Yesterday I had a bit of a rant at my level 4 students. They have started work on a group project, but as yet I have failed to see any evidence of research and wider reading. I didn't intend to have a go at them, but when I turned up to class, and many of them were late, I felt I needed to remind them that reading takes time and can't be done the night before an assignment needs submitting.
I demonstrated how it could be done. Last week I spent 20 minutes retweeting information relevant to our subject on Twitter. It wasn't difficult - I skimmed through the last few hours of posts, clicked on any interesting looking links, skim read the text and then retweeted if appropriate. It meant that the following day I was able to review my own tweets and add links to the articles in question to our college Moodle pages for all the students to see. These links can now be reviewed at their leisure any time up until the assignment deadline.
Having just marked a set of assignments, it's clear how beneficial wider reading is. It teaches the students how to write academically, how to quote text or embed references, but overall, it gives them a much greater breadth of knowledge to draw on, which dramatically improves their understanding. I think I made an impression on them, as I noticed a few had started posting messages up on a shared resource since yesterday.
Now all I need to do is resume my own wider reading for my dissertation. It's rather a case of do as I say, and not as I do at the moment!!
Showing posts with label Moodle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moodle. Show all posts
Wednesday, 1 May 2013
Monday, 24 September 2012
Getting back in the Swing
It's been a while since I last posted, but term is back in full swing now, so here's a run down of what's going on.
Teaching wise, I'm doing several Photoshop courses, a Web scripting course and my Foundation Degree in IT Security again. Actually, it's a rather nice timetable, unlike this time last year when I was bombarded with new things to keep me busy.
Work is starting on my dissertation research, and I'm in the process of enlisting all my learners in order to gather data on whether their use of online collaborative tools can improve critical thinking skills. One group are already on board, and I'm working hard now to build the foundations for successful online working by getting them logging into our VLE and wikispaces site, just to post a few lines and say hello.
We've migrated to Moodle 2.0 - I quite like the interface so far, but the wiki still looks hit and miss - which is why I've opted to stick with wikispaces for now. It means the learners have an additional log in to worry about which is a pity, but I think it's an easier place to work in once they've logged in.
My main gripe so far is that in the Centres the paperwork is almost overwhelming. With ILPs, Induction packs, Centre log ins, different Moodle log ins, and also the addition of research consent forms to add to the mix, the first few sessions can easily get rather tedious and paperbased.
Teaching wise, I'm doing several Photoshop courses, a Web scripting course and my Foundation Degree in IT Security again. Actually, it's a rather nice timetable, unlike this time last year when I was bombarded with new things to keep me busy.
Work is starting on my dissertation research, and I'm in the process of enlisting all my learners in order to gather data on whether their use of online collaborative tools can improve critical thinking skills. One group are already on board, and I'm working hard now to build the foundations for successful online working by getting them logging into our VLE and wikispaces site, just to post a few lines and say hello.
We've migrated to Moodle 2.0 - I quite like the interface so far, but the wiki still looks hit and miss - which is why I've opted to stick with wikispaces for now. It means the learners have an additional log in to worry about which is a pity, but I think it's an easier place to work in once they've logged in.
My main gripe so far is that in the Centres the paperwork is almost overwhelming. With ILPs, Induction packs, Centre log ins, different Moodle log ins, and also the addition of research consent forms to add to the mix, the first few sessions can easily get rather tedious and paperbased.
Saturday, 10 September 2011
e-Portfolios
I thought it would be useful to review my experiences of using e-Portfolios for the first time, as last week they successfully went through moderation.
After a Level 1 web design course, where there was a considerable volume of work produced, I decided that it would be more suitable to produce the work as an e-Portfolio. This would more effectively demonstrate the skills the students had learned, as well as vastly reducing the amount of paperwork to submit.
Moodle
The course was already set up on Moodle, so for each session I added an area to upload the work that had been done. I also set up all the course criteria so that I could add outcomes to each of the assignments as appropriate. This took a while as I incorrectly set up one criteria initially and it took me a while to work out how to remove it and replace it with the correct one.
Building content
Early on, I discussed with the class how I wanted the portfolios to work. I wanted them to create an over-arching website, which would include, in some format, a list of all the criteria which should be covered during the course. This site would then contain subsites of all the websites they had created during the course, and the criteria list would have links to corresponding evidence throughout the subsites. I suggested that the students add to their over-arching site whenever possible, to avoid having a huge amount of compiling to do at the end of the course.
Completing the Portfolios
In the final few sessions of the course, I got the learners to upload working versions of their final portfolios, and I made suggestions for improvements where necessary. Some of the portfolios were excellent, and the students had done exactly as asked. A variety of cross-referencing methods were used. Several students downloaded the criteria checklist as a Word document (as provided by me), and then made clickable links into the relevant area of their portfolio. Another student practiced creating drop down menus using CSS, and used the menus as links to all the criteria. Several others created a new web page at the front of the portfolio, and linked to all the criteria from this.
Moderation site
I then created a moderation website which included a few details about the course, along with a page for each student. Within each student's page, there was then a link to their portfolio, which was packaged into my moderation site.
