Teaching Do's: Difference between revisions
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Many students have a very casual approach to posting to forums. This presumably comes from their many online interactions with their friends. This may be what you are looking for, but you will often want more thinking than that to occur when students are communicating in your class. Encourage students to consider the advice built into Moodle about being a little more critical in one's approach to forum interactions. | Many students have a very casual approach to posting to forums. This presumably comes from their many online interactions with their friends. This may be what you are looking for, but you will often want more thinking than that to occur when students are communicating in your class. Encourage students to consider the advice built into Moodle about being a little more critical in one's approach to forum interactions. | ||
[[Image:Read-carefully2.jpg|frame|left|Just click for helpful advice. Encourage students to make use of the built-in suggestions about reading carefully, writing carfefully, and asking good questions.]] | |||
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==Do use labels to appropriately divide/annotate your course sections/weeks== | ==Do use labels to appropriately divide/annotate your course sections/weeks== | ||
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Moodle doesn't know how to put 20 modules or weeks into 10, and won't automatically change the destination course. It does migrate all the content, but the location of the content will be more what you expect if you make the course layout match the source course. (note, this is 1.5.3 - and may be changed in the future) | Moodle doesn't know how to put 20 modules or weeks into 10, and won't automatically change the destination course. It does migrate all the content, but the location of the content will be more what you expect if you make the course layout match the source course. (note, this is 1.5.3 - and may be changed in the future) | ||
==See also== | ==See also== | ||
Revision as of 21:28, 21 February 2006
Moodle is not just about text, images and links. There is a Moodle Philosophy that presumes that that learning is particularly effective when constructing something for others to experience. Moodle was born with collaboration in mind.
Encourage your students to experience Moodle together not as a book that has been posted to the Web, but rather as members of an ongoing, active learning community.
This means that your job as a 'teacher' can change from being 'the source of knowledge' to being an influencer and role model of class culture, connecting with students in a personal way that addresses their own learning needs, and moderating discussions and activities in a way that collectively leads students towards the learning goals of the class.
Do encourage students to be security-conscious
Students should be very careful about posting personal information to any web site, even your Moodle site. Encourage them to use common sense in this area.
Do start small but think big
If you are new to Moodle and have no experience with other course management systems, consider beginning with with something easy and strightforward, like creating a web page resource to post lesson plans and links to helpful online resources. Do that until you are really comfortable. Then, as your needs dictate, move on to other modules: maybe a little forum to discuss current events in your discipline, for example.
Moodle is very robust and can overwhelm a novice. This approach can help you avoid that. Don't worry, in a few weeks, you will be Moodling like crazy!
Do save, save, save
Please save your work every five to ten minutes. Develop this habit BEFORE your browser locks up in the middle of something big and you will never lose more than a few minutes of your wonderful, inspired Moodling!
Do enter brief, helpful summaries for your resources
When students click on the Resources link, it is helpful for them to see not only the title of the resource, but also some descriptive information about that resource. Many teachers prefer to skip the summary, but it takes only a few moments to add one and doing so is an act of kindness toward your students and colleagues.
Do set an enrollment key
Unless you want the whole world to join your course (possible, but usually not the case), do not leave the enrollment key field blank when setting up your course. This one-time password will keep out everyone except your students.
If necessary, change the key after all of your students have enrlled. that way, the students won't be able to share the key with others, because they won't know it.
Do encourage students to think before they post
Many students have a very casual approach to posting to forums. This presumably comes from their many online interactions with their friends. This may be what you are looking for, but you will often want more thinking than that to occur when students are communicating in your class. Encourage students to consider the advice built into Moodle about being a little more critical in one's approach to forum interactions.
Do use labels to appropriately divide/annotate your course sections/weeks
If you use labels INSTEAD of the default topic/week editing section, you'll have less trouble when you migrate portions of your course over to another (when you append and don't overwrite, section notes are lost, but labels are not).
Do set up your new course (weeks/topics, number of sections, etc...) prior to importing/overwriting with another course
Moodle doesn't know how to put 20 modules or weeks into 10, and won't automatically change the destination course. It does migrate all the content, but the location of the content will be more what you expect if you make the course layout match the source course. (note, this is 1.5.3 - and may be changed in the future)
