Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Alexandre Enkerli -
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Hello! It's been a while since I've posted here... and the topic is likely evergreen.

  • What examples do you use to inspire people to use Moodle?
  • Probably best if those examples come from others (instead of your own work).
I currently work in the digital pedagogy team of a nonprofit which hosts over 120 Moodle instances. Much of the training provided by the Moodle team (outside of our pedagogical team) is about specific features or clear use patterns.

With colleagues, we've briefly discussed the common problem that teachers find Moodle to be "a difficult beast to tame", at least on their first try. Since I started using Moodle (in 2003), I've interacted with a relatively large number of people about Moodle. Learners almost never have any issue with it, admins almost take it for granted... and many teachers have intensely negative reactions about it. Of course, User Experience work on Moodle 4.x can eventually decrease these reactions, if teachers are brought to our beloved LMS with the right framing. (In other words, instead of telling teachers that they should enjoy Moodle, we can find ways to show ways Moodle can work for them.) 

In this context, it'd be useful to have at least a few awe-inspiring examples to provide teachers with inspiration. Think "wow factor". Or the reaction "I never realized you could do this with Moodle!".
Some of that can be very simple, technically. I don't think it matters too much that the examples would be sophisticated, in terms of technical or design setup. Sometimes, people find a Moodle site very impressive based on a bit of theming or a simple feature that they could readily use themselves.

I'd personally be very interested in examples you could share which have inspired you, in your use of Moodle. It might be something a learner showed you. A trick presented by a colleague during a conference which then increased your appreciation of Moodle. Or, simply, a well-designed learning-focused site which happens to be built through Moodle.

Thanks in avance for your help!
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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Rick Jerz -
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I don't know if my recent interview by Moodle is directly related to what you seek, but it could be a small example.
 
As background, I am a professor who has used Moodle for a dozen years, even though my universities had other LMSs.

 
This second video is a little different.  I made this to explain a specific feature that I like in Moodle, "forums", versus another LMS.
 
 
This third video is one of my MoodleMoot presentations.  Again, this is very specific to a Moodle capability.
 
Calculated Multichoice Questions
 
 
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回复Rick Jerz

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Alexandre Enkerli -
Thanks for these, Rick!
Sounds like your CSS tricks might inspire some people in our network.
Making Boost do MORE (rjerz.com)
(As far as I can tell, very few people deviate from the default version of Boost, even if they know CSS.)

The idea, there, might be to display the same Mdl course with different stylesheets. That way, teachers would realize that there's potential in customizing Moodle.

Having said this, I do wonder if there might be an issue in teachers getting access to the CSS for the theme used at their institution.

So... maybe the "trick" is to focus on building webpages in a web design tool and paste the HTML code in Moodle. Adobe Dreamweaver might be a stretch for our teachers (though they used to have the full Adobe Creative Cloud for 10CAD/year instead of 20USD/month). I might try some Free/Libre Open Source alternative to Dw. Would go well with the Moodle ethos.

In fact, a simple and easy trick might be to build pages in WordPress!
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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Rick Jerz -
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On my Moodle, I am the only administrator and teacher, so I can do whatever I want to do. However, I doubt that people with "Teacher" role can edit CSS. They would have to ask your Moodle administrator, I believe.

For all my course content, I use Moodle's URL resource and link to web pages on my server that I have created with Dreamweaver. I do not use Moodle's "pages." So I would agree with you, Alexandre, that Dreamweaver provides a lot more power. In fact, I learned CSS first on Dreamweaver before using CSS on my Moodles! I gave the presentation, below, at a MoodleMoot describing my technique. However, this might be a bit too much to expect from your instructors, and from your server administrators. Many years ago, when the world-wide-web was new, many schools gave teachers their own web space. It seems that this practice has kind of died. 
 
Yes, you can build web pages with a web-editing tool and then copy/paste the HTML code.  I think you might still need to worry about where the CSS, if any, resides.
 
Perhaps WordPress could be used, as you suggest.  But then are you going to have your teachers learn WordPress?
 
