Mantex

Tutorials, Study Guides & More

>> Home / Archives for eLearning

Design for Multimedia Learning

by

software and media for creating learning programs

In the rapidly developing world of IT and multimedia, it’s strange to be reviewing a book published three years ago – and probably written at least a year before that. Some of the programs discussed by Tom Boyle in this survey will by now be ‘legacy software’ – but the fact is that some of them are still being used. His book is in four parts. The first provides a critical review of work in the field – from resource-based learning, through simulation and virtual experience to guided discovery learning.

Design for Multimedia Learning This includes consideration of programs such as Speakeasy, the Web, DOVE, Braque, and CLEM – [CORE Learning Environment for Modula-2]. The second part deals with conceptual design – the devising of the deep architecture of the system. Part three deals with presentation design. This covers screen layout, media integration, and the design of individual media – text, graphics, sound, and video. One of the virtues of the book is that it is so wide-ranging. It deals en passant with programs such as Toolbook and systems such as HTML – which was sill being viewed as a rather limited option in the mid 1990s.

Boyle covers moving objects and sound – both of which are conversely viewed rather sceptically in Web circles as distractions bordering on the unnecessary. However, there are circumstances in which these features are necessary. One of the examples discussed and illustrated is a training program showing how to install a hard disk in ‘Build Your Own Personal Computer’. There are other disciplines in which digitised video is essential. A colleague of mine is currently grappling with comparable issues in a teaching hospital, where video clips of operations are put on CD-ROM as seminar support materials.

Part four deals with project development, evaluation, and delivery of teaching programs. It’s all written in a lively and informative style, but the question remains, ‘Are such books superseded by the rapid development of software?’ My answer is ‘No – on two grounds’. First, it’s good to have a historical record of software development. Just as people are now beginning to collect and archive old computers [some of them less than twenty years old] so a well-documented account of the programs which were written for them will become increasingly important.

The second reason is that some of the basic design concepts and the architecture of these older programs may well appear to have been superseded by recent developments. But anyone who uses something as common as a word-processor knows that more features do not always result in improved functionality. At any time, some of these older approaches could be resuscitated for the simplicity and elegance of their design.

© Roy Johnson 2000

Design for Multimedia Learning   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Design for Multimedia Learning   Buy the book at Amazon US

Tom Boyle, Design for Multimedia Learning, London: Prentice Hall, 1997, pp.240, ISBN: 0132422158

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

Designing Computer-based Learning

by

practical design principles – from conception to evaluation

“This is not a ‘How to …’ book but rather one seeking to help you understand the different elements which go into computer-based learning.” Alan Clarke is offering general principles – and his advice is sound.

Designing Computer-based LearningHe kicks off with some observations on interactivity – and how to convert static web pages into a more dynamic experience. This is followed by a discussion of navigation, menus, structural metaphors, and the variety of forms in which questions can be posed. The next chapter deals with types of computer-based learning materials. He lists lots of general principles and learning systems – but a few practical examples would have been welcome at this point.

He discusses assessment methods and how one form of feedback is better than another. The best part of this section is how to construct multiple choice questions. He explains clearly how hypothetical tests can be very useful in situations where there is danger or impracticality – practising nuclear power station shutdowns or deep sea diving rescues, for instance.

His advice on the presentation of text-based learning materials is very good. Use lots of white space; break up text into small chunks; and breathe life into the project with graphics. Anyone following his advice will produce attractive pages. He also throws in some useful tips – such as the observation that people learn more efficiently if they see a structure diagram of a sequence of learning before going through the details.

It’s a pity that his discussions of colour and graphics are illustrated entirely in black and white, with only line diagrams. The publishers could have been more generous to him on this issue.

I was most interested to know what he had to say about hypermedia, since the linking of multiple resources from a variety of media represents possibly the most severe challenge to designers.

He has interesting suggestions on using linked graphics where video is not available – on subjects with a historical dimension for instance. He also makes the point that audio materials ought to be designed for listening, not reading – an easy thing for many writers to forget.

His overall message is that users should have access to as wide a variety of input as possible, and that they should be able to control their own choices.

He is also good on the basic design principles for web pages and screen layout – reminding us that for online learning materials, only a small proportion of the screen should be used – as distinct from a commercial web site – otherwise the user can easily becomes confused.

This book covers the whole of the design process – from conception to testing and evaluation. There are plenty of suggestions for scripts, templates, and storyboards, as well as tips for estimating the cost-effectiveness of what you produce. As a manual, it provides comprehensive guidance for any serious designer – or any department which is under orders to produce online learning materials.

