Hello friends,
I invite you to visit LastForest.org and explore the interdisciplinary curriculum guide The Pocahontas Communications Cooperative and Allegheny Mountain Radio have assembled, based on The Last Forest: Tales of the Allegheny Woods, by G.D. McNeill.
This site is being presented today at the Appalachian Studies Conference at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega, Georgia.
Rather than a student course, this site is a curriculum guide for educators, adapted from a PDF version of the curriculum guide released last year with the support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the West Virginia Humanities Council. Our hope is that LastForest.org can serve as a classroom resource for educators and that instructors can share ideas for lesson plans and assignments in the Discussion forum. Selected contributed assignments and activties could be incorporated into the curriculum guide itself.
This was a crash course for us in working with Moodle, so any critiques or feedback are welcome.
We would also be interested in collaborating with others to make this something that could be exported to education institutions that are currently using Moodle.
-Drew
LastForest.org Moodle course being unveiled at Appalachian Studies Conference today
by Drew Tanner -
Number of replies: 3
In reply to Drew Tanner
Re: LastForest.org Moodle course being unveiled at Appalachian Studies Conference today
by Paula Clough -
Drew,
I really enjoyed looking at your curriculum. I sent the link on to one of my high school teachers who deals with at risk students. Thought they might enjoy the podcast format...very exciting... saving these stories for the future and doing it with a popular modern venue.
Two suggestions:
- Link to the store to obtain a copy of the book is embeded in one of the webpage links... I would put that on the front of the course as a link to their website with a label id it as a place to order the books. That would make it easier to find. I had to go looking for it.
- I would also make a student course that teachers could download and use on their own Moodle site. They could still add more Moodle activities and individualize it to their own needs.
Sharing courses is so easy for anyone who has a Moodle site. If you don't need to track who has one, you can make a copy of the backup file and put a link on your home page to is so that others can download it. If you need to know who has it, you can either put it in a quiz activity where persons have to put in their email address and whatever personal info then submit the quiz and get a link to the file. Or you could have a forum which they post to requesting the file, which also emails you and you email out the file.
If you don't need info on who has it, there are a few places you can upload it and others can download the backup from there with a link. This would be especially helpful if you don't have the bandwidth to handle many users. You can check out some of the links in the Moodle Exchange for more info.
I am assuming that with all the podcasts the file would be too big for our Moodle Exchange, but we could list a link there if you want to share there.
I hope you had good luck in your presentation.
In reply to Paula Clough
Re: LastForest.org Moodle course being unveiled at Appalachian Studies Conference today
by Drew Tanner -
Paula,
From what I hear the presentation went well, but the conference itself was not well attended.
Thanks so much for your feedback on the course and your suggestions. I think one of our next steps is going to be developing the student course that you mentioned. Thanks also for your tips on sharing courses. I'm going to explore some of those options this week.
It would be great to make it a part of the Moodle Exchange, as well. Would that work alright if we used the quiz activity on LastForest.org for download tracking?
Drew
From what I hear the presentation went well, but the conference itself was not well attended.
Thanks so much for your feedback on the course and your suggestions. I think one of our next steps is going to be developing the student course that you mentioned. Thanks also for your tips on sharing courses. I'm going to explore some of those options this week.
It would be great to make it a part of the Moodle Exchange, as well. Would that work alright if we used the quiz activity on LastForest.org for download tracking?
Drew
In reply to Drew Tanner
Re: LastForest.org Moodle course being unveiled at Appalachian Studies Conference today
by Paula Clough -
You could list the URL in the Exchange with a description. That would bring those interested to your page... then you could set up a quiz for the info and the terms of the download. After they completed the quiz, you could give them a link to the back up file to download the course. I think you could make it work.
Let us know if you need any advice or help.
Paula