Introduction to Online Course Design with Moodle 9th JALTCALL International Conference Tokiwa University, 4 June 2004 Don Hinkelman Sapporo Gakuin University 

What is the future of CALL? 21 st Century Schools and e-Learning Computer-mediated Communication… Course Management System 

Requirements for a “virtual learning environment” It should be easy to create an online course from existing learner resources, people are busy today! Courses should organize into intuitive categories, with a backup and restore procedure that makes it simple to set up a new course with different learners. Course enrolment and user authentication must not be complicated, yet be secure. Managing online user activity should resemble how you currently manage learners. There must be an active online support community of educators and trainers that can help solve problems and spark new ideas. Course Management System 

An Open Source Option -- Moodle Modular Object-Oriented Distributed Learning Environment Open-source course management system software Guided by strong pedagogical principles Simple intuitive browser interface International focus (supports 34 languages) Cross-platform server and user support Modular design allows third-party development Vibrant learning community of users and developers Free, distribution under GPL Course Management System 

Philosophy of Online Learning Activities are at the heart of a course management system. Moodle was designed by an educator and computer scientist, with “social constructionist” principles in mind. Constructionism asserts that learning is particularly effective when constructing something for others to experience. This can be anything from a spoken sentence or an internet posting, to more complex artifacts like a painting, a house or a software package. The concept of social constructivism extends the above ideas into a social group constructing things for one another, collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared meanings. When one is immersed within a culture like this, one is learning all the time about how to be a part of that culture, on many levels. Martin Dougiamas Creator & Lead Developer Course Management System 

Course Management Features To use Moodle, you think like a teacher, not a programmer. You see topics and activities, not tools. A student can immediately see where to start, and take a global view to see where it will end. A sequential, topic based approach unique to Moodle. Moodle has a “modular” architecture that makes adding new Activities during course creation a very simple process. Course creators can select from three different formats for presenting their learning syllabus; Topic, Weekly or Social format. The magic begins when you click “Turn editing on” within the blank course template. With editing turned on, the course creator can now Add activities from an intuitive drop-down list of module plug-in features. Course Management System 

Course Management Features...cont. Assignment Module Used to assign online or offline tasks; participants can submit these tasks in any file format (MS Office, PDF, image, a/v etc.) Chat Module Allows real-time synchronous communication by learners Choice Module Instructors create a question and a number of choices for students; results are posted for partipants to view. Use this module to do quick surveys on subject matter. Dialogue Module Allows for one-to-one private asynchronous message exchange between instructor and student, or student to student. Dialogues are private consultation workspaces. Module property screens guide you through setup Course Management System 

Course Management Features...cont. Forums Module Threaded discussion boards for asynchronous group exchange on shared subject matter (see user Community Forums at on various topics and disciplines) Glossary Module Instructors can create dictionary's of terms used in a course, and import or export terms for re-use in other courses. Journal Module Used to allow learners to reflect, then write and revise ideas Label Module Add descriptions with images in any area of the course homepage Course Management System Glossary terms appear in highlight within all activity module resources. Moodle includes its own site search engine. 

Course Management Features...cont. Lesson Module Allows instructor to create and manage a set of linked "Pages". Each page can end with a question. The student chooses one answer from a set of answers and either goes forward, backward or stays in the same place in the lesson. Learner is graded upon completion. Quiz Module Create all the familiar forms of assessment including true-false, multiple choice, short answer, matching question, random questions, numerical questions, embedded answer questions with descriptive text and graphics. Moodle supports embedding audio into a quiz, enhancing language arts and other course content syllabus requirements. Course Management System 

Course Management Features...cont. Resource Module The primary tool for bringing content into a course; may be plain text, uploaded files, links to the web, Wiki or Rich Text (Moodle has built-in editors) or a bibliography type reference. Moodle users have even linked local drive DVD courseware with online Moodle Resource activities. Survey Module This module aids an instructor in making online classes more effective by offering a variety of suveys (COLLES, ATTLS), including critical incident sampling. A Resource activity delivers syllabus content to the learner, while a course Assignment activity can require the learner to upload a completed project. Course Management System 

