The discussion of this started in the Book Module forum but I wanted to move it here since it is a course format issue: See here and here
Envisaging a whole course as a book has the danger of promoting online learning as simply a process of transmission ... think this through carefully ...
I was envisioning a course format where the focus of all activities was a certain resource, not simply a rote transmission of information. In this case, I'm not so much thinking of the book being a textbook type of book, but rather something else.
The first example I thought of was a literature teacher. Imagine a teacher who was teaching the literature of George Orwell for example. Now I know his works are out of copyright in Australia and you can download them as text files from the internet so designing a course with the actual text of the book inside the course would be very easy and legal (at least in Australia). Instead of weeks or units, you would have books. You could center a course around one or more books. If the book were 1984, you could have students create glossaries of doublespeak that would automatically link to the doublespeak words in 1984. You could have students create journal entries reflecting on each chapter as they read it, or comprehension quizzes to make sure the students are actually doing the reading as they read each chapter that would require them to answer questions about that chapter. You could have activities that were only linked to to a certain part of the book (e.g. the example of journal entries), or in the case of the glossary it would be for the entire book.
Now I'm going to give another example of book format that is very different just to show how it could work for a variety of types of courses, and it might require improving the ability to incorporate images into Moodle (which is something I'd like to see more of personally). Imagine an art teacher, teaching the works of Picasso, Monet etc. Each book would be a gallery of that artist's works, and the chapters could be thought of as rooms in a museum, and related activities would be linked to those various rooms.
In a way, it is a variation on the topic format, but instead of giving equal primacy to all activities in the topic as in the topic format, the focus would be on the multipage resource(s)/book(s)/gallery(ies), whatever you want to call it.
W Page, I'm afraid I can't come up with a visual layout of what I'm thinking of, but perhaps someone else can.
The first example I thought of was a literature teacher. Imagine a teacher who was teaching the literature of George Orwell for example. Now I know his works are out of copyright in Australia and you can download them as text files from the internet so designing a course with the actual text of the book inside the course would be very easy and legal (at least in Australia). Instead of weeks or units, you would have books. You could center a course around one or more books. If the book were 1984, you could have students create glossaries of doublespeak that would automatically link to the doublespeak words in 1984. You could have students create journal entries reflecting on each chapter as they read it, or comprehension quizzes to make sure the students are actually doing the reading as they read each chapter that would require them to answer questions about that chapter. You could have activities that were only linked to to a certain part of the book (e.g. the example of journal entries), or in the case of the glossary it would be for the entire book.
Now I'm going to give another example of book format that is very different just to show how it could work for a variety of types of courses, and it might require improving the ability to incorporate images into Moodle (which is something I'd like to see more of personally). Imagine an art teacher, teaching the works of Picasso, Monet etc. Each book would be a gallery of that artist's works, and the chapters could be thought of as rooms in a museum, and related activities would be linked to those various rooms.
In a way, it is a variation on the topic format, but instead of giving equal primacy to all activities in the topic as in the topic format, the focus would be on the multipage resource(s)/book(s)/gallery(ies), whatever you want to call it.
W Page, I'm afraid I can't come up with a visual layout of what I'm thinking of, but perhaps someone else can.
I thought of another example, a history teacher. The "books" in this case would not be "textbooks" but primary sources that formed the focus of related activities. This is in my opinion what should be the focus of a good history course, primary documents, not a textbook with all of the interpretations it contains. Students should be forced to interpret the documents themselves. I'll give an example, if I were teaching a course on the reign of Ramesses II, my course might consist of three books. The first would be historical texts of Ramesses II, each text having its own chapter in the book. The second book might be a collection of private documents produced during his reign, again each document with a chapter. The third might be a gallery of images of monuments from his reign, with each "room" being devoted to a particular monument.
This does sound almost perfect for the existing topic format to me ... why not just format each topic with a resource as the first item, and then the associated activities under it? You can indent the activities to make it clearer they belong to that resource ... and you can add labels to make the section look prettier with images etc ...
There's a fundamental conceptual difference however between having a topic as a focus and having a book as a focus. I think of a topic as an empty box with a name into which you put different activities, whereas a book in the myriad of forms I outlined is a substansive tangible hub around which other activities are grouped.
I guess what I was thinking of (and sorry again to W Page for no visuals) was something that looked like a topic on the main page, you could have all of the chapters listed within the topic, but when you clicked on one of those chapters, you would be immediately taken to something that looked like the book module, with a table of contents on the side. Each chapter could have its own associated activities, while there could be certain activities that related to the book as a whole. Where (on the page) and how (drop down list, block, etc.) these related activities would be displayed in relation to the book pages would need to be decided.
I don't quite see how the current topic module could accomodate the linking of specific activities with a specific "chapter," unless each chapter had its own topic. In which case, you would probably have to add another level to the structure to accomodate courses that had as their focus multiple books with multiple books each.
I guess what I was thinking of (and sorry again to W Page for no visuals) was something that looked like a topic on the main page, you could have all of the chapters listed within the topic, but when you clicked on one of those chapters, you would be immediately taken to something that looked like the book module, with a table of contents on the side. Each chapter could have its own associated activities, while there could be certain activities that related to the book as a whole. Where (on the page) and how (drop down list, block, etc.) these related activities would be displayed in relation to the book pages would need to be decided.