At my last university, the Instructional Design department had the skills to create web pages with raw HTML, so they did this (in the Canvas LMS), and then tried to teach instructors how to make modifications.  However, many instructors decided not to learn, and to rely on the instructional designers to create their courses.

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回复Rick Jerz

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Alexandre Enkerli -
Thanks for your replies, Rick! They allow me to "think out loud" and, in some ways, lead me to brainstorming opportunities with colleagues.

On my Moodle, I am the only administrator and teacher, so I can do whatever I want to do. However, I doubt that people with "Teacher" role can edit CSS. They would have to ask your Moodle administrator, I believe.
Right. Not too much of an issue for the type of demo I had in mind. An important consideration before teachers can move ahead on their own. (And it's the same issue whether it's custom CSS or simply a nice theme.)
What might work is if a group of teachers creates an appropriate theme which is both attractive and flexible. Then, it might be possible for our org to have it as an option on several instances. In fact, something similar to this has been happening with a group in the K-11 space which has created useful modules and themes (shared on Github, with some explanations in English). Adopting those might be easier and support needs not be a nightmare.

Many years ago, when the world-wide-web was new, many schools gave teachers their own web space. It seems that this practice has kind of died. 
Our org does this, for teachers in our college system. Many of these are WordPress instances.

Perhaps WordPress could be used, as you suggest.  But then are you going to have your teachers learn WordPress?
Quite possibly. Having taught basic WP skills to a number of people, over the years, I'd say it's easier than learning Dw.
Plus, since they can embed H5P modules in WordPress content, that could be a solution to the common need to share such resources.
A neat example is in a remedial ESL course, built by two teachers who want to share it widely.

At my last university, the Instructional Design department had the skills to create web pages with raw HTML, so they did this (in the Canvas LMS), and then tried to teach instructors how to make modifications.  However, many instructors decided not to learn, and to rely on the instructional designers to create their courses.
Interesting. Most instructors in our network probably don't have access to IDs. And there isn't that much direct support for teachers who want to learn how to build content. That might explain the interest in H5P, as well as in many tools with freemium models (and often "free as in giving away learners' data"). Given our strict law on personal data, there's an important challenge with use of such tools. At the same time, if it's really just about creating content, without requiring others to create accounts or share any information, that might work.
What's unlikely to happen is for teachers to start learning and using specialized authoring software like those in the Storyline lineup. Which might be for the best, given difficulties in making the content produced as accessible as possible.

All of this brings me back to H5P, I guess. As mentioned, we notice an increase in teachers creating H5P content since Moodle has added the content bank. Some of those teachers are among the most vocal in their difficulties with Moodle. And it might be possible to change H5P modules' CSS without requiring admin access. Sometimes, a bit of tweaking goes a long way.

At this point, I'm getting an idea for a "showcase Moodle" instance or course. We already have sandbox instances and we've been testing some things. The Récit FAD modules would probably useful to add to that showcase. As well as well-crafted webpages and H5P content. Pasting web page content from teachers' own webspaces could also help. Even importing some Wiki content could work.

So, again, thanks for those replies.
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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Rick Jerz -
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Having a team of instructors help design your "theme" will be good. But this is work-in-progress. As you teach with modifications, you learn what is or is not needed. As an idea, start with the standard Boost. Then make changes in CSS. At some point, you might find yourself desiring another plugin theme.

As another idea, you might try installing Moodle on the instructor's local computer and suggest that they experiment.

Below is another video, for my older Moodle 3.11, that I would give to students so that they could learn how I use Moodle. It might be helpful for you and your instructors. I am currently working on a revision because I have moved to Moodle 4.2.

I don't do any H5P. For me, I am not sure that it offers the right cost-benefits. It takes more time (cost). I prefer producing standard videos (as you have seen). H5P is "a difficult beast to tame."  If your instructors are good enough to master H5P, they can probably master Moodle's quiz, forum, page, URL, and assignment resources.