© Roy Johnson 2002

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Alan Clarke, Designing Computer-Based Learning Materials, London: Gower, 2001, pp.196, ISBN 0566083205

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

Designing Web-Based Training

by

web-based course construction – from start to finish

This is a well-illustrated guide to every phase of designing, setting-up, and managing a Web-based training site. It goes from graphics and content design, to finding students and assessing their needs; from hardware and software options, to usability testing. William Horton explains what Web Based Training (WBT) can do and how to get the best results from exploiting its technologies. And for ‘training’ you can also read ‘education’ – because as he argues, the distinction between the two is often negligible. His approach is practical and clear; the book is written in a no-nonsense manner; and he follows his own prescriptions by giving examples to illustrate every point he makes.

Designing Web-Based TrainingThe design of the book itself more or less imitates Web pages: there are lots of headings, subheadings, quick paragraphs, tabled checklists, call-out boxes, horizontal rules, screenshots, and bulleted lists. He is essentially gung-ho for WBT as a novel learning technology – but he does look at a lot of research evidence, both pro and contra. He discusses the tricky issues of how to put a cost on course construction, how to devise navigational metaphors, and how to deal with potential plagiarism.

He offers several explanations of how to organise the sequence of learning events (or ‘objects’) in a course of learning. Then he even demonstrates the design of an entire course in outline, with templates of all the important pages and the structure in which they are arranged. This is valuable material for anyone who might be coming to the writing of online learning materials for the first time.

He covers an amazing variety of approaches to teaching – including the use of Webcasts, presentations, guided research, case studies, and learning games. There are some particularly good examples of virtual laboratories for teaching mechanical engineering and HTML coding. Most importantly perhaps, he shows which approaches are best used for which type of problem or task.

There’s a good section on tests and exercises, including advice on setting true/false and multiple-choice questions, and when it’s best to use matching pair and drag and drop questions. A section on teaching by email and discussion groups contains all the usual advice about Netiquette which many people still ignore.

The book is aimed at professional designers, trainers, and teachers – but it’s written in a way which will make it useful at any level. I bought my copy to solve some design problems for one group of students – which it has done in no time at all. Now my business partner has grabbed it to do the same for another group.

© Roy Johnson 2000

Designing Web-Based Training   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Designing Web-Based Training   Buy the book at Amazon US

William K. Horton, Designing Web-Based Training : How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime, John Wiley & Sons, 2000, pp.640, ISBN: 047135614X

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

Developing Online Content

by

The principles of writing and editing for the Web

Anybody who has worked on Web projects will know they can become very complex. And those who provide the textual content are often trapped between graphic designers striving for visual glamour, and clients who want to promote their message. This guide to the entire process offers both detailed advice on writing and editing, plus checklists of help on how to clarify the job of the content provider, and how to survive a project. The authors start out by explaining the role of the web author and editor. This tends to be a mixture – part designer, part content provider, part information architect, plus usability tester and proofreader.

Developing Online ContentThey start with an excellent analysis of why so many business web sites are unappealing, inefficient, and downright bad. There’s a very good example of their makeover of the CIA web site, which spends too much time patting itself on the back. They improve its efficiency by ruthless pruning and making the information user-oriented. This is a master class in converting text from its print brochure origins to web-based delivery.

The focus throughout is on text, but they give plenty of attention to its close relationship with images on web sites. There’s also an interesting consideration of the theory, the psychology, and the creation of hypertext links.

They have a lot of interesting observations on the relationship between the Web page and the screen. The issues are those all Web authors confront: how to minimise scrolling; how to keep content in the reader’s mind; and how to create tight structure and clear navigation.

They also have valuable advice on creating editorial style guides and proofreading, plus an explanation of the latest technology and how it affects the content of a site.

It’s a professionally oriented book, which assumes readers might wish to work in the new medium. And they tell you how to go about it. There are tables and checklists of the skills you will require and even pointers towards the opportunities available and what rates to charge.

This is aimed at intermediate to advanced users – but it will be of interest to anybody who wants to extend their writing skills into the digital realm. I read this book whilst engaged on two medium-sized Web projects, and can confirm that all the roles, tasks, and collaborations they describe are 100 per cent accurate.

