Moodle Evaluation

Between Yola, Dreamweaver, and the Moodle site, I prefer the Moodle site the most. I think Dreamweaver is a great tool, but Moodle's ease of use is what puts it over the top. Most of the courses I teach require me to hand out many worksheets with answer keys. I could save a lot of paper if students could just access the Moodle and get the resources they need whenever they want. The Moodle is also nice for students who miss class due to illness or field trips. They can access the tutorials posted for any given lesson and try to catch themselves until our class meets again.
As far as which multimedia works best, I have used Jing, GoogleDocs, YouTube, and FreeOnlineSurveys and had no difficulty attaching them to my website. There were a few instances where the embed code gave me some difficulty but that could have been user error and not the Moodle site. I definitely plan on continuing the use of my Moodle site and creating more for my other courses.

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

I remember first learning Bloom's Taxonomy when studying for my master's degree some 7 years ago, and the most important thing I took from it was asking myself after finishing a lesson plan: "Have I done everything I can to facilitate the learning process" The Digital Taxonomy is doing the same thing, just upgraded to fit th classroom setting we all occupy today which is dominated by technology.
My Moodle site is designed for my AP Statistics students to faciliate them in studying for the AP exam we take in May. Our curriculum is usually wrapped up by early April, so using my time wisely in reviewing for the test is just as important as teaching the original material. I need to make sure my website facilitates students in studying those concepts that are most critical in order to help them feel as confident as possible going into the exam.
The digital resources that I am trying to use followng the taxonomoy are as follows:
#1 Remembering: I have given students access to the AP central database where they can look at past exams. I am consdering finding a way to do online flashcards to review concepts as well.
#2 Understanding: I have included a forum on my page to encourage questions and get students involved in discussing key concepts with one-another.
#3 Applying: I am currently looking for an online stat review game that the kids could utilized on the site. I have heard that there are some good ones out there however they cost money to subscribe to. I'll have to work on that.
#4 Analysis: I have included several tutorials for students to review all the calculator operations they need to know for the exam.
#5: Evaluating: I have included an online quiz for students to check their understanding in a multiple choice format.
#6 Creating: Next year I think I am going to have students create their own review videos or powerpoints and then I can post them on the site so students can take a little more ownership in the development and implementation of the site.

Stealing like an aritist

The first thing that jumped out at me in this article was the statement, "There’s an economic theory out there that if you take the incomes of your five closest friends and average them, the resulting number will be pretty close to your own income". This is speaking for everyone, but my best guess is for many people, at least 2 or 3 of their closest friends probably come from their job simply because they spend so much of their life at their job. I agree with the concept of you are what you surround yourself with, but I didn't think that "economic theory" was that much of a breakthrough idea.


I definitely agreed with his thoughts on reading. In order to be a true thinker in society and have opinions on a range of topics, it is important to read as much as possible. I like his idea of finding those people we love reading and find out what they read and work our way up the "reading family tree".


Without being cliche, the thing I found most useful was one of his parting pieces of advice, "be nice". In the end what are we here for? To make friends not enemies. I know we don't live in a utopia, but such a simple phrase has such a powerful undertone.

Faculty Perspectives Using Moodle

I have had little experience with Blackboard, but the experience I did have did not leave a great impression.   I remember it being difficult to use and not student friendly. After only using Moodle for a few months now,  I not only feel comfortable using it as a student, but it is so easy to create a site and disseminate information as a teacher, that this program will be in many high schools and colleges in the coming years.

A friend of mine who went through this CCSU program was over my shoulder watching me update my Moodle site and was blown away at the ease in which I could navigate the site, add supplemental materials, and customize my settings to fit how I wanted my site to be used.

My first question would have been for Connie. It seems as though she chose to go with the Moodle site because of the inspiration she received from a workshop she attended before she set-up the course. She also said the Blackboard workshops were poorly done. I wonder had she been exposed to a better first impression of Blackboard, would she consider using it. It sounded as if she is only using online tools in order for her students to participate in forums and ask questions after-class, and it seems both Moodle and Blackboard can offer that type of interface.

My second question would ask Connie why she preferred the interface to Moodle much more than that of Blackboard. I agree with her assessment of the interface of Moodle, but it didn't seem like she gave the Blackboard interface much of a chance to fairly rate it higher than Moodle's.

My last question would be whether they both see themselves using Moodle a lot more in the future. Are there deficiencies that they would like to see fixed within Moodle that could eventually have them move to another operating system.

Post your response to the article and list three questions you would ask any of the teachers about their experiences. No repeat questions so if someone else asked it then find another.

E-Learning

In my opinion most people learn from e-courses through knowledge construction. This metaphor  described in the article articulates exactly what the designer of any e-course show aim for: engaging in the active cognitive processing during learning. Even in the classroom, I strive for my students to learn this way, so I wouldn't want it to be any different when they are learning in a distance learning setting.

It is my belief anyways that concepts will stay with students longer when they are actively engaging in the cognitive process and not just being "passive recipients of information". When developing our Moodle courses, we should all keep in mind that the goal of it is too not just flood our site with information that students can read. They can do that at the local library. We also need to make sure there are learning activities embedded within our site that foster higher-level thinking and assess whether student learning is taking place or not. If we fail to do this, then we fall into the trap of using the newest "technological fad" with very little academic merit.

Creativity

I believe that most educators would agree that fostering creativity in a student is one of the primary goals when structuring a curriculum. The problem is creativity is a skill that many students either have or don't. I compare it to athletes who perform well during the most pressure-packed moments of a game. This isn't a skill a coach can really teach, either the athlete has that "it" factor or they don't. The same goes for creativity. Once a student reaches the high school level, it becomes more difficult to teach a student how to be creative if they just aren't.  I would imagine that at the elementary level, there are activities given to try and foster a student's creative side. In my subject area (mathematics) it can be hard to see creativity on a regular basis. There is rarely more then 1 or 2 ways to solve a problem so either you follow the strategy laid out by the teacher or find yourself lost. However, there are moments when we discuss certain topics where a student will find a way to solve something using a strategy I wouldn't have taught because it would be too diffiicult for the entire class to grasp. The class I find the most creativity shown is Geometry becasue students have a variety of ways to solve problems using different theorems and shapes in different scenarios. Again though, I only find a handful of students thinking at this higher level. So this begs the question, do those students who don't come up with those alternate strategies not have as creative a mind as the others, or do they just stick to the fundamentals as shown in class? Does that make them less creative?

Inappropriate Sites

Since the World Wide Web reaches every corner of the planet, we must make sure that the content we put on our websites is appropriate for all those viewing it. This is especially true as teachers since we encounter many different students from different cultural backgrounds.
There are many examples of websites with content that is considered inappropriate for our culture. For one, any website that encourages students to cheat by purchasing research papers, book reports, lab reports, etc. online is inappropriate because it it facilitating behavior looked down on by society.
Another website I just recently heard about on the radio (I don't know the domain name) encourages spouses to cheat on their significant others. The website provides false documentation, alibis, and other tools to aide people in duping their husbands or wives.
The last type of website that is inappropriate for the culture we live in is any website that allows offshore gambling. This is a big enough problem for adults to deal with, and now with gambling available to all ages through the internet, the problem has now trickled down into the high schools, and even into the middle and elementary schools.