We've had an excellent half day training with Di Dawson (DawsonLoane) - http://www.dawsonloane.co.uk/ - and all the e-Learning Advisors were able to be there along with our line manager. It's quite a feat to have 8 people on very different levels trying to get to grips with a new virtual learning environment. I think we were very well behaved really.
I have put together a list of what we covered so that we can cascade to some early adopters who can then attend the second training session in February. I have done 1 session with a member of the Computing department and am hopeful that we can deliver good training that starts with the idea of active learning. This will move us away from how most of us have used Blackboard - as a big filing cabinet.
On 16 December I went to the ULCC Moodle Wonderland where we heard an interesting range of people and organisations using Moodle, e-ILPs and Mahara. It was also a good opportunity to network (called a Knowledge Cafe these days) and to see a new build at Kingsway College.
I like the Moodle community. It embodies the best of the e-Learning community commitment to share and cooperate. Although there is a Blackboard community and many helpful people, many of them weren't working for Blackboard.
I think this blog has probably run its course now. If you have any questions, do email me ellen.lessner@abingdon-witney.ac.uk
Have a good holiday season and best wishes for a happy 2011.
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Monday, 13 December 2010
Moodling along
A shift has happened and I now can see how to create a basic course in Moodle and am ready for the 'interesting' bits. Di Dawson has started to populate our Moodle training course with some helpful tips and an online photo resizer which is simply brilliant http://resize.it/ . It sorted out several of my current design difficulties on the front page and I am very grateful.
One of the e-Learning advisors said he discovered a way to zip/export/archive Bb courses and upload them to Moodle but I haven't yet been successful doing this - keep getting an error message. Luckily I'll see him on Wednesday and he can talk me through it. It's not that I don't want to re-do the course, it's just that I don't want to upload all those files again. It's boring and tedious and frankly, there isn't much on TV as background noise. I think I'm up to date on all the NCIS programmes available on all Freeview channels.
eILP update: attendance data is flowing nicely, we're hoping the student photos will go in next and it looks as if a significant number of courses are using the e-ILP in spite of the shakey start with getting the data embedded. I have a number of very keen staff who are looking forward to the Moodle training, some of whom have used it before. Nothing like knowing who the innovators and early adopters are.
Happy holiday, everyone! It isn't far away.
One of the e-Learning advisors said he discovered a way to zip/export/archive Bb courses and upload them to Moodle but I haven't yet been successful doing this - keep getting an error message. Luckily I'll see him on Wednesday and he can talk me through it. It's not that I don't want to re-do the course, it's just that I don't want to upload all those files again. It's boring and tedious and frankly, there isn't much on TV as background noise. I think I'm up to date on all the NCIS programmes available on all Freeview channels.
eILP update: attendance data is flowing nicely, we're hoping the student photos will go in next and it looks as if a significant number of courses are using the e-ILP in spite of the shakey start with getting the data embedded. I have a number of very keen staff who are looking forward to the Moodle training, some of whom have used it before. Nothing like knowing who the innovators and early adopters are.
Happy holiday, everyone! It isn't far away.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Just before the training starts
I'm looking forward to our training with Di. I've been practicing on my 'sandbox' course, looking on YouTube and Slideshare and the other e-Learning Advisors have also been having a go. I particularly liked this presentation from Sandra Pires, E-Learning Lecturer at Westminster Adult Education Services , who runs a blog called e-blah-blah at www.e-blahblah.com . She identifies all the ways that VLE use should be made more interesting and interactive. We're definately moving from the filing cabinet approach to VLEs to something more useful.
Our involvement with ULCC continues to go smoothly. Staff can see their students, managers can see their areas and I've learned how to see everything from anyone's point of view. We're working on making the attendance data (via our electronic registers on EBS) display more information to give a better overall picture of each student's attendance, something which most staff and students find invaluable. Otherwise, all the bugs about information transfer from EBS to the e-ilp seem to have been ironed out.
We had a visit from colleagues at Oxford and Cherwell Valley College. They run Moodle and Sharepoint but would like to use a e-ilp module as well. We showed them ours and had a useful discussion about all the issues surrounding implementing new systems and changing existing practice. This includes the ongoing process of supporting staff to use technology and be comfortable with it. I noticed that an ILT colleague, Lesley Besant at BCOT, is an e-Confidence Coordinator.
Our involvement with ULCC continues to go smoothly. Staff can see their students, managers can see their areas and I've learned how to see everything from anyone's point of view. We're working on making the attendance data (via our electronic registers on EBS) display more information to give a better overall picture of each student's attendance, something which most staff and students find invaluable. Otherwise, all the bugs about information transfer from EBS to the e-ilp seem to have been ironed out.
We had a visit from colleagues at Oxford and Cherwell Valley College. They run Moodle and Sharepoint but would like to use a e-ilp module as well. We showed them ours and had a useful discussion about all the issues surrounding implementing new systems and changing existing practice. This includes the ongoing process of supporting staff to use technology and be comfortable with it. I noticed that an ILT colleague, Lesley Besant at BCOT, is an e-Confidence Coordinator.
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| Happy holiday from the e-Learning Advisors at Abingdon and Witney College |
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