© Roy Johnson 2002

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Irene Hammerich and Claire Harrison, Developing Online Content: the Principles of Writing and Editing for the Web, New York: John Wiley, 2002, pp.384, ISBN 0471146110

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

E-Learning in FE

by

practical guide and resources for the e-tutor

This is written from the perspective of practising FE teachers – and healthily sceptical ones at that – well aware of the resistance to and pitfalls in e-learning. And it covers all the possibilities – from simple Word documents to Moodle and other advanced courseware. They start off by looking at all the very common objections made to the use of IT in teaching. ‘Computers can’t replace teachers’; ‘It might be OK in other subjects, but not mine’; and ‘Not in my back yard’.

E-Learning in FE You’ll have heard them all. These are firmly refuted, whilst at the same time they acknowledge the sceptics and the pressures of daily life in FE. Then come some simple suggestions for interactive eLearning without any advanced IT skills – largely based on using the tools available within Microsoft Word and PowerPoint – to which many (if not all) are likely to have access.

This includes the inventive suggestion of using ‘comments’ to attach audio files giving feedback on pieces of submitted work – which shows what’s possible with these relatively simple and widely available features. This technique is not complex and is within the technical skills of most tutors. Moreover, it can be used in both ‘directions’. Students in art and design can supplement their submitted work with critical commentaries on their choice of materials via attached podcasts.

There are also examples of audio recordings used in PowerPoint for language lessons – and as they point out, these techniques can easily be repeated with new materials. Once an item of interactivity has been created, it can act as a ‘learning object’ – a small, independent and re-usable unit of learning.

Next comes a tour of the free and nearly-free software programs which allow tutors to create course tests and exercises: Hot Potatoes (quizzes) Action Mazes (choice actions) mind mapping, course management tools, and web quests. The main problem here is that many of these programs merely encourage users to link up existing Word files to create a spurious sense of interactivity – which isn’t real eLearning.

The new digital classroom can make use of cameras, audio-recording devices, and video recorders – all of which are now regularly combined in mobile phones. There’s also a discussion of interactive whiteboards (which I personally recommend you practise using thoroughly before embarrassing yourself in front of a class).

And if you don’t want to make your own eLearning materials, there are lots of ready-made options available for free or licensed download. They include maps, images, encyclopedias, and mini-courses endorsed by BECTA and NLN (National Learning Network).

This leads naturally into a discussion of how these materials are made available to students. The answer is via VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments). These can be intimidating for teachers – but at the same time their salvation. What they offer is a central repository for documents, exercises, student work, learning plans, and interactive courses – as well as facilities such as email, chat rooms, and discussion forums.

There’s an interesting chapter on mobile learning devices – laptops, PDAs, phones, and tablets. What emerges here as the unsung hero is the flash disk (or pen drive) – up to 2 GB of complete portability which can store information and even executable programs and fits in your shirt pocket.

They end with a comprehensive review of the support organisations and sources of help for the aspirant eTutor. My only reservation was that there might have been more practical examples and illustrative screenshots. But apart from that, I would say that this was the best guide to eLearning I have come across.

© Roy Johnson 2006

artie shaw Buy the book at Amazon UK

artie shaw Buy the book at Amazon US

John Whalley, Theresa Welch, Lee Williamson, E-Learning in FE, London: Continuum, 2006, pp.118, ISBN 0826488625

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

e-Learning in the 21st Century

by

theory and practice of designing online learning

e-Learning is education’s Big Thing at the moment. After all, it makes sense. If courses are put on line, students can study where and when they wish, tutors are freed from lecturing and classroom drudgery, and the institution can offer its courses to customers worldwide. That’s the theory anyway, and many institutions have thrown their text-based materials onto web sites, hoping to keep up with the rush. But of course, there’s a lot more to it than that.

e-Learning in the 21st CenturyGarrison and Anderson take a gung-ho line on e-Learning, arguing that it will transform education in the coming century – but they point out from the start that a lot of careful planning is required. As far as educational theory is concerned, their approach is ‘collaborate constructivist’. That is, it’s based on the idea that individuals create meaning for themselves which is then related to society. A great deal of their emphasis is placed on ‘community’:

A critical community of learners … is composed of teachers and students transacting with the specific purposes of facilitating, constructing, and validating understanding, and of developing capabilities that will lead to further learning.

Almost all their observations in the first half of the book are posited in terms of educational theory. But when in the second they come to give practical advice, most of it confirms my own experience of online tuition and course design. For instance, they emphasise the need to establish as rapidly as possible what they call ‘social presence’ – some sense of rapport between members of the learning community.

