Moodle in English: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Saturday, 19 February 2011, 7:42 PM

Hi. I'm doing a Research Project entitled:

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A MOODLE LMS TO INCREASE SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING HOURS AMONG STUDENTS STUDYING IT COURSES AT STAMFORD COLLEGE MALACCA.

I am particularly interested in investigating and implementing ways to engage students with Moodle. So far, what I have found so far is that:

1. Moodle by itself (per se) is "okay", what with all its standard tools like Quizzes, Book, etc., but throw in non-standad mods like Class Voter, Nanogong voice embed, etc., and it gets better...and then throw in Web 2.0 tools like Today's Meet, WallWisher, VoiceThread, Xerte, Youtube, Apture, Wordle, Wall-Wisher, etc., inside a Moodle course and it gets really "Oh lala!".

2. Students like the Quiz module and seeing the quiz results block. Howeverm mashing the Moodle quiz with other tools like Xetre or Youtube videos makes for a more engaging Multimedia assessment atmosphere. For exmaple, see: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=168937

3. Adding SCORM games like "Penalty Shootout" from contentgenerator.net adds the fun factor into Moodle. Puts the smile on the students' faces when they sit in front of the computer.

4. Adding Virtual Classrooms like Wiziq and BigBlueButton modules brings about a live dimension to e-learning. Plus the chat features are fun on both services.

Here's a questionnaire on my students' satisfaction of my College's Moodle VPS site which I created. I've put up the results so far here.

Does anyone know of anyone who has done similiar research?
Anyone's work in this area that I MUST KNOW ABOUT or MUST READ?
What are the key theories in E-learning that I should be aquainted with?
Who are some key people in E-learning that I should be aquainted with?

Frankie Kam

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Monday, 21 February 2011, 9:48 AM

Okay, I'll answer my own question.

I found it. Some person by the name of Martin D.
http://dougiamas.com/

Absolutely Riveting stuff!

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Paul Jacobson - Wednesday, 23 March 2011, 10:25 AM

Hi Frankie - you are so irrepressible, like Tiga, that I have to say hello from Perth in Western Australia.

Like a good char kway teow I relish your comments. This entry of yours invites me to explore some exciting resources and activities that can be incorporated into Moodle.

Rather than expanding the list, I think the challenge is to discover the few add-ins that really work elegantly. For instance, I now convert most Powerpoints and PDFs into ISSUU publications for a clean consistent look and a 21st century feel. We are moving with the expanding bandwidth to stream HD video whenever we can - our television channel through Livestream Procaster is in its early stages but what promise! Instead of a big blue button, this one has a big red button to switch on a presenter with camera, microphone and desktop. When live sessions and chat are not happening, one can have an automatic schedule of clips playing from the college Clickview library.

You see, we don't have a problem with content - it's process, process, process and interaction, interaction, interaction! Moodle 2 with external repositories for students to share portfolios of smartphone camera shots etc is a big breakthrough.

I also love the quizzes because they mark participation trails automatically; and this is a large gain in efficiency for teachers.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Wednesday, 23 March 2011, 3:43 PM

Hi Paul

You, Sir, as just as irrepressible as Tigger too.

What with your enthusiastic sharing of the use of add-ins like ISSUU publications (I never heard of it until NOW. I can't wait to try that one out on my site!), and the use of streaming High Definition media at your college. Thanks for your refreshing post about interaction over content.

I just wonder if anyone at your college uses Articulate or Captivate to create multimedia SCORM content and quizzes. Or it is just Hotpotatoes? Or just plain vanilla Moodle quiz module?

Frankie Kam
Melaka, Malaysia

P.S., nothing like authentic Penang Char Kway Teow to satisfy the hungry soul.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Paul Jacobson - Wednesday, 23 March 2011, 4:45 PM

Hi Frankie - just a quick one about Articulate . . .

