Hi,
our school is currently looking to implement an online curriculum mapping process.
After looking long and hard it does not seem like there is any sort of existing open source software for this, or a moodle plugin or integration that might achieve it. Yet the two seem to go well together - one a planning and design tool, and the other delivering part of, or the entire curriculum plan.
Does anybody know of a plan that is in progress either to develop an open source program for curriculum mapping, or plans to develop it for Moodle etc?
Lael
Excellent question. My school is in the same place, and I'd love to be able to use Moodle rather than learning another software (and the school paying some company for what is basically a database).
I also saw this post http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=79557, but there's not much there.
Anyone have a response to Lael's question?
Lee
I also saw this post http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=79557, but there's not much there.
Anyone have a response to Lael's question?
Lee
The company our school has gone with is Atlas Rubicon, and they seem to do a good job at what they do.
Support is helpful, standards (cucrriculum or syllabus or non-americans) are loaded in and you can add them to courses etc. The overall effect looks like a word document with columns for various items such as essential questions ( the term comes out of a backwards design curriculum developemnt philosophy,) outcomes, knowledge, skills, etc.
In practice each unit is built using a form that is essentially text boxes down the page for each one of these (think any standard web text editor), goes into a database and allows viewing of that data in various forms.
It seems (and I am not a database / php developer) that it really would not be that difficult to develop, and that it would be incredibly useful for the whole moodle community. Particularly as it would help provide a (potentially) integrated tool to allow planning/ mapping of HOW to teach content - learning design.
My impresssion is that if a number of schools were to team together we could fund development and provide it to the moodle community as open-source. Standards etc could be formatted/entered by those interested in those standards, and downloaded/installed ready to import by anyone.
Perhaps even a database of learning strategies could be entered to help the teacher in choosing varied and effective techniques to teach the class - including selection of Moodle resources / learning activities, thus integrating easily.
Well - that is my dream... does anybody share it?
Support is helpful, standards (cucrriculum or syllabus or non-americans) are loaded in and you can add them to courses etc. The overall effect looks like a word document with columns for various items such as essential questions ( the term comes out of a backwards design curriculum developemnt philosophy,) outcomes, knowledge, skills, etc.
In practice each unit is built using a form that is essentially text boxes down the page for each one of these (think any standard web text editor), goes into a database and allows viewing of that data in various forms.
It seems (and I am not a database / php developer) that it really would not be that difficult to develop, and that it would be incredibly useful for the whole moodle community. Particularly as it would help provide a (potentially) integrated tool to allow planning/ mapping of HOW to teach content - learning design.
My impresssion is that if a number of schools were to team together we could fund development and provide it to the moodle community as open-source. Standards etc could be formatted/entered by those interested in those standards, and downloaded/installed ready to import by anyone.
Perhaps even a database of learning strategies could be entered to help the teacher in choosing varied and effective techniques to teach the class - including selection of Moodle resources / learning activities, thus integrating easily.
Well - that is my dream... does anybody share it?
Lael > Well - that is my dream... does anybody share it?
Sounds more like a nightmare than a dream to me. The whole idea of "standardizing learning" reminds me of the (in)famous Skinnerian view of machine-learning, totally the opposite of Moodle's social constructionist philosophy.
Joseph
Coudn't disagree with you more Joseph....
When you strip away all the humanistic hype, what you are really talking about vis-a-vis social constructionist philosophy (I am giving you the benefit of the doubt as it were by turning to the psychological literature, which hasn't been considered philosophy for some centuries now.....) is the building of an internalized structure through interaction..... which is functionally what Skinner was talking about, ad while behaviorism provides for detailed analysis of how to address what is taking place in the black box, developmental and cognitive psychology do not.
I fear you are reacting to groundless hysteria over the implications of behavior modification. Why get your shorts in a twist over something that has been proven over and over again just because it gives you the heebie jeebies (sp?)
We (the US) have an entire generation of students who failed to learn how to read because we dropped phonics (traditionally taught via DI which is essentially operant) and are about to lose a generation of Math students in the US because we have gone to Every Day Math (which relies on helical exploration and constructionism and which amazing enough fails to take place in the classroom.......)
The credence given education "philosophy" and "theory" is "religulous" (Bill Maher 2008). and the extension to the suggestion that "teachers are student too" not in a philosophical sense but in a practical sense is simply inane (when I start learning algebra from my 12 year old tutees I will be certain to let you know....) The social construction of reality (to borrow Berger and Luckmann's title, falls short when we try to walk through the brick wall together.....
When you strip away all the humanistic hype, what you are really talking about vis-a-vis social constructionist philosophy (I am giving you the benefit of the doubt as it were by turning to the psychological literature, which hasn't been considered philosophy for some centuries now.....) is the building of an internalized structure through interaction..... which is functionally what Skinner was talking about, ad while behaviorism provides for detailed analysis of how to address what is taking place in the black box, developmental and cognitive psychology do not.
I fear you are reacting to groundless hysteria over the implications of behavior modification. Why get your shorts in a twist over something that has been proven over and over again just because it gives you the heebie jeebies (sp?)
We (the US) have an entire generation of students who failed to learn how to read because we dropped phonics (traditionally taught via DI which is essentially operant) and are about to lose a generation of Math students in the US because we have gone to Every Day Math (which relies on helical exploration and constructionism and which amazing enough fails to take place in the classroom.......)
The credence given education "philosophy" and "theory" is "religulous" (Bill Maher 2008). and the extension to the suggestion that "teachers are student too" not in a philosophical sense but in a practical sense is simply inane (when I start learning algebra from my 12 year old tutees I will be certain to let you know....) The social construction of reality (to borrow Berger and Luckmann's title, falls short when we try to walk through the brick wall together.....
I love a good discussion and a frank and honest response.
As for a nightmare - in some ways it is - if your nightmare is documentation of what you are planning to teach - but for most of us - that is a way of life, and a crucial necessity. I think most (all?) teachers are beholden to administrators and various institutions that ask us to be accountable - to make most use of our time.
Using a tool to help plan what students will 'discover' and 'construct together' is no more a nightmare than the opposite which would hold that all planning is bad, and every student comes out of a course with a different set of core skills based on what they chose to learn...
The idea is not a tool that 'standardises everything, but allows teachers to effectively map out how they plan to deliver a course - and you are right.. some teachers might use it to map it out in a manner that is not how you would... it doesn't mean the tool is a bad idea?
does that make sense?
Certainly in Australia, and I believe the UK - keeping records as I am describing is required. Allowing them to be kept and updated in Moodle just seems more streamlined and effective to me.
Does it still sound like such a nightmare?
As for a nightmare - in some ways it is - if your nightmare is documentation of what you are planning to teach - but for most of us - that is a way of life, and a crucial necessity. I think most (all?) teachers are beholden to administrators and various institutions that ask us to be accountable - to make most use of our time.
Using a tool to help plan what students will 'discover' and 'construct together' is no more a nightmare than the opposite which would hold that all planning is bad, and every student comes out of a course with a different set of core skills based on what they chose to learn...
The idea is not a tool that 'standardises everything, but allows teachers to effectively map out how they plan to deliver a course - and you are right.. some teachers might use it to map it out in a manner that is not how you would... it doesn't mean the tool is a bad idea?
does that make sense?
