Being Successful in an Online Moodle Course

In order to be successful in an online Moodle course in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, several things should happen. First, you should always use your WSFCS email address when signing up for Moodle. This is the only way that you will receive updates to the Forum's; our Moodle does not recognize outside email addresses. Before taking one of our online Moodle courses, Atomic Learning has "Introduction to Moodle 1.9" videos in Atomic Learning. These videos aren't very long, but will show participants how to navigate around in Moodle.

If the online course you want to take is being offered by the Department of Instruction, you must register for the workshop online first. After registering online, you will receive an enrollment key at the beginning of the course. Most of the courses taught by the Department of Instruction run on a monthly basis and we try to send out the enrollment keys by the end of the first day of the month. Once you have received  the enrollment key by email, you can then enroll into the course and get started. After enrolling in the course, make sure to read everything. Start at the top of the course and read the Agenda and Course Orientation. The agenda and course orientation have the expectations of the course and what will be covered in the course. Most of the courses also have an introduction forum. This is where the participants of the course introduce themselves to the instructor and other participants. Also, this forum is a place where questions can be posted. A forum is only as successful as the participants make it; if participants will post to the forum and then reply back to other participants, it becomes a place to share ideas.

A lot of the course is reading information and/or viewing videos. Then there are activities to be completed. Please read all of the items within a topic before viewing the activity. Usually at the end of the topic is some type of activity; whether it is posting to a forum, taking a quiz, writing in a journal, etc. Make sure to read the activity completely before starting the activity. Also, put some thought and effort into the activity. After an activity is completed, look back over what you have done. Sometimes it is helpful to think, "Would I accept this from my students?" If the answer is yes, then move onto the next topic. If the answer is no, maybe the activity should be revisited. All activities are required to be completed as stated in the course. The more involved the participant is within the online Moodle course, the more satisfaction and learning can be gained from it.

The Growth of WSFCS Online Learning

Sometime in June, WSFCS Online Learning had it's 600th participant receive credit for an online technology course since October of last year. If I'd planned ahead I would have had confetti and balloons falling from the ceiling and a shopping spree for the lucky teacher.

Although I think 600 is a huge number, and we'll exceed 700 almost immediately in the new school year when courses again open for enrollment, I think the numbers are only important in that they show the growth and the prospects for the future.

The real story is the way our district has changed the ways we offer professional development to better meet the needs of our educators. Teacher's time is at a premium, and while I think it will always be important to offer face-to-face workshop in professional development, teachers appreciate having the option of taking some courses and some coursework online. Courses can be self-paced and participants can choose when to take the courses. This can be a important factor for teachers who need more time in workshops or educator's whose schedules don't always allow them to attend the workshop when scheduled at their schools. There is tremendous value in allowing educators in our district these choices.

So what does the future hold for WSFCS Online Learning? The site and course catalog has grown exponentially over the last year, and there will be more and more professional development in many different areas for interested educators. We'll continue working with the great folks in our instructional department to make sure all professional development has a place on our site, and we hope to build programs that help new teachers in our district. So we're growing and hope you'll take the time to experience online learning for yourself. You might find the time and ownership it affords you is exactly the ingredient you need in your professional development in the new school year.

WSFCS Online Learning

This month the WSFCS Instructional Technology Dept will offer self-paced online workshops for the teachers in our district. We've talked for some time about the ways we are going to transform the way we offer staff development using Moodle, and this month is a big step in that direction.

Teachers seeking tech credits will be able to login to the WSFCS staff development webpage and register for online courses. These courses will be listed as Other- Online for the location. Once the teacher has registered for the course, directions will be given about setting up a WSFCS Online Learning account and the course's enrollment key. Workshop participants can then complete the course anytime during the month the course is offered.

This month we have teachers enrolled in workshops on Photostory, Learning Village, Schoolcenter, Google Docs, Audacity, PowerPoint, Excel, Learn360 and Moviemaker. We'll continue to offer different technology workshops throughout the year online, hoping to meet the demand from our teachers.

The feedback we received from our pilot teachers was that they very much enjoyed being able to do the workshop on their own time. Teachers' days are very busy, and often the times we can offer face-to-face workshops are at times when teachers are preparing or recovering from a full day with students. Online learning is a vehicle for offering on-demand staff development at times the participant chooses.

If we can better provide WSFCS teachers with technology tools and knowledge, then they can better transform the way they offer instruction to their students. I think this is a very powerful idea whose time has come.

To Moodle or Not To Moodle?

Since I am learning about Moodle and building a Moodle site for our school district I thought I would explore Moodle sites this week. Moodle was developed as free open-source e-learning software that helps people create online courses for students and adults. So how are other people using Moodle outside of public school or college education?

Here is a short list of some of the interesting sites I found in the United States at: http://moodle.org/sites

• Learn to Speak the French Language Online for Free: http://learnfrench.elanguageschool.net/ This site listed 10 languages that people could learn for free online. So how’s your Dutch?
• Adoption Education Classes: http://www.adoptioneducationclasses.com/classroom/ This site was created for those interested in adoption.
• After Hours Electrical CEUs: http://course.electceu.com/ This site requires payment but think of the advantages to earning a certification and a better paying job while still working.
• Adult Caregiver Training: http://caregivermanagerceus.com/moodle/login/index.php This site is for people who care for others and need training.
• Free Online Games: http://ahshornets.moodle.com/ Hadn’t thought about hosting online games through the Moodle software.
• Pharmacy Training: http://pharmacylessons.com/ Pharmacy technical training and continuing education.
• Aircraft Technical Computerized Service Professionals: http://www.atcspro.com/index.html This is a new site that opened January 2009 for Boeing aircraft training.

And last but not least I couldn't resist including this site:

• After School Hackers: https://www.ashprogram.com/ – OK, I know what you’re thinking and so did I at first, but this is actually a site for school-aged children to learn computer programming. This site is for a specific school district so I wasn’t able to log in as a guest but what a great idea – fun learning for students after school.

There are over 10,000 registered Moodle sites just in the United States so this is just a small sampling of the various ways that people are using Moodle. Realize that most of these sites require a person to log in which means creating a Moodle account. Just because you already have a Moodle account for a course or school district doesn’t mean you can automatically log into another site. But you can continue to use the same username, email address and password for each Moodle account you create.

We should all be lifelong learners and the Internet along with Moodle is creating many online learning opportunities for people.