There are also some useful tips on course design – such as not overloading students with too much content, and placing more emphasis on cognitive skills and critical thinking. They are also good on how to promote and guide online conferences. Open University tutors please take note.

They cover evaluation and assessment, problem-based learning, and the organizational problems created for institutions, plus repositories of free learning objects which might help designers overcome them.

The authors are unashamed enthusiasts, and they cover in detail how the skills and facilities of successful online learning can be harnessed to overcome the apparent weaknesses of asynchronous communication in a networked community.

It’s a pity there are no practical examples of online courses or reviews of software, but anyone involved in the development of online courses who needs theoretical justification for their enterprise will find plenty of it here.

© Roy Johnson 2003

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

D. R. Garrison and Terry Anderson, E-Learning in the 21st Century: A Framework for Research and Practice, London: Routledge, 2003, pp.167, ISBN 0415263468

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

eLearning: the key concepts

by

up-to-date survey of online learning

Online learning is everywhere these days – for good reasons. Schools want to encourage the use of IT; colleges want their courses to be available 24/7; and universities want to sell their courses to people all around the world. eLearning: the key concepts is aimed at intermediate to advanced users which seeks to explain the main issues. An introductory essay clears the ground by looking at the many terms used in eLearning to describe what is sometimes almost the same thing (eLearning, distance learning, blended learning, flexible learning, and computer assisted learning).

eLearning: the key conceptsThey are nearly the same, but not quite, and the authors do a good job of making the necessary distinctions. This also acts as a survey of the problems and possibilities of teaching and learning in the online world. They take account of such issues as the fact that many tutors in higher education receive no career advancement or recompense for the courses they might design. And they recognise that students are often more advanced than their conservative tutors in the adoption of digital technology and its multimedia attractions.

The second and major part of the book is an extended glossary of terms, explaining in detail everything from (alphabetically) ‘accessibility’ to ‘wireless networks’. All the entries are extensively cross-referenced, and there are web links to further resources where appropriate.

Some of the terms are to do with educational theory, such as ‘assessment’ and ‘problem-based learning’; others are technological, such as ‘open source software’ and ‘voice over Internet protocol (VOIP); and others deal with educational issues, such as ‘plagiarism’, ‘feedback’, and ‘quality assurance’.

Wherever possible, they give examples of the topic. Defending the use of video animations and blogging as educational tools for instance, they give examples of sites where these techniques are being used to advantage.

They have some interesting things to say about ‘learning objects’ – small, subject-independent re-usable units of teaching. These can be taken off the shelf and combined with others to save course designers the trouble of re-inventing wheels. They’re an amazingly good idea – yet very few people use them. Why? Because teachers traditionally wish to create their own materials, and they want to place the items of instruction in the context of their own subject discipline. It’s often said ironically of learning objects that they are the solution to a problem which has not yet been identified.

I have been designing and teaching online courses more or less since they first came into being, and this book seems to me as up to date as its possible to be in the plodding world of dead tree publishing. They missed the spectacular growth of Moodle which has replaced almost all other virtual learning environments (VLEs) in the last couple of years. But apart from that, everything you need to know about eLearning is well defined here.

© Roy Johnson 2006

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

Robin Mason and Frank Rennie, eLearning: the key concepts, London: Routledge, 2006, pp.158, ISBN: 0415373077

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

Moodle E-Learning Course Development

by

complete guide to e-learning using Moodle

I went to a Moodle training course recently, and the universal cry there was for training manuals or guidance books which would talk you through the program and its features. This new software package is sweeping the world of further and higher education. Just in case you didn’t know, Moodle is an Open Source (that is, free) course management system (CMS). Or if you prefer, a virtual learning environment (VLE) into which tutors can upload their course materials.

Moodle: E-Learning Course Development It’s a sophisticated and complex program which offers all sorts of features to please teachers and students alike. Interactive exercises; journals; email and chat; Wikis; forums; and surveys – all in addition to the basic learning materials, which can be uploaded in any file format. Moodle is built on what’s called a ‘social constructivist’ model.

That is, students are encouraged to build their own learning experiences by engaging with teaching materials, interactive exercises, tutors, and fellow students.

Moodle organises everything for you – from individual student enrolments to databases of complete course results. Students can store drafts of their work, see their quiz results, build learning diaries, or participate in joint project-building. Tutors can set time limits for tests,

First off the block in guidance manuals there was Jason Cole’s book Using Moodle which gave a description of the system. Now comes William Rice’s guide to building courses. The difference between the two is that Rice gets further under the bonnet and shows you the workings of Moodle. More importantly, he tells you in advance what the consequences of your choices will be.