I downloaded the Suite that includes Articulate and make their Quizzes a central feature in preference to Moodle (vanilla). The variety and smoothness was great, especially the matching quizzes (interlocking jigsaw pieces with "cloicking" sounds when they fitted). But the SCORM was unstable; and changes required redevelopment from scratch - until I eventually discarded them with regret and return to Moodle Quizzes (and their reliable LMS tracking).

Moodle Quizzes can be dressed up with images and imagination. I saw a wonderful set of quizzes on Physiology that combined photos and text. We were talking today about introducing some JavaScript to pep them up a bit.

PS Penang hawkers do it well because (I think) they are the fishermen with the best of their catch. My favourite place in Malaysia is Sabah.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Wednesday, 23 March 2011, 5:50 PM

Paul

I'm looking for a non-Moodle-and-free matching quiz software too. To create pronuciation matching games. international Phonetic Alphabet chart thing. Will share with you if I find a good free software.

My 30-day evaluation trial period of Articulate download ran out 2 days ago. Yes, the clicking sounds are nice and Articulate's quiz module is very multimedia-based which is nice. Too bad about the SCORM. I didn't know it was buggy when put on Moodle.

Sabah is fantastic if you love the outdoors (beach, mountains, jungles). Everything is accessible and it's a great place to work as the weekends can be spent doing so many adventure outdoorsy things. I've been to Kota Kinabalu. Ten years ago on my honeymoon.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Don Hinkelman - Wednesday, 23 March 2011, 7:26 PM

Not as wonderful as you describe, but my favorite third party (free) Moodle question type plugins for language teaching are:

I am sure you tried them, but in case you didn't, they are simple, flexible and fun for students. I like to embed images and audio into some the option boxes (need to know a little HTML code) I hear a 2.0 version for both is already out.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Glenys Hanson - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 5:52 AM

Hi Don and Frankie,

Students love drag and drop and any exercise where they can move things around. I think it's a very efficient way for them to develope criteria for understanding how the content functions too.

I've used mainly Hot Potatoes for this including some English Pronunciation Exercises. What I find takes time is not making the exercises, but making all the recordings.

Deborah Devlin has also used Hot Potatoes a lot for pronunciation exercises on her Strivney site.

Just had to know what Penang Char Kway Teow was : looks delicious!

Cheers,

Glenys

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Don Hinkelman - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 7:15 AM

Has anyone tried the Games module to encourage self-directed learning? My experience would say that games might help, but at the university level, you also need some structured path that students design or design with an advisor's help. There is no explicit Moodle module for that, but many modules can be used to assist that--even a simple forum module.

Another concern I have is sharing of questions. It is important to recycle questions for review later in a course or later on in other courses. It also important for teachers with similar courses or team-teachers to share questions amongst each other. If you operate alone--no problem--but if you collaborate on classes a Question Bank is essential. Scorm and Hot potatoes can be shared as a whole quiz, which is good. But it would be even better if they could share and reuse individual items by integration into the Question Bank.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by ben reynolds - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 8:23 AM

Hi Don,

I tried the games module as a function of reviewing one of Packt's books. I recommended it to one of my departmental colleagues, who played with it considerably in regard to (US) grade 2 - 5.

We did OK with snakes & ladders, but the other versions didn't impress us particularly. No offense to developer. Just didn't see how to use the others.

Just today, I saw several Tweets about learning games for higher ed. So, I'd recommend a search on Twitter (Seesmic, whatever) for games. Also, I think either Campus Technology or Education Week did a piece about learning games this week.

Do you need to find gamefolk for higher ed? Samantha Blackmon is first person I think of.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Glenys Hanson - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 5:38 PM

Hi Don,

I haven't used games (Hangman, Snakes and Ladders, Millionnaire...) much as I've mainly worked with adults. I know children and teenagers find these games attractive but watching them doing the games I notice most of their attention is on "winning" and winning quickly not on the process of learning, in my case, English. I have used crosswords (Hot Potatoes version) as part of sets of exercises around a text or a video. For example, Vocabulary Practice. They seem mainly useful for practicing vocabulary but my students' main problems are with pronunciation and rhythm, structural accuracy and fluency.

