Hi, again,
You might want to encourage your teachers to post their lesson plans, etc., to a forum. That way, there would be the possibility of a little interaction.
Just a thought! (Maybe a dumb one, I admit.)
-- Art
Art Lader
Posts made by Art Lader
Hi, Michael,
Our teachers can choose between staff development courses offered by our school district or graduate courses offered by an accredited university (at least two every five years). This is how they keep their teaching certificates valid.
Our staff development courses consist of 45 contact hours. I do fifteen three-hour sessions. I try to work in at least one "remote" session, so that they experience distance learning as a student. They usually do not like it, by the way.
I have found that there is a constant tug of war between the teachers and me. It is always good-natured, but it is always there:
First, they want the nuts and bolts of Moodle, but often do not care to discuss pedagogy very much. I, on the other hand, think we should spend most of our time talking about how we will apply this magical gift we have been given. I don't want to talk so much about how to create a wiki, I want to talk about what to do with it once we have done so.
Second, they want what Martin has called the shiny stuff. I love the coolest mods too, but I would like them to walk before they run, so I have to try to hold them back a bit. Before they dive into the feedback module, they need to be able to create a simple choice, no?
The bottom line is that the classes have been very rewarding for me and my colleagues really do like having a product (their own course) when they leave.
By the way, have you seen the demo course at http://demo.moodle.org/course/view.php?id=4 ? You may find it useful.
Regards,
Art
Our teachers can choose between staff development courses offered by our school district or graduate courses offered by an accredited university (at least two every five years). This is how they keep their teaching certificates valid.
Our staff development courses consist of 45 contact hours. I do fifteen three-hour sessions. I try to work in at least one "remote" session, so that they experience distance learning as a student. They usually do not like it, by the way.
I have found that there is a constant tug of war between the teachers and me. It is always good-natured, but it is always there:
First, they want the nuts and bolts of Moodle, but often do not care to discuss pedagogy very much. I, on the other hand, think we should spend most of our time talking about how we will apply this magical gift we have been given. I don't want to talk so much about how to create a wiki, I want to talk about what to do with it once we have done so.
Second, they want what Martin has called the shiny stuff. I love the coolest mods too, but I would like them to walk before they run, so I have to try to hold them back a bit. Before they dive into the feedback module, they need to be able to create a simple choice, no?
The bottom line is that the classes have been very rewarding for me and my colleagues really do like having a product (their own course) when they leave.
By the way, have you seen the demo course at http://demo.moodle.org/course/view.php?id=4 ? You may find it useful.
Regards,
Art
Michael,
We teach three hours at a time. The first hour, our teachers learn to do something and talk about when one might want to do it. Ex: They learn to create a forum or a database, and then we discuss situations in which we might want to use a forum or a database. The rest of the class, they work on their own courses. Most teachers seem to like it pretty well and it seems to meet both my needs and theirs.
Have to commend you for this, by the way. Very nice!
You are obviously a guy with vision.
I am sure that other Moodlers will share their successful approaches with you.
Hope that helps a bit.
-- Art
We teach three hours at a time. The first hour, our teachers learn to do something and talk about when one might want to do it. Ex: They learn to create a forum or a database, and then we discuss situations in which we might want to use a forum or a database. The rest of the class, they work on their own courses. Most teachers seem to like it pretty well and it seems to meet both my needs and theirs.
Have to commend you for this, by the way. Very nice!
It is no secret that educational institutions, especially on the
post-secondary level, are turning to the web to teach students in both
a fully virtual environment (100% online) or in some mix of in-class
and online instruction. Many colleges turn to expensive solutions such
as Blackboard or WebCT. But will our students be ready to function in
a world of online learning? The Easton Area School District is proud to introduce the Moodle learning management system, a program similar in many respects to Blackboard or WebCT. Moodle differs from Blackboard and WebCT in one very significant factor, price. Moodle is absolutely free for anybody to download and use without the per-seat expense of the larger enterprise-level learning management systems. So at no taxpayer expense we are able to offer students of Easton advanced hybrid instruction using state of the art course management software. But does free mean it isn't as good as it's commercial counterparts? No way! Study after study has shown Moodle to be superior to Blackboard and WebCT and a preferred learning environment for both students and teachers alike! The Moodle system will begin it's first large scale pilot rollout in Fall of 2006 with Easton Area School District leading the way in our area with bold new steps to bring technology, the classroom, and students together. |
You are obviously a guy with vision.
I am sure that other Moodlers will share their successful approaches with you.
Hope that helps a bit.
-- Art
Hi, Chris,
There is not much to say, really: We have a couple teachers who like to work in PPT and find making lessons tedious. They save as jpg or gif and insert the slides as images and add text, questions as necessary.
One of the problems with this is that the slides look jagged and cheesy when the screen resolution gets big. It does save time, though.
I will post something at docs.moodle.org.
Nice frog, by the way!
-- Art
There is not much to say, really: We have a couple teachers who like to work in PPT and find making lessons tedious. They save as jpg or gif and insert the slides as images and add text, questions as necessary.
One of the problems with this is that the slides look jagged and cheesy when the screen resolution gets big. It does save time, though.
I will post something at docs.moodle.org.
Nice frog, by the way!
-- Art
Moodle in English -> Lounge -> Hey, where is Drew?
by Art Lader -
Have not seen Drew Buddie lately. Wonder where he is!
-- Art
-- Art