Learner Management Features Creating learning content is only part of what a good course management system (CMS) is designed to do. The CMS must also be able to manage learners in a variety of ways. Learner management includes: Easy access to a list of participants in your course Being able to segment participants into groups Site, course and user calendar event scheduling Intuitive course administration features for; changing course settings, manually enrolling or removing teachers and learners from the course, backing up and restoring course content, applying scales to different learner activities, managing grades, tracking user access logs and uploading external files for use within the course. Course Management System 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Participants One click and you can view activity from all participants enrolled in the course. Learners create a personal profile that can include a picture, helping connect students socially in the online learning community. 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Groups Assigning learners to a group is a common practice for both educators and business trainers. Moodle allows the course instructor to easily create group catagories. Once assigned, group members can only interact with other members in their group within the course. Creating distinct group names is easy. Learners and teachers are assigned to a group by clicking a single button. 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Calendar Keeping a calendar of events is important to both the learner and course instructor. Events can be created for different categories, including: Global events that appear in all courses (system admin) Course events set by an instructor Group events set by instructor relative only to a group User events set by learner (e.g. due dates, personal etc.) Calendar Upcoming Events appear on the course homepage, and alert the learner across all courses they are enrolled in of different category events using an intuitive color scheme. 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Administration The Administration control panel puts all important learner management functions a single click away. Teachers and Students can be manually enrolled or removed from a course. Backup and Restore of a course is easy and presents options that allow you to select which information to save or import. Restoring an existing course or Uploading a file archive from storage is accomplished with a single mouse click Backup can include or exclude student files and course data 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Administration Teachers and trainers can define their own Scales to be used for grading Forums, Assignments and Journals. Standard scales include assigning a value from 1-100% for each submission (or no grade), and indicating whether the learner was demonstrating one of three characteristics in the activity: Shows mostly CONNECTED knowing Shows mostly SEPARATE knowing Equally separate and connected Custom scales allow the instructor to fine tune their grading for specific content. Easily create several types of scales, and connect them with different activities you Add to the course. 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Administration The Grades feature in Moodle provides a quick view of all Forum, Assignment, Journal, Quiz, Lesson and Workshop activity. The grading scale value applied to a learners submission is shown, along with a cumulative total, on a single page. Grades can be downloaded in Excel or text format for inclusion into an existing electronic gradebook 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Administration Viewing Assignment and Journal entry submissions, and adding Grades and comments, are done from a single page that displays all enrolled students Managing student course Assignment uploads and Journal entry submissions are done from one central screen. This cuts down on the time it takes to assess many students work. 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Administration Knowing when and what course resources the learner has accessed will tell an instructor where the student is at in their online learning experience, and may effect grading. Moodle's Logs provide detailed learner information. Easily locate specific course, student, date and module activity access information Logs pin-point where a student is within coursework 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Administration Instructors can centrally locate all resources used when creating course content, within the Files storage area of Moodle. These resources are available when using the HTML rich text editor, allowing you to easily insert content into an activity module. Moodle's built-in HTML editor allows you to add Files from your storage area, creating rich text activity resources. Files storage area resembles your computer, making it easy to add, move, zip and delete resources. 

Learner Management Features... cont. Course Management System Administration When a teacher or trainer is logged in to their course, an extensive Moodle Help file is a button click away. Additionally, each course includes a special Teacher forum, where course instructors can collaborate on ideas and share certain tasks. Moodle's built in Teacher Manual provides hand-holding instructions on all aspects of course and learner management 

Student User Experience Course Management System Learners find it easy to navigate a Moodle course homepage in their browser, intuitive links are always present. Login occurs on a familiar screen, with initial account setup being handled by the student. Moodle's has its own authentication system, but will integrate with an external database, POP3, IMAP, LDAP or NNTP, allowing domain wide login. Navigation bar is always present 

Student User Experience... cont. Course Management System Instructors can require an “enrollment key” to enter a course, limiting entry and class size. After enrollment an instructor will the enrollment key password to students that are accepted. Courses requiring an enrollment key are indicated in “Course categories” description. Instructors can also allow Guest login. Course category displays descriptions of each course listed, and whether they require an enrollment key. Instructors can allow “Guest” login. Guests can view activities only. Symbols on description page indicate when a course requires an enrollment key and allows Guest entry. Learners see their courses on site homepage at Login 

Student User Experience... cont. Course Management System Learners can login any time, anywhere to interact with coursework. Each user can specify the Time Zone they are in, and the Language they wish to use. Moodle has interface support for 34 languages. Students can be notified by each time a Forum, which they are “subscribed” to, has a new posting. Additionally, instructors can set notification for Dialogues. Rich text is sent to each learner “subscribed” to different Forums. Instructors can set private Dialogues to notification that comments have been added. Learners can select from 34 languages at Login 

Who is Using Moodle? Course Management System About 1000 organizations in 74 countries had registered Moodle sites at by March This number is growning by about 10% each month as educators and trainers learn of the value proposition that open source Moodle offers. Moodle is an ideal solution for: Public and Private Schools Community Colleges and Universities Governmental Agencies Business and Training Organizations Hospitals and Libraries 

Who Will Help You Use Moodle? Course Management System Hundreds of knowledgeable open-source users have joined with Moodle developers in a community of learners. Meet a few new friends! 

Why Not Try Moodle Right Now? Course Management System If your organization is ready or needs to support an online learning population, here is an opportunity to take your research to the next level. These Moodle sites are open for to explore either as a learner or with permissions, as a course creator. Moodle For Language Teaching: What is Open Source Software: Using Moodle: remote-Learner.net for Educators: remoter-Learner.net for Trainers:  Created by Bryan Williams, modified by Don Hinkelman,