Teaching with Moodle

Matt Bury your post were ya go into list of "higher order thinking" to me ya almost going to far out, and asking to much, in your overall post. you are asking a computer to become a human. technology has not caught up to that point.  your post was a good read overall!, 

http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm getting through first 2 chapters. tad hard to follow. to many "quotes from other things" and needing a background of reading many books it seems like to make sense of what is being said. 

http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf will see about reading over it later.

other 2 references. to much on plate already. 

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<quote>

dawn alderson

·some were flash, html5 / javascript, java, some download and install, some mobile phone support. 

OK....but does that mean....that cocktail is why the player does not have a choice...what I mean is, if you choose this direction/pathway you might......or if you choose this pathway/cave/forest whatever you might be able to???? Severe lack of choice for the player across the lot.....CHOICE important.....enbales sense of freedom.....control during engagement....and ownership of outcomes...instead of: use the arrows to put the fires out...derr!  Or, choose the right letter/blend to make the given word.....hidden didactics....boring for kids and then they go and play minecraft!   

</quote>

 getting in to programming...

1. KISS (keep it simply stupid)  flash and/or html5/ javascript maybe, and that is a long maybe java.  each mini game = a new activity or resource type. ya download and install into moodle. just like you might install one of the many third party activity types at www.moodle.org/plugins
2. download / install on computer *shakes head no* i am against this in so many ways, it is not funny.  being techie in family. and getting a call how do i install this game for my kid? the added frustration needs to end. before it even begins and that is (downloading and installing on computer) there be 1000's of flash base games, html5/javascript games out there on the internet that do not need an install doing.
3. SCORM and newer SCORM = TIN CAN  API, i only see big companies using. so they can offer more of there games to multi LMS. 
4. "LTI provider" = *shakes head no* for nearly all of the learning games i have seen up to this point.  the exception is for a MMO (massive multi-player online) game. were the game requires specialized server software.  LTI provider for a learning game. seems like to much distraction, more so if they are geared towards younger kids.  even for the upper 7th/8th grade and above kids. the learning games are small enough. that i would think be easier to have them as an activity / resource directly within moodle. so a teacher has direct control what is and what is not valid for there students. vs just sending all there students to some random game website and no direction what so ever. 

Hi Ryan

I passed the link on to the owner of the site.  I've never experienced this, and the site is regularly presented at teachmeets in the UK, so I assume it's not actually a problem.  I suspect that due to the number of scripts running on the site to keep the various tools available that your scanner has played it safe.

If I hear anything back from the owner, I'll post it here.

Hi Alan,

Yes, RCTs are unfeasibly expensive and time-consuming. It would be unreasonable to ask practitioners to do research without considerable support from professional researchers.

Re: The Diane Ravitch article (I'm a fan of her writing too), I think she's referring to the fact that very few education research studies ever get replicated (so almost no external validity/generalisability), and that the methods and controls used produce unreliable and/or invalid results more often than not. Some papers read more like an exercise in scholasticism than realistic scientific interpretations of the data; Papers that mention other likely alternative interpretations of the data are rare. It's up to us to be more discerning consumers of the existing literature and search diligently for well-designed and conducted research findings.

Funnily enough, more disciplined medicine like trials are something that the UK govt. seriously considered: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/building-evidence-into-education

However, I think there are two main problems with being more scientific (in the natural sciences sense of the word) with education:

#1 - Mainstream education is less about learning than it is about conformity and compliance and maintaining an inequitable status quo (Freire, 1970). Apparently, schools look very different when they're organised around more equitable, democratic principles explicitly targeted at positive psychological development and learning, e.g. Reggio Emilia approach, Summerhill/Sudbury schools, Waldorf education, and Montessori schools. Essentially, what we'd call a liberal arts education.

#2 - Education systems, classrooms, etc., behave more like complex adaptive systems (Engeström, 1987). Under such circumstances, taking a natural sciences scientific approach, there are too many significant variables to control for, and there is so much diversity between learners, classes, cohorts, schools, and systems, that it's extremely difficult to come up with anything that's externally valid/generalisable.

