Moodleposium/2009/Evans
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Using Moodle to support university wide communities
Presenter: Peter Evans, USQ
The major use of the Learning Management System (LMS) in many educational institutions is to support specific course and there is little use to support university wide communities. This presentation will look at USQ's use of Moodle in university wide communities for supporting technologies (e.g. the Wimba Classroom orientation course, or Creating your Mahara ePortfolio at USQ), services (e.g. the library or student services) , discipline and interest groups, or community outreach. In many ways, this broader use of the LMS is a part of the increasing use of the web to support user focused communities such facebook.com , Flickr.com, Wikipedia.com or eHow.com which are heavily dependent on user generated content and support.
Of course, Moodle will not provide the functionality of a purpose built community platform, but there are good technical, educational and usability reasons for using existing systems rather another platform. Equally, the way Moodle is used to support a university wide community will be very different to the way it is used in a specific course.
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Moodle use within a course |
Moodle use to support a wider community |
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"Captive" users based on enrolments & assessment |
Volunteer users based on needs which vary over time |
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Most content & activities are teacher generated & fixed |
Most content & activities are user generated & build over time |
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Limited duration with specific cohorts with fixed start & stop dates |
Longer duration, larger and more diverse user participation |
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Defined & fixed roles (teacher, marker, student) |
Roles change from visitor, to regular user, and then onto mentor or leader based on interest |
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Teacher or institutional ownership |
Community sponsor and community ownership |
Wider use of the LMS to support communities presents many advantages for students, staff and the institution including:
· the institution benefits from efficiencies by using one system rather than several
· staff understanding of Moodle deepens as they use it from multiple perspectives (teacher and participant)
· students use Moodle a wider and sometimes a more authentic and social contexts
· we move towards demonstrating more global graduate attributes such as teamwork, life-long and life-wide learning that are difficult to embed in individual courses
· we establish social networks where students can more easily form and maintain enduring support relationships throughout their program and thus promote retention
· individual teachers can focus on their own course content rather than teaching the use of specific tools (e.g. Wimba) or services (the library) or skills (teamwork)
which can be supported in a enterprise wide way
· the wider use of the LMS can “smooth out the bumps” that sometimes occur when some courses make exemplary use of Moodle while others are less well developed
Getting 'them' in and Keeping 'them' Talking (Tips and Tricks for using Online discussions and communities)
Presenter: Kerry Trabinger
This session will discuss how to 'hook' new participants/students to join an online community/or to post to an online discussion and once 'hooked' how can we encourage these participants to remain active.
Kerry Trabinger has been involved in online Learning since 1998, initially as an Online tutor for Qantas College and then as an Online Lecturer at the Canberra Institute of Technology. In 2001 Kerry moved into online course design and has developed many successful online subjects. Kerry was awarded the prestigious Australian Flexible Learning Leader in 2004 and in 2006 and 2007 Kerry was the manager/facilitator of the Australian E-Learning Networks Community forum. Kerry is currently studying a Doctor of Education and has presented at many conferences across Australia and internationally. Kerry currently works for the Centre for Excellence at the Canberra Institute of Technology and her current passion is investigating the use of Virtual classrooms.
