Some facts and figures:
- 3683 people started the course and of these 46% were awarded a Learn Moodle 3.9 participant badge for posting in a forum.
- 776 certificates of completion were awarded for completing all 32 activities - that's 21% of people who started the course.
- In the final feedback activity, 42% of participants answered that they used the Learn Moodle app for accessing the course and 94% rated the course Outstanding or Good.
What we did well:
Responsive facilitators
Many participants commented in the Final feedback that they appreciated the responsive and clear support during the course. We’re grateful to our experienced Moodlers who attend regularly to offer help, and are particularly happy when this help is in languages other than English and in different timezones. Many thanks to John Bennett, Hart Wilson, Joost Elshoff, Luis Miguel Prieto Herrera, Domenico Recchia, Jutta Wagner, Darija Tadin-Đurović and Jim Courter who all received the coveted Learn Moodle Basics helper badge, the highest number awarded so far.
This is my 3rd MOODLE MOOC. Once you get to see what MOODLE can do and you meet the community in the MOOC. you can't help but return!
'Learning by doing'
The ability to try things as soon as you learn about them is always welcomed by our participants. At the start of the course everyone is invited to request a practice course (which is automatically created for them with the Course auto-approval plugin). In week 3, participants are invited to share their course with others for feedback and in the final week they learn how to save and upload them to a different site. Thus, you can start the MOOC with no knowledge of Moodle and end it four weeks later with a complete course you can use with your organisation or on a MoodleCloud site.
So many tips acquired but what I most enjoyed and learnt from is actually learning by doing. By taking part in the course and navigating through the different modules gave me the perspective of a learner.
Moodle app
Did you know the Learn Moodle app was the first ever branded Moodle app? Improvements with the app continue to impress our MOOC participants and each time we run the course an increasing number of participants use the app to access the activities.
I have tried to do most of this course on my mobile phone using the Moodle Mobile app. It was extremely useful being able to do that as I was away camping for some of the time and only had my phone. It allowed me to keep up with the submissions, and was much more pleasant than having to set up a computer. I will definitely promote the use of the mobile app for my users.
How we can improve:
A couple of issues were highlighted more than ever this time, perhaps because of the unusual circumstances we found ourselves in this year.
Learning hours
Although our MOOC has no official accreditation, it is often recommended by organisations and participants ask us to add a number of ‘learning hours’ to the certificates. We’ve responded to this by including a minimum recommended number of hours and by adding the competencies met to the completer certificate. You can have this additional information on your completer certificate by downloading it again from your profile.
The MOOC in other languages
Although the course is in English, everyone is welcome to use their own language when posting in forums and creating their practice course. Volunteer Moodlers answer questions in languages such as Spanish, and Helen and I ‘pin’ these discussions in the Any questions? forums so they are easy to find. However for some people, this is still not enough, and they would like the contents translated into other languages. While this would be challenging with a MOOC which is updated twice a year, it is something we are planning with the self-paced courses.
More free MOOCs
Some participants run out of time, do not complete the MOOC and are unable to claim their completer badge and certificate. Others who do complete the course ask for more advanced training. Since the start of 2020, we have added three free, self-paced MOOCs to the site learn.moodle.org and have plans for more. We are working towards making these available for translation on the Learn Moodle site during 2021, so that participants will be able to access the content in their preferred language.
Moodle Teaching Basics
If you can’t make our facilitated MOOC, the Moodle Teaching Basics course is always available for you to take at your own pace.
Moodle Admin Basics
If you are a new Moodle admin or new to MoodleCloud, our Moodle Admin Basics course, available to take at any time, will help you get started with the basics of administration.
Moodle Plugin Development Basics
Our latest free course, Moodle Plugin Development Basics is also self-paced and designed for developers who want to better understand Moodle development processes.
Join us for the next Learn Moodle Basics MOOC
We’re currently working on exciting plans for more free courses as well as planning updates to our current MOOCs for the big Moodle 4.0 release. The next run of our Learn Moodle Basics MOOC will be announced in early 2021 and we hope to see you there!