Hi I am new to Moodle. I am new to teaching as well. I will be teaching an on-line class to high school students using a program from an art museum. Do you have suggestions regarding the kind of computer I should have? I will be teaching up to 60 students.
Thanks for your thoughts.
I appreciate it!
Hi Diane and welcome
When you say you are using a program from an art museum, is that an already existing Moodle course, or are you planning to develop a Moodle online course from a teaching plan provided by the museum?
If the former (ie the Moodle site and course already exists) then all you, and your students, need is a reasonably decent computer with internet access - that can be anything from a desktop, through to a chromebook, tablet, or even if the learning materials are well designed a mobile phone.
If the latter, I would recommend taking a look at Moodle Cloud to set up your teaching course. It's a free service provided by Moodle HQ and will allow you to get used to using Moodle as an online teaching tool with none of the technical implications of hosting it yourself, or the costs of using a partner (which would be more suitable if it was for the museum itself creating a whole series of courses for bigger numbers of students etc).
Richard
I would like to second everything that Richard has said and if you like moodle cloud but don't like the adverts you can pay for them not to appear for a very modest sum of money (too small to buy a good coffee every week).
I can't begin to thank you all enough! Wow, you have been so very helpful to me, I really appreciate this. It is tough trying to determine what to do in light of my computer software deficit, meaning my brain, I am an artist so for me there is a learning curve here. I am looking at canvas too, so what you all have shared is a big help.
Thank you!
mmm If you have 60 students then Moodle Cloud may not be the best option, unless you can break it down into two groups. Both Richard and Marcus are right, though, Moodle Cloud is a great environment to learn about Moodle first.
The only issue I would raise with your post is that you intend on using a course from an Art Museum. There may be a number of issues here, including breaching copyright if you do not get permission from the creators of the course to use it. This is something you need to be very careful of when using any electronic resources for any of your classes, whether using Moodle or anything else.
There is another problem, as well. In my first years as a teacher I found using other people's materials not as easy as it sounds. Their courses will often contain little traps that we each build into things. These are concepts we are comfortable with, but someone else may not be. We are not being deliberately malicious, not even aware we are doing it, but as a rule of thumb, I found that the more specialized the topic, the more risk there was in using such courses, and materials. I really found I preferred to take someone's materials, break them down and rebuild them into something I could use. I often took ownership of a new course, not just rebadging materials, but mixing them with different materials, creating a new set of materials. I would change them to suit my style, my concepts, not try to just be using someone else's materials because they were there to be used. Quite often the ideas are good, but I rearrange or restructure them to produce something that is more reflective of my more argumentative nature and the learning abilities of the students in a class. This is really something you need to work out for yourself, and is more about how you see yourself and your personal brand, as well as the teaching practices and strategies you employ.
For example, if I wanted to do a course on the Impressionists, I would use parts of Waldemar Januszczak's wonderfully detailed series on the Impressionists to introduce the Gang of Four, and bits and pieces from the NEA's lesson plans and activities as well as some other information I may have lying around. I would remix it and produce a course that was mine, even though I have contributed only a little that may be original. I do include a Page resource that acknowledges all sources and offers links to those sources, as "fair use" would demand I think. None of this is easy, but I also use this as a way of becoming a lot more familiar with the materials in reviewing them and editing where required.
Any laptop, desktop or even tablets are useful, but being stubby fingered and mostly thumbs, I find using the mobile app not very useful, I am afraid.
