The importance of having everyone in the room

Today we had a Skype call with James at ULCC, preceded by an agenda and action plan - very helpful.  On our side, we had myself - now e-Learning Coordinator, my line manager who is Director, Curriculum and the IT Services Manager.  Clarifying questions from all of us couldn't have been easy but James did it well (I felt the voice of experience was useful here!).  It was so important to have us all in the same room so that questions, answers and explanations were clear to all.

What we primarily discovered is that our enrolment process needs to tie together the right information so that Moodle can pick it up and put a number, a name, a course and an IT logon together in order to populate an e-ILP that will pick up information from our e-registers.  [If you didn't understand this sentence, you are probably where we were about 3 hours ago.  We have several drawings and doodles to get to the place where I could write this.] [Cigarettes were smoked, tea was drunk and wine was put in the fridge after frantic phone calls home]

Up until today, we had talked about doing this but we didn't have a driver.  Our Blackboard installation never talked to the MIS system and wasn't well used enough that it was ever an issue.  Network logins were generated quickly and were based on course codes but not linked to enrolment numbers.  It all worked fairly well at the time.  Now we realise that we need to talk to RM (IT Manager) and learn about Active Directories, Macros and Visual Basic (Director and me).  We will get there.

The critical thing is that we were in the room together, we talked before the Skype meeting and we carried on talking afterwards - moving closer to a solution that will be really good.  No sleepless nights yet.

Don't give up!

Training and project management

I've signed up for the training and my line manager is now considering joining me.  She's keen but doesn't feel entirely confident about working online - but - she is a good line manager because she's enthusiastic about e-learning and recognises that participating in a blended learning course using Moodle will be a good way to experience what it feels like to learn to use it.

Lesson - you must have the backing of your line manager to achieve anything.

We have a Landbased campus at Abingdon and Witney College

Second point - a wonderful project management spreadsheet for implementing our Moodle/Mahara/e-ILP installation from ULCC - shared with via Google Docs.  Very reassuring on every level.

Training to use Moodle and Mahara

I've applied to go on a training course to learn to use Moodle and Mahara - 1 f2f session and the rest online/distance/independent learning.  Is there money in the budget to cover this training?  Stay tuned for the next installment....

It's during my leave period but I can carry over 5 days.  Work/life balance and all that.

Champions are so supportive!

I've had a number of kind emails offering help from the ILT community for this move - some of whom have been using Blackboard for many years but can no longer afford the expense of the all singing/all dancing version. I have noticed that people are using this as an opportunity to encourage staff to use Moodle more dynamically and less as a repository or filing cabinet. This is a positive spin on a big move and I intend to pick it up and run with it. Moodle does have the advange of being like an iPhone - it's being marketed very well so a number of staff might take to it more than they did Blackboard.

Yesterday afternoon someone asked me to help them make major changes to their cross college Blackboard site. I told him about the move to Moodle (he said, "Surely the company will move all the information from Blackboard to Moodle?" I am fairly sure that this isn't part of their service... and that there is no wizard/block to enable a direct transfer). Although Moodle isn't yet installed here, I didn't think it was worth making the changes he suggested on Blackboard. So he will update some of the information and think about reorganising it when we move over.

Who moves 'stuff' from Blackboard to Moodle? I think it's going to be me/the e-learning team. Although many people will gladly get stuck into Moodle (I am hopeful), I think it's unfair to expect them to spend time moving things over. I may regret this idea but it feels like the right thing to do.

Introducing Moodle

It's now 21 July and I'm sitting in a quiet room, reading through 'A beginner's guide to using Moodle'. I have used Moodle - as a user - for a number of years. It feels familiar but I haven't given myself any time to learn how to use it.

Should I assume that I can teach myself? It is how I generally approach all things related to technology - adding handouts and YouTube plus questions to friends via the ILT Champs list and other avenues. But, should I go on a course? Is there a club for new to Moodle users who are supposed to be transferring a whole institution from one vle to another?

Where to start? Some background information

We have had a basic version of Blackboard running since the government agency of the day gave us money to purchase one - 6 or 7 years ago. We invited a number of companies in to demonstrate their products to a selection of stakeholders at the college and chose Blackboard (this will not be a rant against Technical or Learnwise). At the time, I think it was the best choice. It worked, it was easy to set up and as as long as you knew how to attach a file, most people could get started with it.

But people weren't convinced that students were entitled to have the information they needed online, staff and student IT skill levels were low and home access to a computer and the internet even lower. Early adaptors moved ahead but take up was never good. People complained about the time it took to design a course although those that did found that the second year + was easier and less time consuming because the majority of the work was done.

Actually, for a number of years, we didn't have remote access anyway so you couldn't access your information from home.

We wanted to have Blackboard Enterprise so we could use all the bells and whistles but it was just too expensive as a yearly license to contemplate. And it was the old chicken and egg situation - you couldn't convince people to use it until they had the skills and saw the sense of it - and had access at home.

Sometime in 2008/9, people began hearing about Moodle and asking why we didn't have it, without understanding that actually Blackboard did all the things that Moodle did. Blackboard however, didn't do themselves any favours by treating FE like a very poor relation. When we upgraded from V 6.3 to 8 and had a shed load of problems, we found it very hard to get help until we screamed at the UK rep, who shook a few people upside down.

And then..... We joined the BECTA Technology Exemplar Network in early 2010 and people were talking about e-ILPs and e-Portfolios. Most of the network had Moodle and some of them were using a home brewed e-ILP which drew out information from the college MIS system. We saw a JISC project based at Lewisham College which used a hosted Moodle service from ULCC to create an e-ILP. Did I forget to say that our IT Services area doesn't have enough person power and expertise to run Moodle??

We invited ULCC in to demonstrate what we could get with a hosted service. The invited audience came from senior and middle management, plus IT Services. A director went to visit a college who had been using ULCC's services and had done a lot of research and costings and were pleased after a year with the product and service. In July 2010, the finance order was ok'd and now we will run Blackboard until the end of the license in January 2011 and begin to move things over to Moodle.