Certainly in Australia, and I believe the UK - keeping records as I am describing is required. Allowing them to be kept and updated in Moodle just seems more streamlined and effective to me.
Does it still sound like such a nightmare?
How about moving the discussion of "whether" one should map to another topic. Let's keep this discussion of "how" one can map in Moodle, as this is the initial question raised. I share Lael's dream.
Feel free to add a link here to a thread of "whether" to curriculum map.
In particular, I appreciated Lael's suggestion that several schools might be able to finance/build a Mapping module. I agree that it probably would not be that difficult to create.
Teachers at my school is being told that we will input data for a year or two before reports will show much, so if we could get the framework of the database together (and the ability for schools to easily import the "state standards" they require), there fine-tuning of necessary reports would have a bit more time.
My skills are limited, but if there are others out there who think they might be able to talk their schools into financing/loaning programmers, lets' talk!
Lee
Feel free to add a link here to a thread of "whether" to curriculum map.
In particular, I appreciated Lael's suggestion that several schools might be able to finance/build a Mapping module. I agree that it probably would not be that difficult to create.
Teachers at my school is being told that we will input data for a year or two before reports will show much, so if we could get the framework of the database together (and the ability for schools to easily import the "state standards" they require), there fine-tuning of necessary reports would have a bit more time.
My skills are limited, but if there are others out there who think they might be able to talk their schools into financing/loaning programmers, lets' talk!
Lee
The Mapping tools I've seen seem to do things in a range of different ways - I'm interested to hear what people would want in a Mapping module inside Moodle - Lee/Lael, perhaps you could create a page in docs.moodle.org with an outline of the features you would expect from a mapping module? - even if it's not something that gets taken up at this stage, it could be useful for other to refer to?
good start! - I'm wondering if there could be something done with the database module in Moodle that would fulfill some of the requirements around curriculum mapping?
at the moment in it's current form, you would need an instance of the database module for each course you were mapping, so searching across curriculum maps would be limited.... but it would be worth a try to see what extra features were needed?
at the moment in it's current form, you would need an instance of the database module for each course you were mapping, so searching across curriculum maps would be limited.... but it would be worth a try to see what extra features were needed?
This a very interesting discussion regarding using Moodle as not only a CMS tool, but also to map curriculum. We are looking for 1 tool that can do it all as well. Currently, we are using RIEPS (R.I. Electronic Portfolio System), which is based on the open source Sakai. The orginal intent of the RIEPS system was to support electronic graduation portfolios in R.I.
However, we are now using the course management tools available through Sakai, as well as the portfolio creation tools. In my district in Portsmouth R.I., we are also trying to use RIEPS to map our curriculum, although this is really a work in progress. I'm a technology integration teachers, so I really can't speak to the technical aspects of the system development.
Currently, we input assignments and then link the assignments to the appropriate standards electronically within the system. We are currently trying to get some useful reports out of the system so that we can show evidence to the state and NEASC regarding how we are mapping our curriculum as part of our graduation plan etc.
RINET (R.I. Network for Educational Technology) is our consortium that provides us with support for the RIEPS product. They are the ones who input all of the R.I. standards (called GSEs and GLEs in R.I.) into the system so that teachers could then link their assignments to these standards. We are trying to get all of our teachers on board in using a UBD template (essentially a word document) to create all of their lesson plans with as well.
Thought you all might be interested in this work that Sakai is working on, since it directly relates to what you would like to see in Moodle. rSmart is the vendor who is currently working with RINET to further develop the Sakai capabilities.
For more information about RIEPS, RINET and Sakai, here are some links:
Thank you for this good start. Atlas curriculum mapping is time-consuming and frustrating for many, in part because it is divorced from the courses it maps. Since Moodle houses a school's actual courses, it would be most excellent if the mapping could be a layer on top of what's already there.
Could the description field, which most of my teachers presently ignore, be used to some good effect? With carefully pre-selected tags, perhaps? A good sorting mechanism so that I could see description fields and tags for all Math courses, or in a K-12 school, all Middle School Math courses?
Overall there would need to be a Web showing the interrelatedness of the courses and their content to one another.
Could the description field, which most of my teachers presently ignore, be used to some good effect? With carefully pre-selected tags, perhaps? A good sorting mechanism so that I could see description fields and tags for all Math courses, or in a K-12 school, all Middle School Math courses?
Overall there would need to be a Web showing the interrelatedness of the courses and their content to one another.
So, what's up? I just stumbled onto this thread. The idea of a Moodle-integrated curriculum mapping routine/block would be excellent. I hope it didn't die out.
+1 for curriculum mapping.
Any updates on this?
Any updates on this?
Am also very interested in how this coming along.
I'm very interested in this. A mapping tool would need to be open enough for each user to define the type and number of parameters, so I'm wondering if just using the Database Module is the way to go.
Hi Maer
I also thought that the database module was a way to start.
In another forum are the details of my first attempts
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=175869
Cheers
Alex
I keep losing this message and so am reposting it here. John Jackson, how are things going?
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=117150
New Curriculum Mapping Block in development
by John Jackson - Monday, 23 February 2009, 11:41 AM
Greetings,
The purpose of this post is to inform the Moodle community that we are close to completing a new Moodle block that is designed to facilitate the design of competency based curricula. This work has been funded through a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant and is about two years in the making. The tools will support several functions:
* Design of curriculums maps relating Competencies (a.k.a. educational goals), Professional Abilities (a.k.a. learning objectives), Learning Activities, and Assessments.
* Submission of learning activities (a.k.a. lesson plans) by educators with associated searchable metadata.
* Review of submitted materials by an editorial team, with support for revision cycles.
* Searching and browsing of curriculum maps and their related learning object repositories.
* Rating of learning objects by editorial staff and/or public browsers via a star rating system.
* Checking out materials from the learning object repositories via a shopping cart model.
* Packaging of selected curricula items, with a dynamically created curriculum description including links to learning activities and assessments.
* Tracking of downloads and follow up surveying of users.
We plan to submit this toolset to the Moodle development community for review in the second quarter of 2009.
AND
Intended uses of this tool are for organizations to design curriculum maps and develop associated learning object repositories, either for internal use or external distribution.
Our tool is designed to support curriculum designers, regardless of what LMS is used to deliver courses. When designing a curriculum map, you can upload any type of document as a learning object, or point to the URL of a learning resource that resides anywhere. So while there will be some advantages if an institution already uses Moodle, the tool will provide the bulk of its functionality with any other LMS in place as well
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=117150
New Curriculum Mapping Block in development
by John Jackson - Monday, 23 February 2009, 11:41 AM
Greetings,
The purpose of this post is to inform the Moodle community that we are close to completing a new Moodle block that is designed to facilitate the design of competency based curricula. This work has been funded through a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant and is about two years in the making. The tools will support several functions:
* Design of curriculums maps relating Competencies (a.k.a. educational goals), Professional Abilities (a.k.a. learning objectives), Learning Activities, and Assessments.
* Submission of learning activities (a.k.a. lesson plans) by educators with associated searchable metadata.
* Review of submitted materials by an editorial team, with support for revision cycles.
* Searching and browsing of curriculum maps and their related learning object repositories.
* Rating of learning objects by editorial staff and/or public browsers via a star rating system.
* Checking out materials from the learning object repositories via a shopping cart model.
* Packaging of selected curricula items, with a dynamically created curriculum description including links to learning activities and assessments.