I don't quite see how the current topic module could accomodate the linking of specific activities with a specific "chapter," unless each chapter had its own topic. In which case, you would probably have to add another level to the structure to accomodate courses that had as their focus multiple books with multiple books each.
I knew there had to be something out there that expressed the ideas I've got a bit more well-thought out, in more detail, and with lots of examples:
http://learning.loc.gov/learn/lessons/index.html
In particular, check out the four topics in the pink box.
http://learning.loc.gov/learn/lessons/index.html
In particular, check out the four topics in the pink box.
Each chapter would have it's own topic, yes. For example, topics 1-10.
You would just continue a second set of chapters after the first, topics 11-20.
I'm still nto sure what you're getting at, but I still think calling it the "Book" format is probably misleading.
You would just continue a second set of chapters after the first, topics 11-20.
I'm still nto sure what you're getting at, but I still think calling it the "Book" format is probably misleading.
I agree that "book" format might be misleading. It's just that it developed out of the ideas that people were putting forward for the book module and how it could be structured. Perhaps "resource-centric" format would be a better name for it?
Topic-set
Hello N and Martin,
I must say I did not initially post the idea of a Book format (which I believe belongs to someone else - have not had a chance to look back yet) in the "Course Formats" forum because I had wanted folks that were not familiar with the "Book" mod to DL it and get a flavor for it first before conceptualizing it as a possible new course format. But N moved the discussion here and placed background links in the initial post. It seems to be jumping off so let's get on with it here.
I look at the course formats as diffferent flavors of a similar thing and that is allowing students to build and retain information based on different introductions and approches to the information. To me different formats allow for more innovation by the instructor in creating interesting courses from lesson plans. For example, I can see a really neat learning interaction about "Safety in the Lab" in a Book format course.
Mick Churchward is working on code to allow additional corse formats with blocks in Moodle [At least this is how I understand it.] You can check out his work at this thread,.
New Course Formats and Blocks
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=10276
I will put out some kind of an initial layout (few days). If anyone else has a visual idea of what they would like to see please go ahead and post it. In the meanwhile I am reading the posts with interest.
WP1
I must say I did not initially post the idea of a Book format (which I believe belongs to someone else - have not had a chance to look back yet) in the "Course Formats" forum because I had wanted folks that were not familiar with the "Book" mod to DL it and get a flavor for it first before conceptualizing it as a possible new course format. But N moved the discussion here and placed background links in the initial post. It seems to be jumping off so let's get on with it here.
I look at the course formats as diffferent flavors of a similar thing and that is allowing students to build and retain information based on different introductions and approches to the information. To me different formats allow for more innovation by the instructor in creating interesting courses from lesson plans. For example, I can see a really neat learning interaction about "Safety in the Lab" in a Book format course.
Mick Churchward is working on code to allow additional corse formats with blocks in Moodle [At least this is how I understand it.] You can check out his work at this thread,.
New Course Formats and Blocks
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=10276
I will put out some kind of an initial layout (few days). If anyone else has a visual idea of what they would like to see please go ahead and post it. In the meanwhile I am reading the posts with interest.
WP1
I've been poking around some more on the American Memory Web site. I found some examples and I've been trying to conceptualize how they might work in Moodle. This one is a lesson for a novel. I think if you look at the detailed procedures they outline on a page linked to the one below for related activities and try to imagine them translated into Moodle, I think you can get a good idea how the book format might work. Note in particular how certain activities are supposed to be introduced at certain points in the book:
http://learning.loc.gov/learn/lessons/98/mock/intro.html
Here's another one I liked, and it demonstrates how the book format could be used with groups. The various sets of images could be separate chapters, and each group of students would be responsible for doing activities for a single chapter. This might be a case where you would want the activities to be related at a "book" level rather than a chapter level, because all students are required to do the same sort of work, but based on the contents of different chapters. The materials the students prepared in the activities would then be linked to the particular chapter they were relevant to:
http://learning.loc.gov/learn/lessons/98/mock/intro.html
That's all for now, just some food for thought.
Here's another one I liked, and it demonstrates how the book format could be used with groups. The various sets of images could be separate chapters, and each group of students would be responsible for doing activities for a single chapter. This might be a case where you would want the activities to be related at a "book" level rather than a chapter level, because all students are required to do the same sort of work, but based on the contents of different chapters. The materials the students prepared in the activities would then be linked to the particular chapter they were relevant to:
http://learning.loc.gov/learn/lessons/98/mock/intro.html
That's all for now, just some food for thought.
Why not put the global overview of the course in the sections and then give every group of students a eWiki. with for every group a (different) start set of pages in their eWiki?
(The advantage of the eWiki is that you still can see your students "on line" during their source collection/ordeming and writing of their summaries/reflections/(re)construction activities)
I toyed with the subsection several months ago, made my own version.
I am afraid, that bringing in more and more levels, disturbs the clear overview for "the student in control" and makes him/here again the slave of the computer like in the good old days of CBT (and their modern remakes)
So I came back to:
- the big line is in the sections/weeks.
- the subsection is only for a procedure with several steps. (lesson and workshop are also good examples on this level)
- do not make a course for a whole year, but divide it in (thematic?) moduls
(we do 4 a year, but making them smaller opens for students the way to free selectable moduls..)