One thing that we'd need to nail down are clear, workable definitions of higher-order and critical thinking (I suspect that there may be "sets" of definitions for different types of higher-order and critical thinking) not only so that we know what success looks like, but also so that we understand how that success came about and can repeat it under different circumstances. Lauren Resnick made a brave attempt at it a while back:

"Thinking skills resist the precise forms of definition we have come to associate with the setting of specified objectives for schooling. Nevertheless, it is relatively easy to list some of the key features of higher order thinking. When we do this, we become aware that, although we cannot define it exactly, we can recognize higher order thinking when it occurs. Consider the following:

• Higher order thinking is nonalgorithmic. That is, the path of action is not fully specified in advance.
• Higher order thinking tends to be complex. The total path is not "visible” (mentally speaking) from any single vantage point.
• Higher order thinking often yields multiple solutions, each with costs and benefits, rather than unique solutions.
• Higher order thinking involves nuanced judgement and interpretation.
• Higher order thinking involves the application of multiple criteria, which sometimes conflict with one another.
• Higher order thinking involves uncertainty. Not everything that bears on the task at hand is known.
• Higher order thinking involves self-regulation of the thinking process. We do not recognize higher order thinking in an individual when someone else "calls the plays” at every step.
• Higher order thinking involves imposing meaning, finding structure in apparent disorder.
• Higher order thinking is effortful. There is considerable mental work involved in the kinds of elaborations and judgements required.”

The best we can hope for at the moment are some principles that seem to hold true "under the right conditions" and in most cases. In EFL/ESL, Krashen's five hypotheses seem to fit this definition (Krashen, 1982).

Certainly food for thought. Then again, cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham does make a strong case for memorising stuff (Willingham, 2009).

References

• Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by Expanding:  An Activity - Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Retrieved February 10, 2015, from http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm
• Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
• Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Alemany Pr. Retrieved from http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/principles_and_practice.pdf
• Resnick, L. B. (1987). Education and Learning to Think. National Academy Press. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/catalog/1032/education-and-learning-to-think
• Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why Don't Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions about How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom (1st ed.). Jossey-Bass / Wiley. Retrieved from http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-047059196X.html
  

google liking me today. finding lots of educational game websites....keywords....

• educational games
  
• online multiplayer educational games
  
• multi player education game
  
• educational games 9th grade

some highlights (lots of websites, below just happen to be what was still open in a browser tabs)

• http://www.arcademics.com/
  
• http://www.primarygames.com/
  
• http://www.gamesgames.com/games/educational
  
• http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/science_experiments.html
  
• http://www.theproblemsite.com/
  
• general listings of websites for edu games http://www.assessmentfocus.com/educational-games.php
• http://www.ismartboard.com/smartboard-math-games/grade-9-10-11-12/
  
• http://www.vocabulary.co.il/ninth-grade-vocabulary-games/
  

other keywords

• SCORM 
  
• TEMPLATE 
  
• *cringies* very bad keywords. i sunk into my chair with depression. as websites with these keywords brought back. (EDIT: re-reading, this is not a flame at ya Matt Bury, up to just a couple hours ago. i was finding some very ugly websites that dealt with educational games, that reminded me of 1990's DOS / windows 3.1 with 5 1/4 floppy disks) 
  

overview of above....

• a lot are showing better "free"  vs commercial pay to play. 
  
• i am also seeing not much connection to any sort of LMS.  other words no way of handing out a worksheet / assignment and complete these math problems for a grade. err go play this game and get X score within X amount of time and have it auto record in a LMS
  
• not seeing much of adjusting this or that in a game to deal with this students current skill levels and what this given student needs to overview.
  
• most games are all little "mini games"  there really is no linking between them, so as to be able to progress through them. 
  
• some of the websites allowed a teacher to sign up there class to the website. but not much further than that. it was all done in given website.  so ya miss out on moodle activities / resources. and just deal with a games on there website. 
• some were flash, html5 / javascript, java, some download and install, some mobile phone support. 
• mutli-player *meh* ya ok, it is there.  but no leader board / tournaments / ways to break students up on different criteria to place them in different select groups.
• there was a lot of games that had "time" associated with some sort of scoring. 
• as things moved away from say 7th grade and higher. graphics went away. to more basic general games. of entering stuff on keyboard or mouse clicks, with no fancy stuff. 
• a lot of games seemed WAY TO STRICT.  get 1 wrong answer and "end game" and start all over again :/ 
• there was no history in many of the games. to display wrong answers at end of a stage. so as to provide extra notification.   
• a lot of the games provide instant feedback. upon wrong answer, some maybe on correct answer.  
• the wrong answer got rather annoying. "took me to another popup, and a couple clicks to get back to the game.  it was almost like a yelling, NO YOU ARE WRONG THAT ANSWER IS INCORRECT in how wrong answers were displayed in some games.  it was not like hey you are wrong lets move on, and go through more like examples and not a real big deal. 

keywords...