* Tracking of downloads and follow up surveying of users.
We plan to submit this toolset to the Moodle development community for review in the second quarter of 2009.
AND
Intended uses of this tool are for organizations to design curriculum maps and develop associated learning object repositories, either for internal use or external distribution.
Our tool is designed to support curriculum designers, regardless of what LMS is used to deliver courses. When designing a curriculum map, you can upload any type of document as a learning object, or point to the URL of a learning resource that resides anywhere. So while there will be some advantages if an institution already uses Moodle, the tool will provide the bulk of its functionality with any other LMS in place as well
Wow Lisa Pedicini,
Thats awesome , i was unaware of this happening,when can we expect this to get released ?
I am currently developing a curriculum management mod, you can call it an injection on the core code of 1.9.x, which can be expected by 3 weeks from now if everything goes right.
Not covering much of features that you have mentioned, am just providing options for paring courses within a curriculum(container course) for the admin with which he can design an hierarchy of the courses to be attended by any student who are getting into the curriculum.
Course hierarchy
1. There can be a tree hierarchy
2. There can be a parallel hierarchy
3. There can be a serial hierarchy
between courses inside the curriculum, and the admin/teacher has the power to tailor the courses in any of above mentioned hierarchies.
And any student enrolled in a curriculum is enrolled in all the courses within the curriculum but denied access to courses as per the hierarchy structure designed by admin/teacher.
Teacher/admin has the facility to suspend the user for any single course or multiple courses in case he violates some rules for that course/curriculum itself.
Roles:
1. Curriculum wide (similar to site wide roles)
2. Course wide (similar to course wide)
Thats awesome , i was unaware of this happening,when can we expect this to get released ?
I am currently developing a curriculum management mod, you can call it an injection on the core code of 1.9.x, which can be expected by 3 weeks from now if everything goes right.
Not covering much of features that you have mentioned, am just providing options for paring courses within a curriculum(container course) for the admin with which he can design an hierarchy of the courses to be attended by any student who are getting into the curriculum.
Course hierarchy
1. There can be a tree hierarchy
2. There can be a parallel hierarchy
3. There can be a serial hierarchy
between courses inside the curriculum, and the admin/teacher has the power to tailor the courses in any of above mentioned hierarchies.
And any student enrolled in a curriculum is enrolled in all the courses within the curriculum but denied access to courses as per the hierarchy structure designed by admin/teacher.
Teacher/admin has the facility to suspend the user for any single course or multiple courses in case he violates some rules for that course/curriculum itself.
Roles:
1. Curriculum wide (similar to site wide roles)
2. Course wide (similar to course wide)
Hello Ravishankar Somasundaram,
Sorry to have created confusion. This is not my work. I've only been busy being grateful that another has taken on the Moodle curriculum mapping task. His name, included in that message I pasted in, is John Jackson, and he originally posted the news about his most exciting New Curriculum Mapping Block in development on Monday, 23 February 2009, 11:41 AM. Alas, I have not seen an update from him since then. I was hoping that by reposting his message, someone with knowledge of the situation might share status news.
With fingers crossed,
Lisa
Sorry to have created confusion. This is not my work. I've only been busy being grateful that another has taken on the Moodle curriculum mapping task. His name, included in that message I pasted in, is John Jackson, and he originally posted the news about his most exciting New Curriculum Mapping Block in development on Monday, 23 February 2009, 11:41 AM. Alas, I have not seen an update from him since then. I was hoping that by reposting his message, someone with knowledge of the situation might share status news.
With fingers crossed,
Lisa
Hello Lisa Pedicini and other moodlers who are in search of a curriculum mapping methodology in moodle,
Sorry for announcing this a little late, even though the production and first phase of testing was over on scheduled time, it took a little longer for me to segregate this curriculum part alone from my the customization.
Heres the post. Comments are welcomed
Sorry for announcing this a little late, even though the production and first phase of testing was over on scheduled time, it took a little longer for me to segregate this curriculum part alone from my the customization.
Heres the post. Comments are welcomed
Hi,
Thanks for this. However, two questions:
a) is this only for 1.9.3-5? I'm running 1.9.6.
b) Is this complete or is it for testing?
Looking forward to getting this up and running on my test Moodle.
Paul
Thanks for this. However, two questions:
a) is this only for 1.9.3-5? I'm running 1.9.6.
b) Is this complete or is it for testing?
Looking forward to getting this up and running on my test Moodle.
Paul
Dear Paul,
My pleasure, and to answer your questions
a) Have been tested on those versions alone. but you are welcomed to give it a try on 1.9.6, i think it should work flawless because the files which has been altered for bringing this curriculum functionality are not altered for 1.9.6, to see the entire change set between versions on 1.9.6 have a look here
b) This module is complete and has been deployed in an instance which handles 20,000 users overall, but i manually segregated this curriculum code alone from other bunch of customizations made, even though testing has been performed on this segregated module by deploying in a stand alone instance, theres a 1% chance i might have missed out few small pieces so let me know if any.
And a kind request, post your comments and voting in the posted contrib link given previously which can act as a one point discussion point for others to benefit
My pleasure, and to answer your questions
a) Have been tested on those versions alone. but you are welcomed to give it a try on 1.9.6, i think it should work flawless because the files which has been altered for bringing this curriculum functionality are not altered for 1.9.6, to see the entire change set between versions on 1.9.6 have a look here
b) This module is complete and has been deployed in an instance which handles 20,000 users overall, but i manually segregated this curriculum code alone from other bunch of customizations made, even though testing has been performed on this segregated module by deploying in a stand alone instance, theres a 1% chance i might have missed out few small pieces so let me know if any.
And a kind request, post your comments and voting in the posted contrib link given previously which can act as a one point discussion point for others to benefit
Thanks. I tried to install it but managed to destroy the entire Moodle (just my test version so no damage except to reputation!). This is why I don't code ;)
I've just installed a newer Moodle and will try again ideally with a sysadmin. He's keen to see what we can do so it should be OK.
I should have saved the error message. It was all going well until it hit something about the lib file on line 218 (apologies). Next time I'll be more organised and prepare.
I'm happy to comment to the contrib page but I'm not going to complain because I can't hack a unit!
Cheers,
Paul
I've just installed a newer Moodle and will try again ideally with a sysadmin. He's keen to see what we can do so it should be OK.
I should have saved the error message. It was all going well until it hit something about the lib file on line 218 (apologies). Next time I'll be more organised and prepare.
I'm happy to comment to the contrib page but I'm not going to complain because I can't hack a unit!
Cheers,
Paul
Hi paul,
thanks for giving it a try, if you could report the exact error messages i can fix it in no time.
thanks for giving it a try, if you could report the exact error messages i can fix it in no time.
Hi,
Will do. Please give me a few days because I've just hit a really busy patch. I'm also going to get a sysadmin to help so I can use it as a training exercise for me
(anything to improve my admin skills!).
