Alternative Moodle Courses

What I appreciate that moodle.org uses moodle itself to manage their website. This make them an example of thinking outside the box about how you use your course management system. Here are some ways that we have begun to use moodle to do things other than manage content for individual courses.

At our high school we have a course for each graduating year. We have used this to take polls (with the choice module). We have used it for taking more involved data using a google form embedded into the course page. We have used it for emailing all the students at a grade level (using the News Forum). And we are using it to host our test board online.

At our middle schools they have a course for the entire middle school that is used in similar ways to the high school year group courses.

We have several teams that use a moodle cousre for organizing.

We also have some student run organizations that have moodle courses where students are the teachers for the courses.

Finally, we use the social topics course type to run a Bible study.

Moodle has many ises if you just think outside the box a little.

I Love Moodle

I love moodle for hundreds of reasons. But the top reason always comes back to when we have needed a solution it has offered one. Let me take you through our history with moodle.

Six years ago grades were about to go online. This came with all the required scary thought that teachers have about it. For a year before we put the grades online we installed moodle. Each teacher had a course and would post the homework for the week. This gave adminitrators the online openness that they wanted for parents. It also allowed teachers to get their feet wet before going with a full gradebook open and online.

A year later we were starting to encourage more technology use. Moodle was perfect. It was easy to use and teachers could try things without too much risk. Several stepped out and tried new educational ideas, and it cost us nothing because moodle was just there and easy to use.

Four years ago we piloted a one to one laptop program. Moodle is the glue that holds this program together. Teachers and students needed a common launching point for their experinces. Moodle provided that answer. It also allowed teachers to make the transition in a way that made sense to them. It uses language that teachers could understand for new and more modern teaching techniques. It allows them to move from the old to the new at their own pace. Each year I hold that transition document up in front teachers and ask them where they are and where they are going. .

Now that we have laptops grades six through twelve moodle is a content delivery system essential to our school district. Every student goes through the day starting many of the classes that they take in moodle for the lesson opener. I am in the process of visiting classes using technology and one of the two started in moodle.

I think the future holds much for moodle. We are going to move to a different kind of schedule, one that allows for night and online classes. Moodle will allow us to make those radical changes without changing radically the environment our teachers work in.

Moodle it always a step ahead of where we need it to be. I love moodle.

Moodle Test Board

If the last post seemed out of place it was because part of my job is to manage our moodle server. As we finally have moved to all students having a laptop this year, one of the goals was to have the test board online. The idea behind the test board is that the a single student should not have more than two tests on a given day. We are going to use our graduating class moodle courses for these test boards. If you want instuctions on how we are doing it look at the post.

Online Test Schedule Instuctions

Online Test Schedule

To schedule a test (or major project) please follow these instructions.

1. You will find that all teachers are now teachers for the Class of 20XX courses, which means that these courses appear in your My Courses block.
   
2. To check the test board click on the month of the year that you want to schedule a test. This calendar is right on the front page of moodle.
   
   
   
3. Because you are a member of all the grades the detail view will show you all tests for every grade. Pick a day with the rule in mind that no student should have more than two tests on a given day.
4. To add a test click on the course for the year of the class that you would like to give a test to, for instance if you were giving the test to seniors you would choose the class of 2009.
5. On the right hand side of every course is a Upcoming Events box. At the bottom of that box click on the New Event... link.
   
6. When asked for the type of even make sure that you choose Course Event.
   
7. Fill out the information about your test.
   
8. You will now see your evaluation along with any others scheduled for the same day. If you have another grade in the same class you can repeat the process for the other courses.