change again soon. At the moment, all users must have a network ID, and this causes big headaches for them & Mr. Dunn. When the Banner system comes online (next fall - maybe?) student names will appear on the roster immediately after registering for a course, but now they don't; he has to have a marathon name-entering session though it's now down to 4 hours to cover 1800 students (I later heard that there were 1800
classes now on BB...my notes now make me doubt what I heard).
Mr. Dunn recommends Firefox. IE has problems. We soon found out that Firefox (on mac) had problems also, some of which were solved when we were on Safari. Some versions of Safari work, he said. FF3 is working fine (but I assume he was referring to PC's). If you have a pop-up blocker you need to remove it so that it will function properly. No network ID? Forgot your PIN? Go to Woody Hall. Some of this reflects his ongoing nightmares.
As a teacher, you can sign on to be an instructor AND designer; be sure to ask for both if you want them. Instructors can control TA access. In some departments, instructors want TA's doing everything.
In BB, tests are ungraded. Quizes are graded. It's counterintuitive. Get used to it. HTML & PDF work best, not word documents. When you import an html document, and you want to see it, go into the TEACH mode;
AVOID the back button, especially when developing. Use the bread crumbs (little buttons).
Mr. Dunn has received 25,000 misdirected e-mails; all have gone straight into the trash. This raised my eyebrow a little. Is he getting hate mail? Are people sending notes to their teachers? Did they think the teacher got the note?
Most of us were using Firefox on macs (except for me, a kind of habitual safari user). FF didn't have
enable html creator, but safari had it, under EDIT HEADER. There's always problems, he said. You should see U of I, where the lab is in an old church, and the macs are all in the cry room. I kid you not. There was more to this story but I missed it.
pdf- they need functioning Adobe Acrobat, which some people don't have; the machine in our LMC didn't have it, because we used another kind of pdf reader. ppt. files require the user to have ppt installed, whereas pps files don't require the user to have it; that's the difference.
In the Dental Hygiene school all the students make webpages (right on the spot I went looking for them, but couldn't find them).
Don't make 12:00 the deadline for an assignment, or you'll get into eternal wrangling with your students over what exactly is 12:00 pm.
SIUC is on its second $250 000 server and will probably need a third; it's considering outsourcing webmail to Google, where g-mail will do everything webmail does but for free. The expense of the webmail software is outrageous; nobody can believe that g-mail will work or do it for free; it awaits board approval, but, basically, that's what they concluded. Why not save the money?
That's all for now; catch you on the upswing.
Labels: blackboard, cesl, internet, siuc
Blackboard
I'm just beginning an investigation into Blackboard. OK, I've heard it was clunky, had a steep learning curve, buggy, etc. for years. And, they bought out that other nightmare course management system, WebCT, whose name I purposely forget, because of my own inability to manage its interface, and the hours of time wasted.
The questions really are probably best not put out here; they are somewhat general, but can be inferred from my sources. The sources will hopefully get at how useful it is in general, or whether it's better to wait for something well-made to come along. This has been my argument, but, what do I know? Here goes. I hereby tag thee: Blackboard.
Young, J. (2008, May 14).
Blackboard unveils application to bring course updates to Facebook Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2997/blackboard-unveils-application-to-bring-course-updates-to-facebook. Accessed 6-08.
Finkelstein, J. & Pittinsky, M. (2003, Feb.).
The evolving role of course management system providers in the transformation of education: An interview with Blackboard's Matthew Pittinsky.
The Technology Source Archives, Univ. of N.C. http://technologysource.org/article/evolving_role_of_course_management_system_providers_in_the_transformation_of_education/. Accessed 6-08.
Briggs, L. (2008, June 4).
Gartner: E-Learning market pushing toward open-source.
Campus Technology. http://campustechnology.com/articles/63629/. Accessed 6-08.
http://updates.zdnet.com/tags/blackboard.htmlBlackboard Resources on ZDNet
Labels: blackboard, cesl, facebook, internet