Paul
Will do. Please give me a few days because I've just hit a really busy patch. I'm also going to get a sysadmin to help so I can use it as a training exercise for me
(anything to improve my admin skills!).Paul
Hi Paul,
And when you return first check the tracker entry, as i am going to create a diff file for my custom code, ( if not aware of what diff file is, it will be a single file which when executed injects code in all places needed to execute the functionality) :D
And All the best for your training
And when you return first check the tracker entry, as i am going to create a diff file for my custom code, ( if not aware of what diff file is, it will be a single file which when executed injects code in all places needed to execute the functionality) :D
And All the best for your training
We have continued our work on this system, and released it to the community. We have submitted the module the review process by the Moodle community, but we have not received any notification about that process. The module is large an complex compared to most in the Moodle environment, including 150+ tables, so the review staff may be a bit overwhelmed by its scale.
We are close to finishing a major revision that will make it better suited for an internal curriculum mapping process. The system has been implemented by the National Institutes of Health Human Genome project as a curriculum repository and map of nationally recommended genetics and genomics curricula. The system is also in use by the American Society of Clinical Pathology for mapping their 4000 continuing education activities, and our own internal curriculum committee for redesigning our medical curriculum. A division of the Duke Univ. school of medicine has adopted the tool and several other institutions are evaluating it.
We have set up a site for distributing the tool, though it is not yet fully fleshed out.
https://x-credit.med.virginia.edu/
Feel free to take a look, but in another month or two we will have a new release loaded up with several improvements, and we'll have some guided tours available so you can easily see how the tool works without installing and configuring it.
This system is not designed for individual faculty to work out maps of their course. It is designed to support a large organizational effort with many people submitting learning materials into a repository that undergo iterative peer review and administrative approval prior to learning activities or assessments being added to a map. To support these large scale implementations the tools are rich and complex, but not for the novice. They require an institutional investment in time in order to be effectively deployed.
I'll post a formal announcement to the forums here once we complete our next major update.
John Jackson
Dir of Educational Technology
Univ of Virginia School of Medicine
We are close to finishing a major revision that will make it better suited for an internal curriculum mapping process. The system has been implemented by the National Institutes of Health Human Genome project as a curriculum repository and map of nationally recommended genetics and genomics curricula. The system is also in use by the American Society of Clinical Pathology for mapping their 4000 continuing education activities, and our own internal curriculum committee for redesigning our medical curriculum. A division of the Duke Univ. school of medicine has adopted the tool and several other institutions are evaluating it.
We have set up a site for distributing the tool, though it is not yet fully fleshed out.
https://x-credit.med.virginia.edu/
Feel free to take a look, but in another month or two we will have a new release loaded up with several improvements, and we'll have some guided tours available so you can easily see how the tool works without installing and configuring it.
This system is not designed for individual faculty to work out maps of their course. It is designed to support a large organizational effort with many people submitting learning materials into a repository that undergo iterative peer review and administrative approval prior to learning activities or assessments being added to a map. To support these large scale implementations the tools are rich and complex, but not for the novice. They require an institutional investment in time in order to be effectively deployed.
I'll post a formal announcement to the forums here once we complete our next major update.
John Jackson
Dir of Educational Technology
Univ of Virginia School of Medicine
Lisa makes an important point.
There's growing interest at the University I work for to use curriculum mapping to help the academics and students within a particular program/degree see where everything fits together (or doesn't).
However, if creating and maintaining the curriculum is another task added to the workload of the academic, and something they have to do with yet another computer system, then chances are they won't do it effectively. Unless curriculum mapping is well integrated with what they already do, it won't work.
Given that we're moving to Moodle as the required institutional LMS, some sort of curriculum mapping process that integrates seamlessly with and draws on what the academics are already doing with their Moodle course sites has some attraction.
So, this is a little more than just using the database tool.
Is anyone likely to do anything in this arena in the near term?
There's growing interest at the University I work for to use curriculum mapping to help the academics and students within a particular program/degree see where everything fits together (or doesn't).
However, if creating and maintaining the curriculum is another task added to the workload of the academic, and something they have to do with yet another computer system, then chances are they won't do it effectively. Unless curriculum mapping is well integrated with what they already do, it won't work.
Given that we're moving to Moodle as the required institutional LMS, some sort of curriculum mapping process that integrates seamlessly with and draws on what the academics are already doing with their Moodle course sites has some attraction.
So, this is a little more than just using the database tool.
Is anyone likely to do anything in this arena in the near term?
It seems to me that David is touching on another area which I consider a Moodle deficiency. That is: that Moodle does not allow the separation of the Curriculum (as in the Course Materials, Quizes, Tests, Assignments, etc) from the Class (complete with teacher(s), student(s), date(s), etc).
It seems highly desireable to me that Moodle would allow one to create a Curriculum, sans teacher(s), date(s), student(s), etc. Simply have the Materials, Quizzes, etc in Moodle. Then when the Class is scheduled, the Curriculum is populated into the Class and the Class specifics (teacher(s), etc) are added.
The mappings David mentions should then be done at the Curriculum level and the Class would inherit them from the Curriculum.
-Ralph
Isn't that what a META course in moodle is? Basically a template course that you can create and spawn other courses from it?
Meta course? No.
The point is that Moodle works - by design - bottom-up while most curriculum tools work top-down.
.
The point is that Moodle works - by design - bottom-up while most curriculum tools work top-down.
- In the top-down approach you have first to fill a cascade of questions before you can enter one single resource or activity (teachers hate this!)
- In Moodle you start on course level and even there it is a free form design, teachers become "bricoleurs" (French for handyman).
Teachers like this approach, but it is killing your curriculum wish.
.
- When you start a Moodle course you create a set of activity cards in a course setting
- By filling these cards with your curriculum in mind, you can add voluntarily a structure: a card=title+related resources+ related activities(+activity criteria))
- First kill the label resource, it is blocking this approach
- Then, when we you add in the settings page of every resource and every activity a (curriculum) description field, it must be possible (by coding) to:
- aggregate these descriptions on course level as the "covered curriculum content" for this course.
- You can choose different description approaches:
- a pre-structured approach with several drop-down choices for the curriculum identification and the task level
- a free format approach in the style of the tags fields: fill as many tags as you like, separated by comma's (Martin's idea?)
- something in between: tags but only tags that are in the (local) official curriculum-list, mistakes are automatically corrected/filtered away during storage of the tags
- a pre-structured approach with several drop-down choices for the curriculum identification and the task level
- aggregate these descriptions on course level as the "covered curriculum content" for this course.
- If you decide to make the category-tree a mirror of the description of your curriculum structure (and do the views for teachers and students in other pages like the my page) it is possible to:
- identify the place of the course in the curriculum catalogue by looking at the place in the Moodle category location and automate the adding of extra metadatafields to the course and its activities
- then you can map certificates on the combinations of courses in this curriculum catalogue:
- you can create a course choice tool:
- students can choose courses and see how it maps on certificates.
- (here you must build a clever advising modul
- etc..
G'day All,
Ger's distinction between top-down (curriculum mapping) and bottom-up (Moodle course design) really strikes a chord with my experience supporting academic staff.
The following gives some background and a suggestion for another approach for a bottom up approach. I actually have a meeting with some folk at my institution tomorrow, the following is helping me get my thoughts together. Comments and criticisms would be great.
Change and task corruption
When it comes to change in teaching practice with university academics, it's very hard. Most (there is a minority of innovators that are an exception) tend not to change their practice.
When the push for this change is from the top-down (i.e. management), it is even less likely that academics will change teaching practice. If pushed the end result is often compliance and task corruption. This tends to defeat the purpose of any change in the first place.