I think it's not only at university level that most students need a structured path - that's what teachers are for, isn't it? To help students learn faster than they would on their own. I have, just once or twice, met a person who had learnt a second or foreign language in a totally self-directed way and spoke it well. Naturally, I didn't meet them in a classroom - they didn't need one. I've also met a lot of immigrants who never had the chance to go to school to learn the language and after 20 or 30 years in the country still speak the language so badly it's a strain to talk to them.

Cheers,

Glenys

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 9:08 AM

Hi Glenys

> Deborah Devlin has also used Hot Potatoes a lot for pronunciation exercises on her Strivney site.
What an interesting site! I like the animations and menus. Her quizzes - those were done with Moodle question types? Wow.

> http://uepd.quizport.com/course/view.php?id=62
>
Glenys, thanks for sharing your site. I'm checking it out, especially the topics and HotPotatoes Quizzes.

BTW, the image of Penang Char Kway Teow is very mouth-watering.

Frankie Kam

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 9:01 AM

Hi Don

No, surprisingly I haven't tried out the drag-and-drop matching and ordering quizzes before in Moodle before. It has just been the usual MCQ and T/F type of questions for me. A quick check on my FTP client showed that I had the question types installed already! Guess I didn't know what I was missing.

Thanks for sharing. I'll definitely be checking them out - interesting that the Ordering question type also has an Image Target detection.

Frankie

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Don Hinkelman - Friday, 25 March 2011, 7:57 PM

Remember, "ordering" and "drag-and-drop ordering" are two different question type plugins.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 9:32 AM

Paul

I tried out ISSUU document publication on my Moodle site. I notice one thing:

The output from a code embed into Moodle results in an ISSUU output that is more low-resolution-graphics-and-blocky, (see below)....

...compared to a direct link to the issuu.com webpage where my publication is situated. See below.

The two images that I have inserted above are of course at different zoom percentages, but suffice to say, if I were to zoom-out the first image (the output from my Moodle-embed code), the text would be unreadable. Like so:

Even if I were to set the ISSUU embed code resolution to 800x600, the resultant output from my Moodle HTML embed code still seems blocky at best.

I would of course prefer to use HTML embed code so that I don't have to see all those Google Ads in the issuu.com webpage.

However, with the issuu.com linked-to webpage giving higher resolution graphics of my converted Ms Word 2007 document, looks like I will have no choice but to use Moodle's "Add a resource"->"Link to file or web site". And students will be viewing all those extra Google ads on issuu.com pages. What's your experience like?

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Paul Jacobson - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 12:25 PM

Hi Frankie - I'm not sure what is happening in the Moodle.org Forum - I can't seem to embed an ISSUE publication. The actual brochure works fine on my Moodle site as well as through the link with ISSUU: http://issuu.com/smartadata/docs/how_to_optimise

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Embedding flash videos on Moodle

by Glenys Hanson - Thursday, 24 March 2011, 5:45 PM

Hi Paul,

In the "student" role we can't embed Flash videos here which is why I asked Mary to insert the video interview with Martin Dougiamas - she's a "facilitator" ("teacher" role) here.

We can insert YouTube videos, and some others, via a direct link ;

There are a lot of Flipbook creators. I like the look of Codebook.

Cheers,

Glenys

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Re: Embedding flash videos on Moodle

by Mary Cooch - Friday, 25 March 2011, 7:12 PM

Hi Paul -here is your Issuu publication:

Open publication - Free publishing - More moodle

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Re: Embedding flash videos on Moodle

by Paul Jacobson - Monday, 28 March 2011, 11:02 AM

Mary - you're an angel! Doesn't the ISSUU mag scrub up well?