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回复Rick Jerz

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Rick

You wrote:
> Having a team of instructors help design your "theme" will be good. But this is work-in-progress. As you teach with modifications, you learn what is or is not needed.

This is exactly what a community I'm involved in did just now. All were pleasantly surprised. The procedure is documented in https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Creating_a_theme_based_on_boost.

> As an idea, start with the standard Boost. Then make changes in CSS. At some point, you might find yourself desiring another plugin theme.

Your work on bending Boost in Moodle 4.x to do what we all knew in 3.x is marvelous. Many thanks!
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回复Rick Jerz

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Alexandre Enkerli -
Thanks again, Rick!
This idea is shaping up. We might end up running with it.
Interestingly, the co-designing group might not be much of a "team", in the traditional sense. It's probably best for us to do it with a more ad hoc structure.

And, yes, the idea is to iterate. Goes with Design Thinking.


As another idea, you might try installing Moodle on the instructor's local computer and suggest that they experiment.
Having done it, I must say that this might be a bit much for the people I have in mind. It requires a very different set of skills (and security features).

I don't do any H5P. For me, I am not sure that it offers the right cost-benefits. It takes more time (cost). I prefer producing standard videos (as you have seen). H5P is "a difficult beast to tame." If your instructors are good enough to master H5P, they can probably master Moodle's quiz, forum, page, URL, and assignment resources.
Interesting perspective! Perhaps leading away from the basic idea... although, it goes well with a central theme, here.
So, as I've said, we're noticing an increase in teachers' use of H5P. People who claim to be "technically illiterate" leverage it for excellent pedagogy. As I keep putting it, they appropriate H5P without asking anyone for permission or help. They might eventually ask for a bit of support with advanced use, especially when it comes to choosing content types. Yet they don't require the type of training we end up doing for Moodle.
Of course, H5P isn't a Moodle feature. People can and do use it outside of Moodle. Which is why we get people who ask us for solutions to share H5P outside of their local Moodle instance. (A shared Moodle instance is a possibility... raising issues.) Similarly, during the forced shift to online learning, a bunch of teachers in Ontario colleges and universities were using eCampus Ontario's Pressbooks instance to create thousands of H5P modules. Based on this demonstrated need, Yasin Dahi created: 
https://h5pstudio.ecampusontario.ca/
(It now exists as part of https://learnful.ca/ and https://libretexts.org/ )


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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Rick Jerz -
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I'm not anti-H5P, or anything like that.  And it's great that some of your teachers have mastered and applied it.  Also, thanks for the many examples.  In my case, I find that improving instructional videos, question banks, and my use of Moodle is more to my advantage right now.  But I would love to have time to develop interactive course material.  

On the topic of "installing a local copy of Moodle on your computer," you can find many instructions.  I once gave a presentation on this topic.  I give you a link to my web page about this, which then also has some videos.

Installing Moodle in a Sandbox

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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

AL Rachels -
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When I was an active teacher, I did use the forum when I wanted students to write about and discuss how to do various assignments. But I also often wanted them to write privately about their classroom experiences, as well as their future hopes and dreams, for which I used the Journal plugin.

Since I felt they needed to revisit and further develop these writings, I felt the Journal activity was better for that type of writing, even though it lacked so many needed capabilities. For instance, it did not have a way to keep versions and ratings of their writings, unless I cluttered the Moodle course with multiple versions of the Journal activities. Just before I retired I started developing a new version of the Journal activity named, Diary, with the aim of trying to make it more versatile. It has been available for download since September 2020. It's biggest advantage is the capability for an individual to make multiple entries in just one Diary activity set up in a course. This type of setup is so handy when you have students writing something like an essay and want them to improve it, but keep each iteration of revisions.