The need for curriculum mapping is mostly top-down. It's needed for accreditation and accountability reasons - mostly concerns for management. My fear is that any requirement for academics to produce/contribute to curriculum maps is likely to be seen as an additional impost and either they won't participate or they will be seen to comply.
Task fit and familiarity
There's a theory/model called Task Technology Fit (TTF) from the information systems discipline, which basically says an IT system is more likely to have a positive impact on individual performance if the system matches the tasks the user must perform. i.e. it's pretty hard to use a hammer to cut wood. Related to this is the idea is that people like familiarity and avoid the unfamiliar.
At least in my context, within the next year or so academics will be familiar with Moodle. As all our courses will be expected to have a Moodle presence. The use of Moodle will become a standard part of the task they are expected to perform - running a course (I use that title rather than "create a learning experience/environment" because I believe that's how many interpret their task).
All that is a long-winded way of saying that I've been trying to think of a the simplest, most familiar (for academics) method for adding the ability to fulfill curriculum mapping requirements. It's important because I don't think any other method will get widespread, effective engagement.
It's for these reasons that I think that the Moodle block John Jackson was announcing - the one which Lisa pointed to - would be unlikely to be heavily used within my context (I make no claims about other contexts).
What is curriculum mapping?
In my context, the basic desire is for degrees/programs to be able to show alignment between the program outcomes, the course outcomes and the content, activities and assessments in each of the courses.
There's a need to present this information to accrediting bodies and a desire to show this to students so they can see the connections. There's also a need to have this information available for the academics teaching the courses so they can identify duplication or holes in the curriculum.
Also, in order to avoid confusion of terms. In my context, a course is a subject or unit. A program of study a student takes over a term on a particular topic. A 3 year bachelor degree will usually consist of 24 courses (4 a term). A program is a combination of courses that when completed, see a student awarded a particular degree.
Design versus copying across
In my context, there are very few courses that are designed from scratch. Mostly people re-use documents, resources and course sites from previous terms and make slight modifications. Few people have the time or inclination and design a course from scratch.
For me, this means that approaches that focus on creating curriculum maps through the course design process are also not likely to fit.
A solution?
Based on the above background and sparked by Ger's observation of the difference between top-down and bottom-up, the following idea came to me overnight. It's also informed by some recent experience I gathered while trying to become familiar with Moodle (which means I'm still new to Moodle so take the following with a grain of salt).
The basic idea is to modify the operation of Moodle so that everytime an academic edits or adds a resource or activity to a Moodle course they can easily identify which of the course and program outcomes that resource or activity is associated with. This would provide a database with the information necessary to create a curriculum map.
Our organisation already has the program and course outcomes in a database. We also know which courses belong to which programs. So this information could be fed in automatically.
It is my understanding that the update form for most resources/activities in Moodle will include a "Common module settings" box. i.e. a set of options that is common across resources/activities.
My suggested curriculum mapping "solution" assumes that we could add "Program/course outcomes" as another common set of options. i.e. there would be a list of the program outcomes and the course outcomes for the current course.
So, every time an activity or resource is edited there are options on the form to specify which course/program outcomes are associated with this activity/resource. The optimistic idea is that the academic would simply select those outcomes that are relevant to the current activity or resource.
Once the information is in place, other blocks, modules and systems could query the data and perform a range of other tasks associated with curriculum mapping.
Drawbacks
The drawbacks I can think of include:
I believe this suggestion might require a change in the "core" of Moodle to enable the "Program/course outcomes" to be added as an option on all of the of update forms of activities/resources. This might not be straight forward - I don't know enough to comment.
However, based on my ignorance, I think I could see how the modular structure of Moodle would allow this to be done in a way that might not require large changes....would need to look at this more.
i.e. in the bit that produces the "common settings" add a function call to the program/course outcomes stuff - if it exists. (Does my ignorance show?)
Even if it were difficult, my argument has always been that with modern information systems it's more important to make the users' job easy, than the systems developers.
Isn't it more work?
Doesn't this still mean additional work for academics? Aren't they just as likely to ignore it or "comply" with it?
Yes, but there's always a limit to how far you can go. I think this is about as simple as you can. In addition, I think some of the visualiations/services that this data makes possible could be used to encourage academics.
What about off-line activities/resources?
Yep, this is a problem. No grand thoughts about this.
Thoughts?
This is still an initial thought. It will have significant flaws. Any suggestions? Comments? Given the need to get comments from my local context, I'll probably blog this as well.
Thanks for listening
David.
Ger's distinction between top-down (curriculum mapping) and bottom-up (Moodle course design) really strikes a chord with my experience supporting academic staff.
The following gives some background and a suggestion for another approach for a bottom up approach. I actually have a meeting with some folk at my institution tomorrow, the following is helping me get my thoughts together. Comments and criticisms would be great.
Change and task corruption
When it comes to change in teaching practice with university academics, it's very hard. Most (there is a minority of innovators that are an exception) tend not to change their practice.
When the push for this change is from the top-down (i.e. management), it is even less likely that academics will change teaching practice. If pushed the end result is often compliance and task corruption. This tends to defeat the purpose of any change in the first place.
The need for curriculum mapping is mostly top-down. It's needed for accreditation and accountability reasons - mostly concerns for management. My fear is that any requirement for academics to produce/contribute to curriculum maps is likely to be seen as an additional impost and either they won't participate or they will be seen to comply.
Task fit and familiarity
There's a theory/model called Task Technology Fit (TTF) from the information systems discipline, which basically says an IT system is more likely to have a positive impact on individual performance if the system matches the tasks the user must perform. i.e. it's pretty hard to use a hammer to cut wood. Related to this is the idea is that people like familiarity and avoid the unfamiliar.
At least in my context, within the next year or so academics will be familiar with Moodle. As all our courses will be expected to have a Moodle presence. The use of Moodle will become a standard part of the task they are expected to perform - running a course (I use that title rather than "create a learning experience/environment" because I believe that's how many interpret their task).
All that is a long-winded way of saying that I've been trying to think of a the simplest, most familiar (for academics) method for adding the ability to fulfill curriculum mapping requirements. It's important because I don't think any other method will get widespread, effective engagement.
It's for these reasons that I think that the Moodle block John Jackson was announcing - the one which Lisa pointed to - would be unlikely to be heavily used within my context (I make no claims about other contexts).
What is curriculum mapping?
In my context, the basic desire is for degrees/programs to be able to show alignment between the program outcomes, the course outcomes and the content, activities and assessments in each of the courses.
There's a need to present this information to accrediting bodies and a desire to show this to students so they can see the connections. There's also a need to have this information available for the academics teaching the courses so they can identify duplication or holes in the curriculum.
Also, in order to avoid confusion of terms. In my context, a course is a subject or unit. A program of study a student takes over a term on a particular topic. A 3 year bachelor degree will usually consist of 24 courses (4 a term). A program is a combination of courses that when completed, see a student awarded a particular degree.
Design versus copying across
In my context, there are very few courses that are designed from scratch. Mostly people re-use documents, resources and course sites from previous terms and make slight modifications. Few people have the time or inclination and design a course from scratch.
For me, this means that approaches that focus on creating curriculum maps through the course design process are also not likely to fit.
A solution?
Based on the above background and sparked by Ger's observation of the difference between top-down and bottom-up, the following idea came to me overnight. It's also informed by some recent experience I gathered while trying to become familiar with Moodle (which means I'm still new to Moodle so take the following with a grain of salt).