The last page has a screen shot of a Moodle Course - Promote Products and Services - this is a typical template we are now using. Our Blocks include a little Flash Clock, RSS feeds of latest news and the usual Messages, Participants etc.

We place small videos of people talking about the subject; and down the bottom there's a little ISSUU publication on Marketing. We also have a linked metacourse loaded with Resources (including Google in a box) for research without leaving Moodle.

I thank Lewis Carr of Leeds City College for his inspirational approach to Moodle; and think of our design as "Moodle with its windows open to the world".

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Thursday, 12 May 2011, 6:56 PM

Dear All

Here's my research dissertation (1st version) in all its glory and warts and all.

http://min.us/mvb09yA

Six months ago I know nothing about Moodle (root access) administration.
Now after six months....I know erm...something.

Enjoy.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Helen Foster - Thursday, 12 May 2011, 8:09 PM

Frankie, many thanks for sharing your research dissertation. Can we add it to the Moodle Buzz?

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Thursday, 12 May 2011, 10:58 PM

Hi Helen

Thanks for the kind offer.

I am tempted to say an immediate yes, but ... ah... no more buts,
let's just go it.

OKAY, you can add it the Moodle Buzz.

Frankie Kam

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Helen Foster - Thursday, 12 May 2011, 11:43 PM

Thanks Frankie How about if you add it to the Moodle Buzz, rather than me, then if the link ever needs updating or you need to remove it temporarily, you can do so.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Marc Grober - Friday, 13 May 2011, 1:04 AM

Frankie,

Please correct me if I am confused about this, but it appears that you assumed that time between two Moodle recorded events (and I didn't find that description though I am sure it must be somewhere in your methodology section) was time on task, a classic error that has been discussed at length.

Additionally, it would appear that many of your other propositions are based not on structure specific to Moodle but on the specific design that may have been employed by the course designer. As you note, the study was not about Moodle per se, but the issue generically might be stated as, "What is an LMS?" To put it another way, are students going to be pleased with any method that provides them with well defined and clearly stated objectives, readily accessible materials etc. and to such an extnt, does web 2.0 have mch of anything to do with that?

Lastly, while you took some pains to discuss educational philosophy, much of what has been published does not rise to the level of testable hypotheses (the literature critical of Piaget an Bruner such as has been generated by Englemann et al are examples of the divide between methods based on a priori philosophical conclusions and actual research, and the disaster facing schools in the US who started using Everyday Math is consistnt with the impact of the deployment of "whole language" instruction which, with the abandonment of phonics, resulted in hundreds of thousands being unable to read.)

I don't know of a teacher who doesn't hope that he or she won't help a student to be willing and able to pursue learning on their own. And there are arguments to be made in the behavioral psych lit about rewarding risk taking and learning. I don't see that we need tens of thousands of pages of philosophy to pursue the question of how you behaviorally shape a life long learner....... This is a divide that is decades old now, but what you will see in many places today is that while educators may talk about cognitive theory, they are actually spending their time time writing behavoral support plans and using behavioral science to implement quality management in schools using labels such as "RTI". Some people ponder shadows on the wall, nd that is well nd good, but I want the guy cooking my food to learn how to keep Cbot at bay, today.......

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Friday, 13 May 2011, 2:02 AM

Hi Marc

Thank you for your comments. Much appreciated.

CBot = Chicago Board Of Trade?
RTI = responsiveness-to-intervention?

Much of what you have written I haven't read about. Like in RTI. I didn't know it existed. Thanks for you input which makes me see the other side of things. I know that rigorous research is tougher than tough, and I thank you for making me see the light.

Time on Task. Never heard that one before. LOL!!?
Looking up "Time on Task" I found this eye-opening article, from which I'd like to share this portion:

"While there is some relationship between time-on-task (or engaged time) and student achievement, simply increasing the amount of time available for instruction is not enough to achieve learning gains."