Moodle is so modularised and flexible that you can arrange your course contents however you wish (well, almost). But your choices (which can be made very easily) can also have hidden knock-on effects.

The Moodle interface can also be changed at a single click to work in any one of a number of languages. It offers you the opportunity to add course materials in any format – and to edit your pages and turn them into web pages without having to learn HTML coding.

And if you want to be really adventurous in terms of pedagogy, you can have students assessing their own and other students’ work, voting on the relevance of discussion contributions, and collectively building course-related glossaries and encyclopedias (using a Wiki).

William Rice makes course design clear by breaking down the process into separate elements – for instance, showing the difference between static pages (text and Web pages) and interactive pages (quizzes, journals, and assignments). Most importantly, he explains the advantages and limitations of each.

For the technically minded, there’s an entire chapter on how Moodle is installed and configured to suit your needs. On the other hand, if you want to practice or ‘try before you download’, there’s an excellent demonstration version of Moodle at demo.moodle.org. I actually read the book and had the demo open on screen at the same time, to check each feature for real. But you don’t have to go that far: there are screenshots illustrating every item.

There is extensive coverage of the quizzes, lessons, assignments, and other pedagogic tools available, and a chapter which introduces all the add-ons and plug-in modules which are available for free download. The only thing which struck me as odd was a chapter about welcoming students and making your starting page friendly – which puzzlingly came near the end of the book.

I’m working on a Moodle-based project at the moment, and can vouch for the comprehensiveness of Moodle’s own online documentation – but I imagine most course designers (like me) will feel more confident with a printed manual to hand. This is the one I would suggest you go for.

Moodle E-Learning Course Development   Buy the book at Amazon UK

Moodle E-Learning Course Development   Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2006

William H. Rice, Moodle: E-Learning Course Development, Packt Publishing: Birmingham, 2006, pp.236, ISBN: 1904811299

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

Moodle English Teacher Cookbook

by

80 effective recipes for creating online learning materials

Moodle has now established itself as the de facto standard eLearning software tool in further and higher education. It’s an open source program (which means it’s free) and it also acts as a virtual learning environment (VLE) which makes expensive alternatives such as Blackboard redundant. If anybody tells you it’s an easy software program to use, they’re lying. Most people will need all the help they can get, even if they are putting some ready-made course materials into Moodle’s default templates. That’s why books such as this Moodle English Teacher Cookbook guide to course creation exist – to explain the principles of eLearning design at the same time as offering a guided tour of some Moodle features.

Moodle English Teacher CookbookEnglish Teacher’s Cookbook is aimed at classroom teachers of English for comprehension, writing skills, and composition – but in fact the techniques it demonstrates would be applicable in any humanities subject. Unlike many other guidance manuals it doesn’t bother explaining all of Moodle’s features, but instead plunges immediately into constructing modules of learning using a variety of supplementary programs such as Hot Potatoes and Microsoft Word, and Open Office

Silvina Hillar starts out with simple exercises, such as ‘matching sentences’ (which is actually a misnomer and should be ‘matching sentence parts) then creating learning journals, discussing responses in a forum, comparing notes, and constructing story boards.

I was a surprised that there was so little on the pedagogy behind the task, but her entire focus is on showing how to get it done in Moodle – or Let’s Moodle it! as she keeps repeating. This means lots of screenshots showing you what to enter into each dialogue box, and which menu options to choose. If you’re not experienced in using Moodle, you will find these very helpful.

Many of the stages of course creation involve entering small items of information into a data base using forms. There is quite a conceptual gap between the data entry process and what eventually appears on screen as the final result to a user. You should expect to find this quite arduous at first, but then straightforward once you’ve done it a few times.

There are lots of different types of quizzes possible – missing words, multiple choice questions, matching words, or matching pictures to text – and you can also shuffle questions so that no two people see them in the same order (which I can assure you helps to minimize copying by students using adjacent screens).

Moodle has a lot of different learning activities (the quiz, lesson, survey, journal, wiki, forum) and it’s as well to know exactly what each one does, as well as the differences between them. The strength of Hillar’s approach is that she demonstrates how to use each of these options, and what the dialogue boxes look like on screen as you fill them with choices and information. The only weakness is that she doesn’t always show what the finished learning object will look like when accessed by the learner.