• educational games mmo
  
• running into difficulty,  there is mention of them. but nothing is coming up to try a demo or like.  ((this is getting more into actual 3D virtual world games / FPS / RPG style of game play. 

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misc other.....

i was hoping to see more LMS side of things. to deal with "leader boards" / tournaments, and being able to identify and break up students on a wide variety of different criteria.  along with linking multi schools together.  example say in one school district there is 100 8th graders. and then those 8th graders split up into 25 students per classroom.    in retrospect. most online games require a larger number of players. say 1000 to 2000 players. in order to obtain a better peer to peer environment.  were asking a question, is more likely get a fast response and possibly extra help.  i have a hard time comprehending small size class room experiments for online learning. and not being able to link say all 8th graders in 300 miles that are taking english 108. and bring them together in some common forums, user chats, activities / resources / tournaments / etc... so as to allow student to student learning / teaching, within a somewhat control environment. 

the only thing i am seeing to above... is system admins (IT staff) bringing together 2 to 5 schools in there school district, and placing moodle at a central site / servers, to help with IT staffing. 

was hoping to pull up some better "educational games MMO" but nada.  not even need for 3D graphics, would of settled for some old MUD (text based gaming).  that allowed audio / texting like communication, without need to see some character move around in a game to see who is nearby you. 

Oh my!

Natalie:

I see Moodle as maturing into an ideal platform for both games and gamification in the next 48 months for the 'average' tech-confident yet  time poor teacher. The other tool I have my eye on is this: http://h5p.org/ . The layer where we could quickly swap out particular data for the 'game' is held within the XML file, so a simple editor, or a link to a Moodle glossary/database could work as an entry point for teachers.  There has been talk of integrating this in Moodle but nothing  stable as yet.  NATALIE THIS IS GENIUS!!!!!!!!!  now why have you held this little gem between your armpit for so long eh!!!!  will just go stale in that space!

Love it.  Looked at http://h5p.org/content-types-and-applications

I specifically like the potential of the following:

Image hotspots..........popover REALLY REALLY NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Interactive video.....wow! Offers an opt for a range of co-participatory games......I mean even if just voice over narrative...with stopping points....see this...I have no  idea why this video (has 1, 858,865 views) along with many others that make up the Stampy cult ( this is my 8 year old son's fav!)

 Presentation app....is simple....nice for groups perhaps....to create/annotate short adventure stories....including all sorts of media

Timeline is neat I think learner/player can sequence events....attached to previous game/moodle activity  (thinking about the process they were involved with) is a really nice consolidation/promote metacog tool

Same for summary app-potential

So, Natalie I wonder have you let  know about this????

And can I ask you a question please:

Is H5P  web 3 in nature? Because of the semantic web integration implications, such as using HTML5 microformats ( I think that means able to re-use tags unlike before-might be wrong) ?

D 

*rubs chin* lots of info! *big grin* 

building off of everyone's comments. little to much to pin point each of you. and for most part just nodding in agreement to comments.

regarding http://h5p.org i do not think it is worth while. setting a standard of that nature. concept yes is good. but overall. i have a hard time with it.  i would be better off going to each company and say hey, can you create a little button. much like youtube videos. were i can click "embed" and copy some code, and then go paste it into moodle course.   each company has different software they run, and each software most like has some sort of 3rd party plugin that is different in how it is setup. and how it gets used.  with that... letting the companies do there own thing, more likely get better results. if all you want is to embed / iframe stuff into course.

i am also not a fan of XML / Json like doings. all it does is create an extra layer of programming blah!  while it does have it's uses. 

personal note. i am here at moodle.org for a reason, vs going to some other general leaning/teaching website. in that regards i do have my pride, and i would just like all games be geared directly to moodle.  

in above regards. i am more looking at a customized "activity" that is kinda of a mix between "LTI provider" and "embedding" with a little bit of a mix of Matt Bury https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_swf for stuff that requires flash.

1. you goto www.yoursite.com/moodle/course/ -> add activity -> copy/paste, upload a zip file, give a link to something.
   
   1. this is were the connection between moodle and game happens. 
   2. save above page.
2. go back and edit settings. 
   
