Hi,
Bringing it all together then:
It was Ryan who stated that he would
like to be able to just click and view courses on a hub/shared moodle courses/content
on a platform, so for example moodle.net, and of course we know there are
others too: Mount Orange as well as the lovely Learn. Moodle MOOC.
Ryan
specified K-12 and that his difficulty was not being able to find much, if
anything, where teachers have collaborated in the construction of such courses.
Paula also referred to www.FreeMoodle.org as a place where teachers can put their
courses if they want to share with anyone who wants to make them available to
anyone who wants to take them for free. (a hub)
Ryan suggested or hinted at change, in
that he would like to see movement forward and avoid a baseline in terms of
what is already there. In other words, it
would be nice to have access to similar courses that exist in the real
world. In sum, it appears Ryan is saying that he found a lot about how to
create this or that, but not much about sharing content.
Paula asked Ryan to clarify whether it
was specifically courses that teach English as second language? And
pointed out that there are several courses across Moodle.net
about instruction, but there is just one with a working demo site. Paula laid
out the instructions how to download and back up files for own site. Paula stated
there might be some English courses there that could help with ideas for Ryan's
own courses. Paula mentioned open
source curriculum, but there appeared to be nothing found in Moodle
courses.
Derek stated, most of the best
courses need some sort of plugins or customisation. He went on to raise some issues,
which prevent these type of courses to exist in the Orange school/demo sites
because of the extra bits/code/work required
Matt raised the point, in that a number of courses about English
can exist such as English literature, English language, English as foreign or
second language, English linguistics and so on.
He referred to Open Educational Resources (OER) databases? e.g.https://www.oercommons.org/and http://lreforschools.eun.org/andhttp://opencourselibrary.org/ as examples of a shared hub for teachers, but identified pros and cons too, which in turn, suggests a gap out there.
Don included a link for the Moodle Japanese hub: http://hub.moodlejapan.org
in reference to courses related to teaching English as a foreign language
(EFL). He stated the advantage of this hub site compared to Moodle.net,
is that all kinds of third party plugins are already installed for you to view
the questions and activities (PoodLL, drag-and-drop question types, video
assessment, sharing cart and others).
Ryan returned...
He stated that his overall need would
be to view courses to have an idea of the overall work flow and content. He
outlined in his post, a need to see fit- for- purpose courses....so not
necessarily all the bells and whistles, but rather a course that resembles that
of what is going on in practice, and the more subjective/bespoke... the better...not
made up-didactic stuff. Capturing the
chaos...the reality of how courses look and are put
together....linear/non-linear...imperfect/sleek and all that.
It was Mary who
suggested to Ryan that while there are no customisations in the Moodle
School Demo site, aka Mount Orangeall
courses have guest access and that you need to log in to
try out the activities and see the full features not visible to guests.
John clarified things and set the bar:
in that he thought it appeared the thread was about FULL COURSES IN ENGLISH,in other words resources and curriculum
links are necessary for all teachers including moodle teachers. John appeared to be stating a need for
curriculum mapping where the moodle resources/activities: tools and the way in
which a fit-for- purpose can be achieved involving: teacher/learner........moodle
tools........curricula expectations
across/embedded within- moodle courses.
John referred to course books and
identified a gap in that there appears to be a lack of course books or full
courses suitable for use as a teacher on Moodle, even a course book in PDF or
word format is difficult to find.
Alan referred to the resource http://stories4learning.com/moodle/course/view.php?id=10
It was on the 22 Sept 2014 in the community forum, Mary Cooch posted
about improvements with Mount orange school site: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=270499
Mary C stated:
If you look on ourDemo page,
you'll see that, in addition to our
empty sandbox site and our QA testing site, we have ourMount Orange
School which is a demonstration site populated with users and
content, giving you a feel for how a real school site operates. TheMount Orange
school demofront pagehas recently undergone a
makeover MDLSITE-3245to make it more attractive and easy to
use, and we'd love your feedback on how you find it, either on this thread or
on the tracker issue. (It uses the More theme with someCSS, as the demonstration sites are there
to show what you can do with standard features)
The contents are still work in progress - see MDLSITE-336- and if you have suggestions as to
other useful features/activitieswe can highlight, they would be
appreciated too
Dawn offered to give feedback about the
following items:
1. To consider how it looks in terms of
the adjustments tomake it more attractive and easy to use
2. Tolook at the More theme that
has someCSS,
3. And comment on the demonstration sites that aim to show what
can be done with standard features
And
consider these three things from the viewpoint of
astudent,ateacher,
amanager,
aparent oruse another
account -
Mary E stated, only the frontpage had the face lift. And that what was
amazing about all of this, is that any administrator with an eye for colour and
change can transform a plain school Moodle site into something similar to what
Mary Cooch has achived in the Demo Mount Orange site.
Sofia stated, the Mount Orange School
new site looks good and is easy to navigate and the world of water course was good. Sofia asked about any networking events for teachers using and
creating courses in moodle.
Derek agreed with Sofia, and asked about the theme: is it based
on a standard theme or is something added in? Derek stated that he did not know
of networking events because they are difficult to organise for a range of
reasons.
Richard suggested the regular MOOTs
including the upcoming iMoot2015 as a place for
such activity.
Mary C replied to
Derek and stated, the School demo site is a standard site using a customised
"More" theme - seeStandard
themesfor how to replicate
it.
Summary:
Poss Five- Point plan
1. The development of moodle hub (s)
for sharing courses-as outlined in the thread
2. A new approach, linkages with what
is going on out there
3. Hybridity: we know institutions work
in a way and we know communities
work in a way....taking the best
from both worlds creates a hybrid that can be found in moodle courses...e.g.
curriculum mapping from the former...and subjectivity/bespoke-application in
the latter, through the use of moodle hubs for sharing courses
4. It appears there is infinite scope
for moodle courses within domains, as noted in this thread (English courses),
as well as across domains and in terms of scope across a number of learner age-ranges.
5. getting 1-4 right sounds pretty
fruitful for moodle
Hope helpful
Dawn