Hello from Dublin
What has worked for me is to break the training session into two
sections, one where participants login as students and the other where they log in as teachers. In all cases (be it training in Dublin or as far away as Senegal), we have allowed participants to log into our live Moodle server.
- Create a blank course, add examples of the resources/activities your would like to demonstrate
- Use topic 1 to host these activities, and assign topics 2 to 21 to participants by editing the topic text accordingly
- Create 20 teacher accounts and 20 student accounts in one go using a csv bulk upload (I like the use of names above, good tip!) but be clear on what is a student account and what is a teacher account. Any ideas for names?
- Give each person on the training course a student login as they arrive
- Start the course by getting everyone to login in as a student
- They can all then interact with Moodle, see each other online and so on
- Get them to download a file, edit personal profiles, message other users, take a quiz, select a choice, upload an assignment
This gives participants experience of how Moodle is used by students, not something that teaching staff may appreciate. It also gives the opportunity for Moodle to gather data (scores, logs, assignments, choices and so on) in a live
context.
- Give the participants the teacher accounts and ask users to log in....I like to start by saying it all looks much the same except for this little button called "Turn Editing on"
- Get them to look at quiz scores, look at log files and so on. This can cause a very nice buzz in the training room as all users now get to look at their performance and the performance of others. It also highlights issues of privacy in Moodle
- Grading assignments is also a very useful exercise here for the same reasons but it also shows the amount of work that is required if individual feedback is required.
- I then go on to show how to upload files, make links and set up an assignment.
- Assignment set up is a good way to demo of how to control when activities are available.
- I stop short at how to make quizzes as that is another workshop but I do give them the basics of what is possible such as randomised questions and so on.
The whole course takes about two hours and everyone seems to leave with something they want to try out later. We have evaluated the process and the feedback has been positive.
I know the initial set up seems like a bit of work but once it is done, the course can be reset and cleaned up easily for use again. Simply inserting a logo of the workshop/school you are in at the top of the page goes a long way too.
Regards
Eric Clarke