Twenty Ten

Having read Tomaz Lasic’s blog post on ‘Grow a moodle‘  I decided to have a go myself with Year 12 students who are back in school preparing to start their Y13 Applied ICT course.  However, due to the fact that I didn’t think my kids would leap at the chance to teach teachers straight away  I decided to adopt a slightly different tactic.

The students are following the OCR Applied ICT course and will be doing the Publishing Unit, the Web Design unit and the compulsory Working to a Brief unit.  Due to a cut in teaching time this year I had decided to combine the Web design and Brief units. The students, were slightly aprehensive and also seem to have a ‘fear’ of web design.  This is due to the fact that their experience of web design so far has been a tad hit and miss and their knowledge of the mechanics behind webpages was lacking. (As ICT Coordinator, I hold my hands up and admit that this shouldn’t have been the case!).  

I therefore needed a way to get the students understanding of web design, xhtml and css up to a higher enough standard to enable them to confidently complete the course.  They also needed to learn how to use Openmind BE (matchwares fantastic project management software).  So I decided to set them a task that would meet all their needs.

The task I devised was quite simple:

‘You need to design a course(topic) in moodle for year 7 students to show them how to create a website using html.

You will need to do the following:

1. understand moodle (youtube has loads of tutorials)
2. understand html (there are loads of great websites)
3. Project manage this task
   1. mind map
   2. gantt chart
4. create course
5. test course
6. evaluate course

You are in the ideal position to create a course that will work as you experience lots of different types of lessons….

Have fun, enjoy yourself and don’t be afraid to experiment.‘

Once the task was introduced I gave them all teacher status in a moodle course. They were then all told that they had control of one topic box and were shown some of the basics in moodle – how to turn editing on, the resources and the activities menus.  (Handy tip – assign the topic boxes to students first before they overwrite each others and my topic box).  Once they get over the joy of typing silly comments in their own box and re-ordering their postion within the course, they then started to have a play.

Their next lesson, then needed them to start mind mapping what they actually were going to do.  This included research, planning, designing, creating etc.  They have now completed a mind map and are in the process of preparing their gantt chart.  They have been very enthusiastic about the whole process and I think they like the fact that they have been given ‘control’ of part of moodle.  At the end of lesson 2 I also mentioned that once they have got to grips with moodle they will then be used to teach other teachers how to use moodle.  I was quietly pleased with their positive response. 

Now I have to wait and see how creative they become with moodle and also whether this has also meant that their confidence for web design has increased and that they can be up and running when I give them the ‘brief’ in September.

I would like to say that I will update as this develops, but I am rather useless as setting time aside to write up posts so it maybe a tad hit and miss.

misterel Teaching & Learning ICT, KS5, moodle, students, teaching, training, VLE

I am at an impasse. DiDA has been my KS4 life for the past 3 years. I like the course. I like the way it is developing pupils abilities to think independently. I like the eportfolios and the fact that it is virtually paper free….. However, DiDA is an optional subject so I am therefore left with very mixed ability groups.  For those not aware of the DiDA structure you can take up to 4 units and each unit is worth 1 GCSE.  Each unit is either taught at a foundation(C-G) or higher level(A*-C).  This means that in a mixed ability class I can end up teaching both courses.

This is where all my problems begin.  The foundation and higher units follow a similar theme but the end results are different.   This means that you therefore become a schizophrenic teacher and at some point one or both groups get a bum deal.  Then there is the fact that DiDA is run by Edexcel. For some reason (profit???), it becomes a financial nightmare trying to do their exam submissions and by the end of year 11 neither you, your exams officer or headteacher have aclue how much it has cost you and what the pupils are likely to get.

The main reason that I am now in a world of indecision is that I have been offered (for £300) a complete scheme of work that will cover 6 units of the OCR nationals and will almost certainly guarantee, if the pupils follow it properly and can demonstrate their learning, a decent grade at GCSE, and the potential for more than one GCSE.  The units offered are diverse and interesting and the administration seems a lot easier.  With the benefit of having your own moderator coming down and telling you whether you are doing it right.  On the downside, OCR is perceived to be a lot easier, less interesting and motivating for the kids.

So now I don’t know what to do….

• ditch DiDA and the admin and teaching hell it gives me
• adopt OCR Nationals, get good results, but potentially teach a boring course….

If by any fluke of the magic of the web, someone out there reads this and can give me some advice it would be vey welcome.

misterel Generic, Teaching & Learning DiDA, GCSE, indecision, motivation, OCR Nationals, teaching

Virtual Learning Environments are one of the big things kicking around schools at the moment.  About a year ago we as a school decided to opt for moodle.  There were a variety of reasons, the main one being that a good friend of mine was already running moodle so I therefore had a contact when it all went wrong.

Moodle, is free.  We host it internally and therefore have had to pay for a server to run it on.  We managed to get our LEA to pay for it, due to some funding initiative linked with diplomas. So far moodle has been reasonably easy to use. However our original set up has caused a few issues.  (At this point I would like to point out that I am extremely out of my comfort zone when discussing all things techy… I am a user of software, resources etc and let my technicians get it working).  Anyway, our technicians felt it was necessary for moodle to be run via a https set up rather than http for security reasons…linked to the active directory. This coupled with an RM network (although for fear of being Belshawed -lol, it might not have anything to do with the RM network), means that certain aspects of moodle don’t work, unless you use firefox.  The frustrating thing is I have no idea why. Some powerpoints won’t open, attachments linked to news forum posts won’t open. Some flash won’t play….

I am writing about moodle tonight, because tomorrow we are upgrading it, changing the server, removing the https and figures crossed getting a fully functioning VLE.  It is extremely important to me, that it is working without any glitches.  In the school at present, moodle is being used predominately by the ICT dept and also by the sixth form.  I need to roll it out to all departments over the next 12 months as part of my performance management.  As I have found to my cost, when rolling out something new in the world of ICT, staff need to be:

1. 100% sure there is a benefit
2. positive it will work
3. find it easy to use
4. make their life easier

Personally 1,3, and 4 are a dead cert. Quizzes, online assessments (self marking), surveys, lessons, forums, games, gradebooks, accesss from home etc etc make moodle a great asset.  If number 2 doesn’t happen over the next couple of days then I’m not sure what I am going to do….

I came across a moodle bookvia twitter(thanks iusher), posted on issuu, and have linked to it below. I am hoping that it will be an invaluable tool in the training of staff in the use of moodle.

misterel Resources, Teaching & Learning moodle, staff, teaching, training, VLE