A Diary activity can be set up to work just like the the Journal plugin, but it can do so much more. For instance, if you want to, you can set up just one Diary activity instance for a typical school grading period, but have it automatically show a different writing prompt each day, week, month, or any combination of time periods. Each individual writing entry can be graded separately using Moodle's rating system. Part of each rating can automatically be calculated based on any combination of character counts, word counts, sentence counts, or paragraph counts. You can even include ratings based off the contents of a, Glossary of Common Errors, activity. Just recently I also added the capability to use Moodle Tags for each entry which really helps me to go back and review/find a particular entry. This is important since one of my Diary activities on my main server has almost five hundred separate entries just under my ID. It also has hundreds of other sample student entries made for test and development.

Even though I am retired, I use Diary myself on a daily basis to help keep track of what I do to all the various development servers I run, so I can make sure the four plugins I maintain work like they should.
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回复AL Rachels

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Dr. Nellie Deutsch -
Thank you for sharing the Diary activity, Al. I'm a teacher educator and the teachers I work with love reflecting using on the Diary because it allows them to use multimedia to express themselves. They especially enjoy the Poodll recording feature.
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回复AL Rachels

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Alexandre Enkerli -
Thanks for sharing!
Would you happen to have a demo of your Diary use? I'm not sure how teachers would react to a description or the screenshots. (Of course, I might try it.)
My hunch is that telling them about journaling tools wouldn't generate that much interest unless they can fit them in their teaching practice.

Maybe the best bet is to get teachers themselves to try the module. If a biology prof uses it for lab notes and a teacher in tourism uses it to prepare a travelogue, colleagues in other disciplines might get inspired to adopt the technique in their courses.

In my observations, teachers have been "taking to H5P" and those modules then have a positive impact on their perception of the LMS. (The alternatives used in the network don't support H5P.) However, even if there were a Diary equivalent in H5P, it's the kind of tool which requires a deeper integration than what H5P affords. Especially for the type of feature you describe.
So it does sound like there's potential, here. 
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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

AL Rachels -
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I do have a place anyone can go to and try Diary out: https://m3x.drachels.com/course/view.php?id=4
They will need to create an account to get access to the examples in that course.
For anyone who would like access using a pre-defined user account, email me for details on how to do that. I can also give access to my development server with pre-defined accounts or a new personal account. I am always happy to give access so I can get some feedback on "new" stuff. For instance, I was working on how a Glossary of Common Errors treats substrings, just yesterday. To me, the new results it gives are much more meaningful and useful, than the previous method which is based off of the way the autograded essay quiz question did it.
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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hallo Alexandre

You wrote:
> Learners almost never have any issue with it, admins almost take it for granted... and many teachers have intensely negative reactions about it.

That is a great summary. Agree 100%.

> Of course, User Experience work on Moodle 4.x can eventually decrease these reactions,

I'm not so sure about that. Let's not go off-track though.

> if teachers are brought to our beloved LMS with the right framing. (In other words, instead of telling teachers that they should enjoy Moodle, we can find ways to show ways Moodle can work for them.)

Agree. "By example" is a great principle.

> In this context, it'd be useful to have at least a few awe-inspiring examples to provide teachers with inspiration. Think "wow factor". Or the reaction "I never realized you could do this with Moodle!".

There are two things here: The functionality ("I never realized you could do this with Moodle!") and the "awe". I'm no believer of the latter. But it is the trend. Look at what the influencers achieve - forgetting at what cost. The consequence of the former are sample courses, samples to look at to take part, hands-on.

> Some of that can be very simple, technically. I don't think it matters too much that the examples would be sophisticated, in terms of technical or design setup. Sometimes, people find a Moodle site very impressive based on a bit of theming or a simple feature that they could readily use themselves.

Aren't we talking about OER?

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回复Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Alexandre Enkerli -
About the effect UX work might have on decrease teacher discontent with Moodle...
Hope HQ has some data on this. Anecdotally and qualitatively, I do notice a bit of a shift in ways teachers in the network talk about Mdl. Including people who have never used an instance running a 4.x version. (If I get this right, our org has been running 3.11 and is upgrading its multiple instances to 4.1, this Summer.)

Maybe you don't notice the same thing, which would be interesting.