The basic idea is to modify the operation of Moodle so that everytime an academic edits or adds a resource or activity to a Moodle course they can easily identify which of the course and program outcomes that resource or activity is associated with. This would provide a database with the information necessary to create a curriculum map.
Our organisation already has the program and course outcomes in a database. We also know which courses belong to which programs. So this information could be fed in automatically.
It is my understanding that the update form for most resources/activities in Moodle will include a "Common module settings" box. i.e. a set of options that is common across resources/activities.
My suggested curriculum mapping "solution" assumes that we could add "Program/course outcomes" as another common set of options. i.e. there would be a list of the program outcomes and the course outcomes for the current course.
So, every time an activity or resource is edited there are options on the form to specify which course/program outcomes are associated with this activity/resource. The optimistic idea is that the academic would simply select those outcomes that are relevant to the current activity or resource.
Once the information is in place, other blocks, modules and systems could query the data and perform a range of other tasks associated with curriculum mapping.
Drawbacks
The drawbacks I can think of include:
- Doesn't this require a mod to the Moodle core? That's hard right?
- Doesn't selecting the program/course outcomes imply additional work for the academics?
- What about activities/resources that aren't online/in Moodle?
I believe this suggestion might require a change in the "core" of Moodle to enable the "Program/course outcomes" to be added as an option on all of the of update forms of activities/resources. This might not be straight forward - I don't know enough to comment.
However, based on my ignorance, I think I could see how the modular structure of Moodle would allow this to be done in a way that might not require large changes....would need to look at this more.
i.e. in the bit that produces the "common settings" add a function call to the program/course outcomes stuff - if it exists. (Does my ignorance show?)
Even if it were difficult, my argument has always been that with modern information systems it's more important to make the users' job easy, than the systems developers.
Isn't it more work?
Doesn't this still mean additional work for academics? Aren't they just as likely to ignore it or "comply" with it?
Yes, but there's always a limit to how far you can go. I think this is about as simple as you can. In addition, I think some of the visualiations/services that this data makes possible could be used to encourage academics.
What about off-line activities/resources?
Yep, this is a problem. No grand thoughts about this.
Thoughts?
This is still an initial thought. It will have significant flaws. Any suggestions? Comments? Given the need to get comments from my local context, I'll probably blog this as well.
Thanks for listening
David.
This post is over a year old but it is exactly what I am doing now: trying to bring a sophisticated open source curriculum mapping software to the public domain. I think this would make a lot of people's dreams come true.
I have been in the software industry for 20 years and I had programmed in all major languages and technologies. I had done SIS-Moodle integration with PowerSchool and Maze for major international schools. I have the kind of software development skills that can bring a large complex application into reality. Right now I am running a small software company in Thailand.
I already have a curriculum mapping software that are currently running in 4 major international schools in 4 different countries. The whole project started off as an unofficial consortium between my company and 3 international schools. The idea is to create a better curriculum mapping software better than Atlas Rubicon and make it affordable for schools.
Right now, the project contains about 100,000 lines (we wrote 60,000 and 40,000 comes from open source) of code and is written using PHP. Basically, it is like a content management system but geared toward curriculum mapping. It has an extremely flexible design that you can build any page template like UbD, MYP and PYP, or just about anything. The major technologies are PHP, MySQL, CodeIgnitor MVC, our own template rendering engine. Pretty much everything is based on templates so every school can customized their own version but with the exact same software.
All the template items (selections, text, button etc.) can be assigned an event handler to do whatever based on the handle plugin you assign. The is very useful for like only certain people can do what or for tracking purposes etc. The whole design can rival any popular large PHP open source package on the market. It can do multi-editor unit locking with auto timeout (very important when you have multiple people working on the same unit), shared units among courses, add any resources, learning targets, EQ etc. to the template as you like. Supports multi-uploads, multi-url in a single resource, standards and benchmarks are grade level based. PDF, goal setting, appraisal and survey support (survey still in development). A mapping search plug&play interface allows to write a new searches within hours granted you know PHP and OOP. We have about 30 different searches (some of them with clickable flash pie charts) already. Too many to list here...
I had shown this to may be 20 international schools and they were all excited that such an application actually exists. Someone had told me a person from Atlas Rubicon had admitted that this is a better than what they have. And, one of the schools who is using my application was using Atlas Rubicon and they converted over to ours. I think someone even approached one of the school to ask about can they buy this software.
Right now I have these issues bringing it to be open source:
1. Copyright issue with one of the school's curriculum director, he did come up with the ideas but we wrote all the software and we put in a lot of our own functional design, the software design and implementation are all form us. They paid us an amount of money (about 5% of the project cost) that is in no way for him to own the software. Plus, the school paid the money and not him. So, I am waiting for the school's response on my open source plan. Basically, I told them fine, anyone wants to be part-owner/copyright-holder needs to share the cost of the open source operations. Or, they can take a 5 month-old version (running in their school) of my software and do what they want and I do what I want with my latest version.
2. Copyright for MYP and PYP templates. IB would not allow us to make these templates to be open source. Since the layout and wording are copyrighted by IB. I am thinking to made the software available but without our own MYP and PYP templates and let other people to provide the templates.
3. UbD template. We do have this template. Does anyone know this is copyrighted? Will it be a problem to make it open source?
4. Funding. This is such a big project and I have put in a lot of my time and money for it. And, funding is running rather low for my company now. The money I got from the 4 schools is simply not enough to support the project.
5. Making it 100% open source complaint, easy to install, configure and upgrade. So far, we have been managing all the 4 installation so we didn't put in too much effort to make it easier for people with minimal technical skills. Plus one of my employees without knowing too much about open source and put in couple commercial components which I was forced to paid for the commercial licenses, they are AJAX related components which I am planing to replace them with something like JQuery.
I am a small company with only 5 employees and I don't have much resources. Any suggestion with legal and possible funding would be appropriated.
David
I have been in the software industry for 20 years and I had programmed in all major languages and technologies. I had done SIS-Moodle integration with PowerSchool and Maze for major international schools. I have the kind of software development skills that can bring a large complex application into reality. Right now I am running a small software company in Thailand.
I already have a curriculum mapping software that are currently running in 4 major international schools in 4 different countries. The whole project started off as an unofficial consortium between my company and 3 international schools. The idea is to create a better curriculum mapping software better than Atlas Rubicon and make it affordable for schools.
Right now, the project contains about 100,000 lines (we wrote 60,000 and 40,000 comes from open source) of code and is written using PHP. Basically, it is like a content management system but geared toward curriculum mapping. It has an extremely flexible design that you can build any page template like UbD, MYP and PYP, or just about anything. The major technologies are PHP, MySQL, CodeIgnitor MVC, our own template rendering engine. Pretty much everything is based on templates so every school can customized their own version but with the exact same software.
All the template items (selections, text, button etc.) can be assigned an event handler to do whatever based on the handle plugin you assign. The is very useful for like only certain people can do what or for tracking purposes etc. The whole design can rival any popular large PHP open source package on the market. It can do multi-editor unit locking with auto timeout (very important when you have multiple people working on the same unit), shared units among courses, add any resources, learning targets, EQ etc. to the template as you like. Supports multi-uploads, multi-url in a single resource, standards and benchmarks are grade level based. PDF, goal setting, appraisal and survey support (survey still in development). A mapping search plug&play interface allows to write a new searches within hours granted you know PHP and OOP. We have about 30 different searches (some of them with clickable flash pie charts) already. Too many to list here...
