Lounge

Hello.  I am writing this to "connect" ... for me to step up and collaborate with distinguised, and equally "obsessive" colleagues!  ....

Flat out, bottom line:  I am "nuts" about Moodle (M)! ... Moodling (writing courses) is my Primary Activity ... and the more I do, the more I learn, and then expand (exponentially) ... The more features I discover in M, and then implement them, allows me -- just about -- to write a course in just about any subject! .... What I mean is:  I can use M present information, which I can filter to avoid "TMI" ... M allows me to track Login Time, etc ... I can do "Attendance" with it .... It allows Instruction to be designed in Steps ...Questions can be "re-entrant" or "cherry-picked" (easiest first, learn while taking the Lesson, which is really a Lesson-Quiz, and, now, has become a Tutorial.) ...

Ride with my enthusiasm here: ... M is very Visual Friendly ... Quality Graphics in Tutorials creates "activity" ... It is Adaptive:  If you don't get it, look for clues, and come back and answer it ... It makes Learning a "Trek to Education!" ...  Add "Collaborative": Students earn Extra Credit for posting solutions ...  

M "goes with the flow" ... students "Copy and Paste", and social network.  So use Models / Templates for them to build on.   (I give them author create priveleges in a class website ... a "workshop" to post in!)

M "Measures" Learning, making Learning Accountable.  A tutorial can force a student to read it, study it, practice with a Model,  reply to  a Short Answer Quiz, get graded, and offer Pathways to Enriched or Remedial Learning!  ...  Virtual:  get info from the Web, sort of like the Taxi Cab quiz where you can call the "help" line.   Interactive:  This is big!  The more activity, the greater the involvment, the greater (I think) the Comprehension!

Summing up so far:  Virtual + Interactive + Visual + Adaptive + Collaborative + Evaluative (Measurable) could become the acronym of VIVACE!  ...

While there is some "playfull-ness" with the Words, I am very, very serious about M being a solution to the huge, epic Educational Crisis that the US is in!  In California, 1/3 of the kids don't graduate from High School!  ... This is a 33% Scrap Rate!  In Industry, if a Process had a 5% Scrap Rate, it would be shut down, and stabilized and brought into Control using the M's of Manufactuing:  (Retooling) Manpower, Machinery, Method, Materials, Management and Environment. 

While the crises is potentially a nation disaster,  like Robert Heinlien said, "For every crisis, there is a solution" and M is exactly the solution! ..

So every class has to be hybrid ... every lesson online ... students getting notebook computers .. working 24/7 ... earning points (like Learning Contracts) for courses ... then  when we add "Twittering",  Texting,  You-Tubing (these features are already coming to M, I think), we can capitalize on the "student styles" ... to modify them for Education! ... This is what I want ...

PS:  I was blessed to be able to write CAI Software for College English and Math at the U-Mass Grad. School of Education .. under Prof. "Hap" Peelle, bending programming languages to meet real classroom needs!

I have never seen a Course Management / Authoring System as powerful as M ... I have not hit any walls in developing any application Tutorial that I need!  Go Moodle.  That's the way.  Regards.  Joseph Auciello.  Prof. Computer Info. Systems.  LA Trade Tech College. joseph@auciello.net.     Out.