"Time allocated for instruction must be appropriate; that is, at the appropriate instructional level for students and delivered in a way that is effective, efficient, meaningful, and motivating to students. It is important to keep in mind that most studies have measured allocated time (time students are required to be in class), and only a small number of studies have attempted to measure engaged time (time students participate in learning activities) and academic learning time (time when true learning occurs) (Aronson, Zimmerman, & Carlos, 1998). However, findings from those studies tend to support a moderate relationship between engaged time and achievement and an even larger relationship between academic learning time and achievement (see Cotton & Wikelund, 1990).
Link

Wow! Never read that one before until today. How does one measure when "true learning takes place"? I found this interesting article on the matter. Will print, read and digest it when my brain is not so groggy as in now.

Bravely and openly subjecting my writeup to the scrutiny and constructive dissection of the Moodle community - of whom many, I am sure are highly qualified, seasoned and able researchers who have gone through the mill - is one way of getting out of the "ivory tower". And your wise comments and perspectives on the pertinent issues at hand have certainly made me learn more. Thank you for your deep insight and critical thinking.

regards
Frankie Kam
Melaka, Malaysia

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Marc Grober - Friday, 13 May 2011, 3:30 AM

RTI is used for response to instruction as well as response to intervention - in either case, at least in north america it is arguably code in one respect for avoiding a referral for special education. I think it is inappropriately purposed to that end in many districts, though if viewed in a larger context it is intended more as an approach to total quality management, which as it focuses on changing behavior is very successful.

Cbot is clostridium botulinum - my apologies as I am notorious for pushing discussions where they have no apparent reason to go.... my point was that if you don;t want to die when you eat out, you want the person prepping your food to know what they are doing, and I don;t want that guy pondering Plato to learn food handling.....

"Time on task" is a major problem with research into efficacy of teaching tactics, and as you note it is difficult to even agre what the phrase means. I would have to argue that the best way to address such research is to attempt to correlate intensity and locus of brain activity, and there is research being conducted along those lines. Anything short of that falls into what I wold call the cognitive trap, it may sound plausible and provide a productive basis or discussion, but it is, at base, hot air....

There is actually quite a lot of "real" research being done on the question you have now bumped into.... how do we define, identify, quantify and track "learning", but most of that research is based on animals other than humans, and I don;t know that any "educators" are involved in such research (perhaps in part because education schools fill students' heads with philosophical drivel, who knows - lol.)

I am going to hazard a guess that you are a student of your traditional instructional system (i.e. Pre-SDL mandate) and have to suggest that while your teachers may have let you down (how else might we explain you not being aware of what time on task is all about) your educational system has not, as you appear motivated, inquisitive, and able to be analytical and critical.....

However, debunking the vast gas-bag that poses as educational research may be a bridge beyond simply getting your thesis accepted, and your faculty may not be happy with concepts that challenge their comfort zone; get your Masters Degree, and then shop for a PhD program that will foster your curiosity and challenge your thinking then write your doctoral thesis about the efficacy of Master Degree programs in Education Academics are the worst kind of bigots and you don't want to be tainted at this point with any contrarian odor.

And, while I agree there are lots of wickedly smart people who lurk about here, you will also find quite a few evangelists. The problem with the scientific method, Frankie, is that it does not work in reverse. Faith is, as Mr. Dawkins suggests, inconsistent with science; at best a source of interference and at worst, well, that's a story for another day. Beware of anyone reasoning backwards .....

Good luck!

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Friday, 27 May 2011, 9:33 PM

Hi Marc

Sir, I perceive that you are a THINKER. If you were alive during Auguste Rodin's time, he would have sculptured you in bronze and marble. Not many people would have the patience to type/blog/post as much text as you have. Meaning it as a compliment. Each paragraph is a morsel of meaning to be thoughtfully savoured and ruminated over.

I am an iT lecturer who is passionate about using technology (specifically Moodle and Web 2.0) to excite, enthuse and engage students in learning.