Problems
There were just a couple of students who ran out of time to create their e-portfolio. One student collated their work into a website, but didn't have any cross-referencing, another two failed to compile their work at all. However, as all the work was on Moodle anyway, I was able to draw this together into a single folder, and incorporate it into my moderation site. Where evidence referencing was absent, I created the links from a standardised criteria page - and clearly marked this up in red so that any internal verifiers / moderators would be able to see what work was the students, and what I had added. Even in some of the best portfolios, there may have been the odd cross-reference that was not linked correctly, so I used the same technique here, adding the link but marking it clearly in red.
Conclusion
The final moderation website passed internal verification and moderation without any problems, and the internal verifier commented that the evidence had been very easy to find. There was a fair bit of work to do on my part in collating the portfolios into one site, but in many ways it was easier than ordering what would have been close to 100 sheets of paper for each student and adding page numbers and cross referencing manually. Now the site is set up, it should be easier still to repeat the method. I will definitely use e-portfolios again.
After a Level 1 web design course, where there was a considerable volume of work produced, I decided that it would be more suitable to produce the work as an e-Portfolio. This would more effectively demonstrate the skills the students had learned, as well as vastly reducing the amount of paperwork to submit.
Moodle
The course was already set up on Moodle, so for each session I added an area to upload the work that had been done. I also set up all the course criteria so that I could add outcomes to each of the assignments as appropriate. This took a while as I incorrectly set up one criteria initially and it took me a while to work out how to remove it and replace it with the correct one.
Building content
Early on, I discussed with the class how I wanted the portfolios to work. I wanted them to create an over-arching website, which would include, in some format, a list of all the criteria which should be covered during the course. This site would then contain subsites of all the websites they had created during the course, and the criteria list would have links to corresponding evidence throughout the subsites. I suggested that the students add to their over-arching site whenever possible, to avoid having a huge amount of compiling to do at the end of the course.
Completing the Portfolios
In the final few sessions of the course, I got the learners to upload working versions of their final portfolios, and I made suggestions for improvements where necessary. Some of the portfolios were excellent, and the students had done exactly as asked. A variety of cross-referencing methods were used. Several students downloaded the criteria checklist as a Word document (as provided by me), and then made clickable links into the relevant area of their portfolio. Another student practiced creating drop down menus using CSS, and used the menus as links to all the criteria. Several others created a new web page at the front of the portfolio, and linked to all the criteria from this.
Moderation site
I then created a moderation website which included a few details about the course, along with a page for each student. Within each student's page, there was then a link to their portfolio, which was packaged into my moderation site.
Problems
There were just a couple of students who ran out of time to create their e-portfolio. One student collated their work into a website, but didn't have any cross-referencing, another two failed to compile their work at all. However, as all the work was on Moodle anyway, I was able to draw this together into a single folder, and incorporate it into my moderation site. Where evidence referencing was absent, I created the links from a standardised criteria page - and clearly marked this up in red so that any internal verifiers / moderators would be able to see what work was the students, and what I had added. Even in some of the best portfolios, there may have been the odd cross-reference that was not linked correctly, so I used the same technique here, adding the link but marking it clearly in red.
Conclusion
The final moderation website passed internal verification and moderation without any problems, and the internal verifier commented that the evidence had been very easy to find. There was a fair bit of work to do on my part in collating the portfolios into one site, but in many ways it was easier than ordering what would have been close to 100 sheets of paper for each student and adding page numbers and cross referencing manually. Now the site is set up, it should be easier still to repeat the method. I will definitely use e-portfolios again.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Moodle outcomes
Just added all my L2 Web Design outcomes to my course on Moodle, so now I can attach them to all uploaded assignments. I think it'll help me keep track of what the students have completed, and what is still missing. Good stuff.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Moodle
Submitted my evidence for the Coleg Gwent Moodle Up & Away certification, and feedback was that the site was "outstanding". Big cheesy grins all round :D
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Moodle & Interactive White Board
I had training today on Moodle. I already have a Moodle site for my Web Design L1 course, and was told that I had one of the best Moodle sites in the college at the moment which was great to hear.
Still room for improvement though - so planning to set up an initial topic with graphics that lead into each session to make it more aesthetically pleasing. I'll enjoy doing that!
As far as the IWB goes, I was shown the spotlight - which I'm sure will be really helpful in Web Des, and the recorder - again something I'm sure I can use. Think the hide & slide will be less useful - but perhaps just need to think more imaginatively and now I know it's there, I may come up with a use for it.
Talked about LAN (?) being able to link all users to the IWB so that I can demo good work, and again this will be great to include. Feel very motivated to get going now :)
Still room for improvement though - so planning to set up an initial topic with graphics that lead into each session to make it more aesthetically pleasing. I'll enjoy doing that!
As far as the IWB goes, I was shown the spotlight - which I'm sure will be really helpful in Web Des, and the recorder - again something I'm sure I can use. Think the hide & slide will be less useful - but perhaps just need to think more imaginatively and now I know it's there, I may come up with a use for it.
Talked about LAN (?) being able to link all users to the IWB so that I can demo good work, and again this will be great to include. Feel very motivated to get going now :)
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