   1. this is were individualize settings happen per game
      1. this page would more likely resemble many of the "edit pages" of any of the other activities / resources that are found within moodle. "group settings, restrict access, title, description, etc... etc.. etc...
      2. but it would also give some additional settings just for the game.
   2. this is were i am against use of XML / Json / http://h5p.org
   3. this is were Matt Bury https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_swf would come in handy.
      1. the difference between Matt and XML /Json / h5p.org is there is direct link between game and moodle. without need for all the extra BLAH that comes with XML / Json.
   4. EDIT: looking back at Natalie Denmeade statement... <quote>The layer where we could quickly swap out particular data for the 'game' is held within the XML file, so a simple editor, or a link to a Moodle glossary/database could work as an entry point for teachers. </quote>   
      1. XML as in "game settings" on this given "edit settings page".  i might be willing to accept. but i am going to need a bit more push. 

p.s. no pictures yet, i have idea. but. have a feeling above is going to change rather rapidly. and i expect it to change at this point.

==============

i am still a newbie to most of this. and still playing major catch-up to all of you.  with that *thank you!* for all the stuff up to this point. and more to come hopefully! it is appreciated *heart felt smile*

i am hesitant to make a list of websites / companies and start calling, and see about bringing stuff directly into moodle via activities.  part of issue. is needing a back bone errr some sort of standard, that can be applied to list of all games in general.  i am also not confident in the games i have seen. to me they do not build up to a point. instead they just do overview. and they are geared to folks that already know information.  to me this does not seem like a good way to focus energy. 

looking at moodle -> course -> activities -> quiz  and then www.moodle.org/plugins -> activities -> quiz -> all the third party addons/plugins.  the overall quiz like ability to adjust things. is what i am not seeing in the learning games.  

being able to have a teacher insert a list of words. "cow, horse, shark, whale, mouse, etc..." and then add "plural" to a setting of a game. might be more useful.

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being able to say 

• array_A = (1,2,3,4,5)
  
• math_type = (-,+,x)
• array_B = (5,6)

and then the game covers subtraction, adding, multiplying over 1 through 5 by 5 through 6 would be a way to narrow down focus and set limits of the game.  i would assume game starting from easy, 1+1, and working it's way up to 5x6 and mixing things up some.  

it is kinda pointless tossing a student into a game were they are doing fractions / ratios / multi add, subtract, dividing, if they have not even reached 10x10 in multiplication tables. i felt rather challenged as an adult that i thought was good at math. and some of these games were so far above stuff. it just boggled my mind, and i was purposely getting some stuff wrong in attempt to keep game low level as if i was a younger kid.

======

• being able to drop a list of words into a "crossword puzzle" and then students picking some picture outline of there favorite cartoon character being useful.  possibly giving option to print it out. and/or use different colors / markers within the game interface on the computer.
  
• being able to, upload a bunch of pictures of different animals, and then names. into a game, and then selecting some sort of "sentence pattern" to be used to test the students. would be useful.   "the customization" = useful, not the pre made product that can not be changed = not useful at least in my eyes.
  
• being able to launch some racing game. and each student having different questions/answers they must meet. to kinda level the playing field.  one student gets 1 through 7 x 6 multiplication, while another student gets 3 through 10 x 3 through 8 for multiplication tables. 
  
• being able to upload videos of A-Z of someone with video directly on there mouth, showing movement of jaw and tongue and teeth useful. if tied to some sort of feed back system. in united states it would be sesame street, or pbs.org learning tv shows. 
  

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to the above. i have been trying to brainstorm of how some sort of standardized way "easy way" that could be replicated over many games. so the information could be written up in say moodle docs. and then shown to a game programmer. and say this is what i need. and this is the information i need sent back to moodle. so as a teacher can track students progress and trouble areas, and adjust game to each of there students. vs sending the teacher all over internet trying to find some specific game, that just gives details about what they want the students to go through.

a badge, a score, a level, a time does not cut it for me.  questions gave, and answered received = getting better. *looking at* Dynamic assessment in Moodle. Possible?

So Matt (hi)

you are adding weight to the reasoning in Natalie's post there (I think):

 http://h5p.org/ . The layer where we could quickly swap out particular data for the 'game' is held within the XML file, so a simple editor, or a link to a Moodle glossary/database could work as an entry point for teachers.

D