Once my Masters award is confirmed (it's a Masters by coursework with the end of the programme Research Project which I just completed), I am keen to dip my toes into the perilious lake of Php Header Damage (PHD). So, erm, what would you suggest I do to evolve my current 19,000-word, 138-paged Masters thesis into the genesis of a PHP, erm, I mean PHD thesis work?

Lending you my ears,
Frankie Kam
The Historical City of Melaka,
Malaysia
http://moodurian.blogspot.com

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Dan Trouten - Saturday, 28 May 2011, 12:16 AM

First Frankie...Char Kway Teow? You tease!!! I take my kids to McDonald's on Fridays. It will be such a let down for me today!!!

OK...I really am looking for as much in the self-directed learning as possible. This is the basis of our use of Moodle at this time. Continuing ed credit is where schools have a very high net revenue not to mention all self-directed learning. Just saying....

Wanting Char Kway Teow in SC, USA....

Dan

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by William Hamilton - Saturday, 28 May 2011, 1:25 PM

I had been quite busy this week but intended to get back to this most excellent post! ...maybe not quite the million dollar observation or Holy Grail but none-the-less fascinating.

I'm a lectuer at a maritime institution with a number of train the trainer and instructer/lecturer type courses under my belt, not all good... I mention this to suggest I'm aware of some required pedagogy. I've also been an IT geek for as long as I can remember; My degrees are in POLSCI (B.S.) and MBA.

Your research Frankie (which I'll read in full later) and the follow up by Marc have "stumbled" upon the best of two worlds; IT and pedagogy. Let me explain further. In trying to "convince" management that investment in a LMS was more than just buying the Porsche of LMS', e.g., Blackboard (my seniors seem to think if you buy "the top of the line" everything must be included); this is of course without knowing what the everything is that's required/ desired for an LMS! Some of my "learned seniors" know all the cognitive pedagogy and supposed ways ahead for tomorrow's teachers (I prefer facilitators) but still in practice prefer/ execute old behavioral pedagogy; They can't see... When I try and discuss these things, they just relegate me to the corner.

When I read Marc talking about these things and Time on task and methodologies, etc.,-- I got excited, finally.

This is a long worded way of suggesting that the Moodle Tool Guide for Teachers seem to be one way to keep straight as to what my objective was in presenting the material (e.g., Information Transfer, Assess learning). This could then "help validate" up the Moodle framework (infrastructure) and Course design methodology and help ensure that specific objectives were framed in the correct design methodology to achieve the Holy Grail, e.g., achieve the objective and be able the assess methodically and how it was achieved.

I wish to flush this line of thinking and more out... The Moodle Tool Guide for Teachers might be able to flush that out more and make it clearer as to the required time on task and assessment proofs to achieve an objective given the particular choice or tool used.

Time on task and being able to prove it directly correlates to the methodology employed (Moodle framework, course design and lecturer pedagogy) can really help stakeholders lock onto Moodle instead of drifting all over the place and looking at gliche Blackboard sales pitches.

Myself, I wish to put Moodle in an environment that has basically 3 servers; Db Server (SQL 2008), Sharepoint App Server (2010) and Moodle App Server; I think this can best leverage the current and future technology and bring to bear the potential realization of the cognitive pedagogy (and Behavioral, if we must), course design, teacher processes, student synthesis of the learning and objective achievement.

Hope I'm making sense and just babbling on...

Anyway, thanks for your broaching the topic!

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Sunday, 13 November 2011, 1:22 AM

Hi Marc, William

I'll be convocating this December 10th at Putra World Trade Centre at Kuala Lumpur with my MSc In IT. BTW, I found this interesting article:

http://feaweb.org/time-on-task-a-teaching-strategy-that-accelerates-learning

Frankie Kam

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Matt Bury - Sunday, 13 November 2011, 5:46 PM

Great discussion guys!