I had shown this to may be 20 international schools and they were all excited that such an application actually exists. Someone had told me a person from Atlas Rubicon had admitted that this is a better than what they have. And, one of the schools who is using my application was using Atlas Rubicon and they converted over to ours. I think someone even approached one of the school to ask about can they buy this software.
Right now I have these issues bringing it to be open source:
1. Copyright issue with one of the school's curriculum director, he did come up with the ideas but we wrote all the software and we put in a lot of our own functional design, the software design and implementation are all form us. They paid us an amount of money (about 5% of the project cost) that is in no way for him to own the software. Plus, the school paid the money and not him. So, I am waiting for the school's response on my open source plan. Basically, I told them fine, anyone wants to be part-owner/copyright-holder needs to share the cost of the open source operations. Or, they can take a 5 month-old version (running in their school) of my software and do what they want and I do what I want with my latest version.
2. Copyright for MYP and PYP templates. IB would not allow us to make these templates to be open source. Since the layout and wording are copyrighted by IB. I am thinking to made the software available but without our own MYP and PYP templates and let other people to provide the templates.
3. UbD template. We do have this template. Does anyone know this is copyrighted? Will it be a problem to make it open source?
4. Funding. This is such a big project and I have put in a lot of my time and money for it. And, funding is running rather low for my company now. The money I got from the 4 schools is simply not enough to support the project.
5. Making it 100% open source complaint, easy to install, configure and upgrade. So far, we have been managing all the 4 installation so we didn't put in too much effort to make it easier for people with minimal technical skills. Plus one of my employees without knowing too much about open source and put in couple commercial components which I was forced to paid for the commercial licenses, they are AJAX related components which I am planing to replace them with something like JQuery.
I am a small company with only 5 employees and I don't have much resources. Any suggestion with legal and possible funding would be appropriated.
David
Hi! Any movement on this, David?
The open source curriculum mapping project is finally available for public download at http://todcm.org. The project name is TODCM - Template Object Driven Curriculum Mapping.
Hi Lael
I share your dream about schools collaborating and sharing resources, funding and development in general. I have started finding out about the database module and made a first attempt discussed here. http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=175869.
Our school has unfortunately made a decision to go with commercial VLE called Frog, costing many tens of thousand euros. I just think what a good freelance programmer(s) could have produced in moodle for this amount of money.
What kind of school are you in?
Cheers
Alex
Hi we are just working on a separate tool with similar but not exactly the same functionalities:
GPS4Learning will we a tool for competencies based on rubrics. Schools/teachers can create a competencies rubric and add tasks behind. Tasks may be Moodle courses or single activities or a set of them.
Students can mark competencies they have worked about and go on to the next one.
In the first step its not directly combined with Moodle. This will be a further development.
Here is a German description. You can see lots of screens and will get an idea of the tool.
We will support the teacher as a coach for students with the tool.
GPS4Learning will we a tool for competencies based on rubrics. Schools/teachers can create a competencies rubric and add tasks behind. Tasks may be Moodle courses or single activities or a set of them.
Students can mark competencies they have worked about and go on to the next one.
In the first step its not directly combined with Moodle. This will be a further development.
Here is a German description. You can see lots of screens and will get an idea of the tool.
We will support the teacher as a coach for students with the tool.
Hello Ralf,
Very good to know that you are on the same track, thanks for sharing this information, but am not able to get anything out of that german document, do you have an english version by any chance ?
Very good to know that you are on the same track, thanks for sharing this information, but am not able to get anything out of that german document, do you have an english version by any chance ?
Hi Ravishankar,
sorry, but up to now we have only the German document. In the moment we are using a first Beta-Verson in a German school (class 1-10). We have some expereince in two schools for vocational training in Switzerland.
Let me explain a little more in detail:
The tools creates rubrics for topics at school, i.e. ESL (English a s Second Language) Class 1:
There are different competencies planned for the first year of learning English. There are different steps with ongrowing competencies for understanding spoken words, speaking and reading.
In each line you define one competency and add a description on level 1,2,3,... to it. In the background a teacher can add taks (learning jobs) to earch area in the rubric.
Learning jobs are tasks a student can do. This can be a chapter in a workbook, a Moodle course or an activity.
The student can Mark by a click to an area that s/he is working on the competency. The area changes the colour by switching. If the student got the competency s/he clicks again and the area will change the colour again.
Competencies are not related to grades. The rubric scheme shows the growing of competency overtime. The teacher can discuss with the student about plans and will be the best next step for learning. Both of them can see directly that a student is very good working on reading and speaking, but didn't work on writing competencies.
It will be a lot of work to describe competencies in a way student can understand them. Curricula and competency descriptions most of the time are written from scientists for teachers, but not for students. Our competency rubrics can be shared by schools via export/import.
In GPS4Learning students get a personal account and the teacher can add a competency rubric to his class, so students get access.
We don't plan to add grades in the GPS4Learning. Its a tool for competency check and that will differ from a grading tool. Students should see how they are growing over time so they can work independent from teacher or with a coaching process by the teacher.
For the first time we plan to use from moodle the user administration, information about topics (courses) and classes.
sorry, but up to now we have only the German document. In the moment we are using a first Beta-Verson in a German school (class 1-10). We have some expereince in two schools for vocational training in Switzerland.
Let me explain a little more in detail:
The tools creates rubrics for topics at school, i.e. ESL (English a s Second Language) Class 1:
There are different competencies planned for the first year of learning English. There are different steps with ongrowing competencies for understanding spoken words, speaking and reading.
In each line you define one competency and add a description on level 1,2,3,... to it. In the background a teacher can add taks (learning jobs) to earch area in the rubric.
Learning jobs are tasks a student can do. This can be a chapter in a workbook, a Moodle course or an activity.
The student can Mark by a click to an area that s/he is working on the competency. The area changes the colour by switching. If the student got the competency s/he clicks again and the area will change the colour again.
Competencies are not related to grades. The rubric scheme shows the growing of competency overtime. The teacher can discuss with the student about plans and will be the best next step for learning. Both of them can see directly that a student is very good working on reading and speaking, but didn't work on writing competencies.
It will be a lot of work to describe competencies in a way student can understand them. Curricula and competency descriptions most of the time are written from scientists for teachers, but not for students. Our competency rubrics can be shared by schools via export/import.
In GPS4Learning students get a personal account and the teacher can add a competency rubric to his class, so students get access.
We don't plan to add grades in the GPS4Learning. Its a tool for competency check and that will differ from a grading tool. Students should see how they are growing over time so they can work independent from teacher or with a coaching process by the teacher.
For the first time we plan to use from moodle the user administration, information about topics (courses) and classes.
<blockquote>The student can Mark by a click to an area that s/he is working on the competency. The area changes the color by switching. If the student got the competency s/he clicks again and the area will change the color again.
