I am responsible for the Learning Portal of an IT company. I find it difficult to get the clients staff to complete a course. Does anyone have ideas on how to encourage corporate delegates to moodle? I make it clear that they only need to do one lesson or section at a time so as to fit the learning into their work schedule. The lessons are short in any case. Even if we charge for the course, delegates will still not log on regularly.
I fear that by the way you said "do a lesson" you are simply publishing information to your students, which is difficult to make exciting (you could have sent them a book).
Are you using forums? Is there a teacher in the course actively seeding conversations and other activities? Have you made it requirement for students to introduce themselves? Are your learning goals for the course set by you or by your students?
Are you using forums? Is there a teacher in the course actively seeding conversations and other activities? Have you made it requirement for students to introduce themselves? Are your learning goals for the course set by you or by your students?
Thanks Martin. I see your point. The subject matter is the
use of an in-house software program. The client buys the software from us, and
the users must learn to use it. In a way, this is like a book almost a user manual
in this case. The software is complex by nature. One has to read the manual in
order to use the software correctly. I augment the learning with face-to-face
sessions. The only way to master the use of the software, is to read the
procedure from A to Z. If you miss one step, the process wont work. But this
is boring stuff! I thus used the Moodle lessons to try to group the steps into
logical steps. I have included animations, illustrations and questions and I do
make use of forums. Delegates are scattered maybe one from company A and
five delegates from company B. The real problem is to motivate the delegates to
complete the course. I send motivations and encouragement mails via the
forum, but struggle to keep a momentum.
The non-moodlers flood our support desk with questions that were answered in the course - underlining the need for me to get them to moodle!
I was wondering if it would be OK to put a time limit on the
course? But how will adults react to being told to finish by a certain date?
Also, when the delegates know that there are face-to-face sessions, they do not
moodle, rather wait for the face-to-face session! I was thinking of making a
post assessment (quiz) a prerequisite for attending the face-to-face session.
Would that be pushing it? Or must i just adopt a hard-line approach and say YOU WILL READ!! 
?
Any ideas
from other corporate Moodle users perhaps?
"One has to read the manual in order to use the software correctly. "
That is one way of learning to use software but not everyone's way (certainly not mine). How many moodlers jump in and experiment, referring to documentation and help forums only when they get stuck.
IMHO, the bext thing about software manuals is a good index to minimise the amount of technical writing one has to read.
Maybe you could link your "chunks" of learning to an FAQ (using the glossary) with autotext links to activities that will help answer their questions.
Or what about grouping learners and challenging them with learning an element of the software before other groups. Use a time-released choice to let learning groups pick a topic they must master and report on in a forum by a certain amount of time, and the groups that get it right in the forum get a prize of some sort.
Or have learners build the glossary as part of their investigations. Give them tasks and have them write the order of operations to complete that task as a glossary entry.
I would shamelessly use a valuable bribe: a day off, a bonus, cell phone bill paid for a month. And then I'd set the time limits. I know this is competitive and perhaps un-moodle-like, but in the corporate world, using moodle as part of a working environment, we're already given over to capital anyway, right? May as well make it fun.
Amy "Marx" Groshek
Or have learners build the glossary as part of their investigations. Give them tasks and have them write the order of operations to complete that task as a glossary entry.
I would shamelessly use a valuable bribe: a day off, a bonus, cell phone bill paid for a month. And then I'd set the time limits. I know this is competitive and perhaps un-moodle-like, but in the corporate world, using moodle as part of a working environment, we're already given over to capital anyway, right? May as well make it fun.
Amy "Marx" Groshek
Thanks for all the ideas. Much appreciated!
If you are teaching software, use a simulation program to SHOW and DEMO how to use the program. The instructional design philosophy I adhere to is to explain WHY folks need to know it and how it will make their work easier. Then SHOW them and how to do it and then have THEM actually do the steps to learn the program. Use a program such as Macromedia's captivate or or Camtasia Studio and you will be good to go. The nice thing is now you can create flash enabled SCORM Compliant modules for Moodle. Looks more professional and certainly will be a helluva lot more interesting than "reading" and online manual to learn the software...DEMONSTRATE IT and sell the idea of why to learn it to get buyin. Otherwise you will still have such difficulties...
-Michael