@Frankie - I think there's an easy open source solution to converting PPT presentations to a format that's viewable online, easy to read and accessible; none other than OpenOffice.org! It has an option to output PPT slideshows as a set of HTML web pages with alternate text options. I've downloaded a few academic PPT files to run through it and it seems to work pretty well.

To everyone who's mentioned interactive activities for second languages, (get ready for a plug... ahem), I've been an EFL/ESL teacher for over 10 years and I'm also a Flash developer. I'm building a project to make high quality multimedia interactive applications more useful and affordable for schools and language departments. Like Glenys mentioned, "What I find takes time is not making the exercises, but making all the recordings." and I'd add that collating and referencing them can take even longer!

The project I'm working on is on a Moodle 1.9 course on my website here: http://moodle.matbury.com/course/view.php?id=17

I've developed a set of Flash applications that generate activities from learning content packages which contain audio, images and text. These packages are open format and editable so they can be modified to meet individual courses needs and they can be combined a la "mix and match" to create a variety of activities and reduce the overall materials development time and increase recycling/re-using resources, vocabulary, etc.

I've also written some blog articles about them and other related topics here: http://blog.matbury.com/

I'm currently developing a multimedia presentation application that'll take a different approach to the traditional PPT slideshow. It's geared more towards the self-access approach that educators are increasingly taking with web resources so that they can concentrate more on interaction and collaboration in face-to-face and synchronous activities and sessions.

If anyone here has any ideas that they'd like to see implemented in learning interactions, I'd love to hear about it. I get some wonderful ideas from clients, for example this one: http://blog.matbury.com/2011/06/19/students-can-save-snapshot-images-on-moodle/ and this one: http://blog.matbury.com/2011/10/04/swf-activity-module-now-supports-conditional-sequencing/

I look forward to your comments and suggestions!

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Thursday, 17 November 2011, 1:40 AM

Hi Matt

Great website. I'm adding you to my blog's bloglist.
Love your detailed posts on Flash and Moodle.
The avatar camera activity was fun!

Frankie Kam
http://moodurian.blogspot.com

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Ravi Limaye - Friday, 14 December 2012, 8:18 PM

I created a course and used group mode and problem based learning. My experience was that blended form of learing which involved instructions in class and making students do the assignments in class on moodle very effective. However there was a need for an orientation class to use moodle, on getting habituated to the environment they responded quite well. However for self directed learning the system of learning needs to be oriented towards that. A problem based learning approach with groups can be effective and it needs to be part of the system adopted by institute.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Friday, 5 February 2016, 1:27 PM

Here's a permanent link to my 2011 Thesis:

http://www.slideshare.net/kamboonseng/kam-boon-seng-masters-thesis-may-2011moodle-and-selfdirected-learning

Kam Boon Seng Masters Thesis May 2011(Moodle and Self-Directed Learning) from Frankie Kam

Haha! Back then it was Moodle 9.1.x. Now it's Moodle 3.0.x. How times have changed!

Enjoy!

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Matt Bury - Friday, 5 February 2016, 10:49 PM

Hi Frankie,

Have you heard of a more "reader friendly" way to share academic papers? https://www.academia.edu/ It also includes social networking features so that you can follow and be followed by other academics.

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Michael de Raadt - Wednesday, 10 February 2016, 12:30 PM

Hi, Frankie.

Would you be willing to share your thesis in the Moodle Research Library?

http://research.moodle.net/

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Thursday, 20 October 2016, 3:04 PM

HI MdR

Sure thing! I've created an account at http://research.moodle.net and I have uploaded my thesis to research.moodle.net users for approval.
Title: THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A LMS TO INCREASE SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING IN DIPLOMA STUDENTS AT STAMFORD COLLEGE MALACCA
Author: KAM BOON SENG

Regards
Frankie Kam

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Re: Research on whether Moodle will increase student self-directed learning

by Frankie Kam - Thursday, 20 October 2016, 4:03 PM

My thesis' URL: http://research.moodle.net/id/eprint/121

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