Moodling to the Future; NJAIS presentation 10-2010

1. Moodling Our Way to the
Future
Using an Online Classroom to
Engage Students in Literature

2. The
Spinelli
Project
Students read Jerry
Spinelli’s autobiography
and at least one of the
following novels. They look
for parallels between
Spinelli’s life and his writing
and between their own lives
and that of the characters in
Spinelli’s books.
… online

3. • To encourage students to lead their own
conversations relating to books and to relate
events in their own lives to that of the
characters in the books
• To instill and cultivate the value of self-
initiative
• To allow children the freedom to direct
conversation in a ways that are personally
meaningful.
Learning Goals

4. Teacher Goals
•To make my classroom more student-centered
and student-led
•To give feedback quickly
•To manage and document individual’s work –
in school and out

5. Technology Goals
•To engage students in a multimedia rich
environment
•To expose students to safe online experiences
•To offer access to online enrichment exercises
that relate to the themes of friendship, labeling,
bullying, prejudice and resilience
•To do online research and surveys

6. • Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning
Environment
• Huh?
• Moodle is basically a shell for an online course. It
offers ways to share course resources, links,
announcements and a calendar with students – and
much, much more!
• Developed by Martin Dougiamas. He grew up in a
remote region of Australia and communicated with his
school via short wave radio.
• Pedagogy is the inspiration & driving force behind
Moodle.
What is Moodle?

7. • Students can lead their own conversations in forums.
• Students can take initiative for their learning, both in school and
at home.
• Teacher can offer feedback quickly and can manage assessment
in a central, easily accessible location.
• Teachers are free to develop their own courses in a way that suits
their pedagogical goals.
• Students can work in a safe, online environment where they can
access resources and interact with each other.
• The environment is a total course environment: materials, grades,
other students, assignments, activities – all available in one
place, easily accessible from any computer with an Internet
connection.
Moodle is right for this project because:

8. Bullying Survey – (SurveyMonkey.com)

9. Reflections on Friendship

10. Intro. to Author

11. “Loser” Forum

12. “Maniac Magee” Forum

13. Wordle Inserted into Forum

14. Grading View

15. Don’t take it from us.
Hear what the students
have to say.

16. Reflections
• Student centered, student led
• Allows all students to have voice heard
• Helps teachers to keep an eye on cyber-bullying and
creates teachable moments around Netiquette issues
• Next time?
– Instructions for performing computer/online tasks
– Peer evaluation
– Student-created projects

17. How to get Moodle at your School
• Select and register a domain name or use an
existing domain your school has already
registered.
• Host the domain at a site that supports a
Moodle install, like BlueHost.com, which
offers cPanel.
• OR, select a Moodle partner like Remote-
Learner.net.

18. Moodle Resources
• Diana’s Moodle bookmarks in Delicious
• Moodle Tool Guide for Teachers
• Slide show: Can we have some Moodle
please?
• Moodle documentation on Moodle.org