Another weakness of her approach is that many of the projects require outcomes to be read, assessed, and marked manually by a teacher. This not only fails to take advantage of the interactivities and the record-keeping features within Moodle, but gives the teacher an extra task for which many of them will not thank you.

However, to offset this, there’s plenty on embedding interactive materials from elsewhere – which is the quickest way to build course modules. Sources include other web sites, video from YouTube and Vimeo, and animated quizzes and games from what2learn.com. Almost all the third-party software she uses is open source or free to use.

Pedagogically, the examples are designed to provide a wide range of activities encouraging students to write – something that many of them (especially teenagers) are notoriously reluctant to do. There’s very little in here that couldn’t be done in a traditional manner with photocopied handouts – but the important feature of Moodle if you can incorporate it into your own learning modules is that it’s also a mechanism for marking and storing the results of student’s work.

Later chapters deal with discussing fictional characters, sentence and paragraph construction, and (keeping matters as fashionable and smack up to date as possible) how to integrate social media such as Twitter and FaceBook into Moodle courses. There’s also an entire chapter dealing with mind maps and tree diagrams – something I have never found convincing as a mechanism for learning, but which I know many people find reassuring.

I have been critical of some Moodle guides in the past. That’s because most of them are not much more than an explanation of Moodle features, but no suggestions about how they might be used to create dynamic eLearning courses, exploiting the interactivity that Moodle offers. This book is far more useful, because it approaches these issues the other way round. It starts with the premise of online learning design, then shows how it can be done using Moodle.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2010

Silvina P. Hillar, Moodle English Teacher’s Cookbook, Birmingham: Pakt Publishing, 2010, pp.207, ISBN: 1849510881

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

Moodle Teaching Techniques

by

creative ways to use Moodle for online learning courses

William H. Rice is something of a Moodle specialist. This is a follow up to his recent Moodle: E-Learning Course Development in which he seeks to explain the finer points of Moodle’s dizzying array of features and how they can be used to construct ever more sophisticated models of online teaching and learning. Moodle Teaching Techniques looks at the current and the future versions of Moodle. For instance, many tutors want to control the sequence of the student’s progress through a course, so that they need to understand one topic before they pass on to the next.

Moodle Teaching TechniquesThis is called ‘activity locking’, which is not available in the currently popular Moodle 1.8 version, but will be by the time version 2.0 appears. This is a good way of future-proofing the book’s relevance. All the strategies are explained in a perfectly straightforward manner, and illustrated with screenshots from the relevant control panels within Moodle. Those people who are familiar with its interface will have no difficulty in finding their way around.

The central feature of Moodle’s interactivity is the quiz option – and fortunately this is explored in some detail, showing how tutors can give graded levels of feedback on answers. I can tell you from first hand experience that all this is hard work – thinking up questions, correct solutions, and responses to all possible answers – but it does give students something more interactive than just reading flat text on a screen.

It’s certainly true that Moodle gives tutors and administrators an amazing amount of control over what appears and what takes place on a course. Postings to a discussion forum can be rated for their relevance, ordered by priority, and monitored for the participation level. These features are particularly useful for students engaged with online college degree programs where there is less face-to-face contact with other students as well as tutors.

However, some features are explored to the point of Utopianism – such as the ability of tutors to conduct chat sessions with students in a foreign language, with all the keyboard allocations used to type in foreign characters.

It’s good to know that Moodle has these features, but the basics of course construction still need to be explained and promoted – such as how to get more graphics, video, sound, and general animation and interaction into a typical course. Ninety-nine out of every hundred online tutors will still be having problems getting their students to the keyboard and keeping them there.

And some of the suggestions are workarounds bordering on the perverse – such as creating forums and allocating to them single students for what seems no more than what would be possible in a private email exchange. It’s possible, and it’s ingenious – but any tutor who has the time to do this ought to be making better use of it.

His suggestions for using Moodle’s lesson and Wiki features are much more realistic, as well as his assessment of the relative advantages and disadvantages of the forum, blog and journal features. He finishes by showing how the block elements of a Moodle course can be re-arranged on the page – something I think might have been more usefully placed at the start of the book.

So on the whole I think that whilst all Moodle-using course designers will want to get their hands on this well-timed publication – the definitive guide to designing online learning experiences is still to be written.

© Roy Johnson 2007

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

William H. Rice IV, Moodle Teaching Techniques, Birmingham UK: Pakt, 2007, pp.172, ISBN: 184719284X

More on online learning
More on technology
More on digital media
More on web design
More on computers

Get in touch

info@mantex.co.uk

Content © Mantex 2016