On inspiring awe... I'm not a huge fan either. Actually, a better way to put it is that I find awe to be a blunt instrument. There's a risk in using it, like any other tool.
A design-based approach which could match the UX move is to focus on "delight". Quite frequently, what's delightful is very simple, so it's not really about being "impressive" in the influencer's sense. It's much more closely aligned with responding to a need... or preference.
Which LMS can provide a sense of delight? Any, as long as it's framed properly. It can be a use case which gets people to think about possibilities. That's the "drift-off moment" in sales. And as offputting it might be for most teachers (myself included) to think about selling, it's possible to use similar tactics and strategies to reach certain goals, especially if our goals are aligned.

My goal isn't to sell the LMS to teachers. It's to help teachers appropriate the tools they have, including their institution's LMS.
Working with teachers through an experience in which their own practice might improve through proper use of the tools at their disposal. If they feel delight, all the more power to them. (Especially if this delight doesn't decrease their critical thinking skills. It's not about hype for the latest technology. It's about opening new possibilities and figuring out how they fit in diverse contexts.)

Aren't we talking about OER?
Yes! As much as possible. And there's a role for MoodleNet in that discussion. At least, according to reactions during the OEGlobal conference in Nantes, a year ago.
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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Dr. Nellie Deutsch -
Great question, Alexandre. I also started using Moodle as an admin and teacher in 2003. I have used other LMSs, but never found them as effective as Moodle. I believe teachers need to experience Moodle before they can appreciate it. 

One of the features teachers find exciting is "Moodle the community builder". This became obvious before and during the Pandemic. Teachers kept mentioning how interacting with the content, activities, and peers brought them closer together. Moodle made them feel connected and part of a community. The teachers generally keep in touch and collaborated on projects after the courses end. For me, Moodle is a tool for collaborative peer-based learning.

Moodle connects people. If I'm not mistaken, we got to know one another in a Moodle course.
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回复Dr. Nellie Deutsch

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Alexandre Enkerli -
teachers need to experience Moodle before they can appreciate it.
Which is precisely why it'd be so useful to provide such an experience.
Sure, some of that could be through Mount Orange. Yet it's not the same thing as actually teaching with Moodle.

One of the features teachers find exciting is "Moodle the community builder".
Moodle is a tool for collaborative peer-based learning.
Moodle connects people.
Agreed on each of these! In fact, it's pretty much what I've been presenting at a few Moodle events, over the years. At MoodleMoot Canada, in 2015, it was Moodle-Based Teaching as Community Management.

What I now realize has been missing from those presentations is... the experience itself.
We can tell people about ways we use Moodle to foster a sense of belonging in a group of learners. We can show collaborative activities among learners. It'll probably work best if we get teachers to participate in something like this.
Moodle MOOCs do help. However, they take a significant amount of time and teachers are unlikely to register unless they have a compelling reason to do so.
An online workshop might work well, especially if there's (asynchronous) collaborative work done ahead of the activity and some followup communication afterwards.
We do this type of thing through what we call "lab sessions". Typically, each online workshop lasts for 90 minutes and involves some kind of hands-on collaborative work in breakout rooms. For instance, last year, I did one such session on collaborative annotations through Moodle. Participants were able to play with three annotation tools in a Moodle instance that we have for training purposes.

In such a context, inspiring examples would allow participants to move from "Show & Tell" to active collaboration.

If I'm not mistaken, we got to know one another in a Moodle course.
Indeed! Probably this same course (or, at least, some iteration of it).

Cheers!

--Alex
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回复Alexandre Enkerli

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Ravi Murugesan -
Testers的头像

Hi Alex - Earlier this year, Moodle HQ ran a competition for teachers to show their course designs. Perhaps you might like to see the entries?

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回复Ravi Murugesan

Re: Inspiring Examples of Moodle Use

Alexandre Enkerli -
Indeed!
That's precisely the type of thing I had in mind. So, thanks for that!

And it's interesting to notice a submission @Visvanath Ratnaweera! 😉
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