Hi Louise!

Great to hear you're looking to use Moodle with younger students, I've seen it used both down to very young ages, and with adult learners.

I'm from the Partner company whose blog Mary linked to (thanks Mary!), I just wanted to say hi, if you you want to talk to me, or the author of that post I'm happy to arrange it, we may be able to offer you more help.

Good luck!

Ben

Many thanks to Mary and Dawn for their contributions... very helpful as always

Louise, from what you've described, especially mixed age groups, begs me to ask the question of what learning and teaching approach(es) your school is oriented towards.

Dawn has made some suggestions that would be suitable for more progressive, self-directed learning, (i.e. co-constructed narratives on a wiki) as well as traditional present-practice-and-produce methods. Without knowing more about your particular circumstances, I'm afraid we'll all just be feeling around in the dark.

I think it's worth considering what learning approaches your school is most likely to use when faced with a new medium (web based technology) and new modes of resources (electronic text and images, audio, video, animation, interactive activities, etc.). Typically, most teachers tend to fall back on what their "instincts" tell them pedagogically, while they assimilate and develop their understanding of the new medium and modes.

The clearer an understanding of your particular circumstances, and learners' and teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and expectations we have, the easier it will be for us to suggest productive avenues to explore.

To give you an overview and a rough idea of Moodle's pedagogical foundation, I recommend reading these two pages:

http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Philosophy

http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Pedagogy

However, Moodle is equally suitable and capable of supporting more traditional learning and teaching approaches.

Finally, for getting started with Moodle and elearning in general, I think it can be helpful to aim for the "low hanging fruit" principle; try to find the easiest, simplest, quickest, most productive uses first and then explore and expand from there. I think it should also stem from identifying learning needs rather than a desire to try out some impressive, shiny, new activity (although a lot of learning how elearning and Moodle can meet learning needs requires a lot of trying out impressive, shiny, new activities).

I hope this helps!

What a grand discussion.  You might want to check out some of the courses on freemoodle.org for some things that people have been doing. There is a kindergarten weather unit and a primary community helpers unit, Basic Scratch, Where's Mat? Sunflowers and Swiss Rolls, Vegetable Garden, Biome and many more at the secondary level. Freemoodle.org doesn't have any fancy plugins just the core Moodle, so it's a good place to see what might be done.

In my experience here are some things have been done with younger students:

1. 4 and 5 year olds- moodle contained links to websites the teachers would like the students to use on the computers during their small group time.  Links could be easily hidden and new ones added or other unhidden depending on what students were doing.  Some parents asked for the link and a login so they could have them available to students at home.

2. special needs classes- had individual classes for each student to put on things they wanted them to work on.  I think now with the groupings and conditional activities, this could be done in one or two courses.  Students were able to get to the course during the computer time in their regular class as well as the time spent with the special needs teacher.  Also available from home.

3. Home work assignments and newsletters etc. so that parents are informed and students can make sure they know what their homework is.

Also let's not forget a course for the faculty and staff of the school for all kinds of questions, answers, postings of coming events and more.  Even might most their lesson plans or notes to substitute teachers when they are out.

There are so many different ways that this can be used.

Paula

Hi Visvanath,

From my next to non-existent German (Ich habe alles vergessen!)...

Digitale Demenz - Digital dementia

Wir sind online - Wo seid ihr? - We're online - Where are you?

Die digitale Falle - The digital case? (Not sure if there isn't a more pragmatic, meaningful translation)

I think the biggest concern, not just for children but for all learners is divided attention or, as some people prefer to call it, "multitasking". Here's a really nice explanation of the problem by Daniel Willingham:

The jury's still out where it comes to appropriate ages and online activities for younger learners. One argument goes along the lines that digital distractions (e.g. email, messaging, and social networking services) aren't going to go away for the foreseeable future and so children have to learn to organise themselves to mitigate them, e.g. isolate themselves from distractions while they do their homework and switch off their mobiles/cells during classes, i.e. stop trying to multitask.

From what I understand from developmental psychology, there are real concerns about children learning to focus on learning objectives for longer periods of time and develop their cognitive and especially metacognitive skills (i.e. learning to learn). If learners are continually distracted while they're trying to learn something new, research shows that learning tends to be shallower and understandings of concepts develop insufficiently for productive analytical and critical thinking. Could you imagine a 5 year-old trying to study maths in a busy toy shop? How well do you think s/he'd understand addition and subtraction by the end of it? Or how and when to use it?

However, there are instances where digital platforms and tools can be productive and more practical than the alternatives. This is one reason why I asked Louise about what learning and teaching approaches are prevalent in her school. In more progressive learning and teaching approaches, such as the Reggio Emilia approach, digital tools make creating, developing, and sharing learning artifacts (so called "making learning visible") easier (Think of digital recording and editing tools, creating presentations and documentaries, even for very young children - it's actually being done.) and opens up new possibilities such as sharing children's learning with their parents and families and engage and inform the whole community in educational processes (better informed parents are better placed to help their children with their cognitive development).

In traditional classrooms, yes, the internet is probably more of a distraction than a useful tool or source of information.

Just my €0.02!