1. Vesa Nietosvaara Experiences on using Moodle LMS at the Finnish Meteorological Institute

2. An example: a course website What do the people expect from a course website? Information (logistics, important dates, schedule, etc) Information about other participants Information about the topics (abstracts, etc) … With Moodle you can do this (and much more)

3. How does Moodle help? Set up a course/event website quickly. Focus on content - less on web technology. Organisation and display of the content. Communication tools. Workspace for your course participants.

4. Moodle and FMI Internal Moodle (for staff educational use) “EDU server” Helsinki University Moodle (University courses) Eumetcal Moodle (Eumetcal courses and Working Groups) Satrep Online Moodle (commercial hosting)

5. FMI experiences (technical) Setting up a course page is easy Organisation of material is easy Adding resources is easy Adding communication tools is easy Using course page is easy oUploading material can be tricky! oEditing pages can get slow…

6. Best in Moodle… No pain of writing in or All teachers can upload material, less workload for the administrator Collaborative features (group work, etc) Free and expanding

7. But as for your course… Moodle will not save your course, if your planning is bad. The communications tools are useless if they are not used Without real need or encouragement many of your students will use Moodle simply for reading information

8. Some general tips Keep in mind the expectations and the needs Keep in mind people are different Do not let Moodle restrict your creativity Group vs. individual assignments – when and how? The collaborative features (forums, chats) in Moodle work the best for longer courses Tutorial sessions on using Moodle

9. Activities in Moodle Forums: Underused People can be afraid to express their thoughts Chats: Ideal for Online support (technical) or group work Assignments: Great tool, easy to use Wikis: Ideal for group work

10. Conclusions Using Moodle saves a lot of time in setting up a course page Moodle helps in focusing on the content development Without a good content and clear objectives Moodle won’t save your course

11. Thank you! vesa.nietosvaara@fmi.fi Skype: fmi_vesa2