Competencies are not related to grades. The rubric scheme shows the growing of competency overtime. The teacher can discuss with the student about plans and will be the best next step for learning. Both of them can see directly that a student is very good working on reading and speaking, but didn't work on writing competencies. </blockquote>
Competencies are not related to grades. The rubric scheme shows the growing of competency overtime. The teacher can discuss with the student about plans and will be the best next step for learning. Both of them can see directly that a student is very good working on reading and speaking, but didn't work on writing competencies. </blockquote>
Am not sure if i understood the whole thing wright but from what ever i did sounds pretty, even in the patch that i have posted competencies may or maynot be related with grade to complete a learning objective, thats why we have options to choose course completion type which is either
1. Automatic completion or
2. Manual completion
If you choose Manual completion what ever you were describing above can be achieved.
If you want an unattended operation kind of thing where all actions inside the course/curriculum has to be automated (ie., you set rules for different competencies to complete learning objectives and just want to leave it to the participants to finish it as an hierarchy, an classic example would be a evaluation course kind of which has 3 quiz alone, whereas the user has to showcase his learning to score grades on first quiz to move to second one, and similarly for 3rd also.)
We don't plan automatic completion processes. We aim to support a new relationship between teacher and student (starting from the actual German situation. In future teacher should be more a consultant than a lecturer. This is a major cultural change here. In this mental and formal change process students will more more independent with digital media and workbook and only parts of lesson will be held for the whole class by the teacher. 25-50 % of learning time each student should work alone or in small group based on the competencies rubric and learning jobs. So students can choose what they learn today, next week, next month. Its possible that a student finds it own learning path and didn't use the concept a teacher created.
In this idea its not relevant to complete a course. A course is a set of activities and for some students it makes sense to work step by step through this course. But other students find an other way.
The teachers role is changing in this process. We call the teacher a learning consultant or a learning coach. This is a major change for most of our teachers. Normally they talk to the class mostof the time. The old idea is: All students of a class are learning the same at the same time and how to learn ist defined by the teacher.
If we switch to a competency based model this didn't work anymore. The competency is not to now what a former cancelor Bismarck did in Germany in which year hundred years ago, but to understand a larger idea of his concepts and how it relates to the German social system today and how to find more detailled information.
In description of goals in curricula its more 'understand how' than 'know what'.
In this idea its not relevant to complete a course. A course is a set of activities and for some students it makes sense to work step by step through this course. But other students find an other way.
The teachers role is changing in this process. We call the teacher a learning consultant or a learning coach. This is a major change for most of our teachers. Normally they talk to the class mostof the time. The old idea is: All students of a class are learning the same at the same time and how to learn ist defined by the teacher.
If we switch to a competency based model this didn't work anymore. The competency is not to now what a former cancelor Bismarck did in Germany in which year hundred years ago, but to understand a larger idea of his concepts and how it relates to the German social system today and how to find more detailled information.
In description of goals in curricula its more 'understand how' than 'know what'.
Dear Ralf,
Nice to hear about the goals that you are upto, however when you say
I totally agree, may be i need to extend my code to adapt groups and teacher can set a different completion method for different groups.Thanks for bringing this perspective spark within me.
Yeah, so facilitator/teachers role would be to do exactly that, not just normal uploading slides,resources and deciding things based on grades.
He has to tailor the course contents in such a manner that its more of understanding how than just knowing what,Yes you are right
Nice to hear about the goals that you are upto, however when you say
25-50 % of learning time each student should work alone or in small group based on the competencies rubric and learning jobs. So students can choose what they learn today, next week, next month. Its possible that a student finds it own learning path and didn't use the concept a teacher created.I think this usually depends on the audience/students whom we take into account, but dominantly students are going to be people who are new to the subject so if they are left to choose their own topics, i think the importance a facilitator leading the student towards a learning path is lost there.
In this idea its not relevant to complete a course. A course is a set of activities and for some students it makes sense to work step by step through this course. But other students find an other way.
I totally agree, may be i need to extend my code to adapt groups and teacher can set a different completion method for different groups.Thanks for bringing this perspective spark within me.
The competency is not to now what a former canceler Bismarck did in Germany in which year hundred years ago, but to understand a larger idea of his concepts and how it relates to the German social system today and how to find more detailed information.
goals in curricula its more 'understand how' than 'know what'.
Yeah, so facilitator/teachers role would be to do exactly that, not just normal uploading slides,resources and deciding things based on grades.
He has to tailor the course contents in such a manner that its more of understanding how than just knowing what,Yes you are right
Dear Ravishankar,
I agree with you when you say that we have to look for the audience. In German Primary schools students learn in class 1-4 to work with weekly learning plans. up to 50 % of the learning time they work in such a way. But this is a special situation in primaries. In the next years at school this isn't a standard learning situation.
If we add only one learning tasks to a competency it will lead students. But normally you don't get a competency with one activity. Often it is a combination and sometimes its combined with non formal learning activities outside of school.
Did you see the plans for dependencies of activities in Moodle 2.0. You can define exactly what a student should have done if he will start an activitiy or read an ressource. This is exactly what is defined as learning path.
And did you see the LAMS system http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/Home? You can integrate it as a course format or as an activity in Moodle.
Ralf
I agree with you when you say that we have to look for the audience. In German Primary schools students learn in class 1-4 to work with weekly learning plans. up to 50 % of the learning time they work in such a way. But this is a special situation in primaries. In the next years at school this isn't a standard learning situation.
If we add only one learning tasks to a competency it will lead students. But normally you don't get a competency with one activity. Often it is a combination and sometimes its combined with non formal learning activities outside of school.
Did you see the plans for dependencies of activities in Moodle 2.0. You can define exactly what a student should have done if he will start an activitiy or read an ressource. This is exactly what is defined as learning path.
And did you see the LAMS system http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/Home? You can integrate it as a course format or as an activity in Moodle.
Ralf
Hi Lael
In another forum about the use of database activity I answered a request for a curriculum use of this tool. It is my first moodle attempt at mapping. Still in its infancy
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=175869
Cheers
Alex
In reply to Alex Black
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Hi James, if you look at the original post here, it is Nov 18, 2008. Clearly this is an issue that has arisen several times in the past. It appears though that Moodle.org does not see that integrating an LMS and SMS should be long term goals of Moodle. In one aspect, I can understand this reluctance, it is going to be a huge job and there are a couple of web-based solutions available that I have already used. There will be more.
In South Australia, there are two main apps, Edumate and Daymap, both used in my own school district. Edumate is poorly designed and too complex, whereas Daymap is robust and a lot cleaner interface. The SMS side is very good, but the LMS side is limited, simpler to use as well. A lot of schools use both Daymap for their SMS and Moodle for their LMS, but an increasing number of schools with Daymap, so I understand, are dropping their use of Moodle. I cannot help but wonder how much longer it will be if Daymap really improves the LMS side of it. If this is so, then how long will Moodle last in a single solution environment?
There is a parallel; Xerox-PARC developed a number of computing solutions in the late 60s and early 70s. (The mouse, the GUI just being two.) Essentially, much to the horror of their research staff, Xerox virtually gave these things away, mainly to Steve Jobs, so I understand. Xerox reasoned that their core business was printing and copying, on which they built a multi-billion dollar enterprise, not personal computing which was hardly even a novelty then, more like sci-fi. I sometimes wonder if Moodle.org is making a similar decision, for similar reasons. An SMS is outside their core business, something they are not familiar with but within their capabilities. I do not think they will have the opportunity to maintain a separate core business though.
In reply to Colin Fraser
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