An Integrated Skills Course Using Moodle
It’s been a while since I last posted. Over the last 5 weeks, I’ve been very busy teaching a technology-enhanced integrated-skills course. As opposed to a hybrid course, students were required to physically attend all classes. It’s a small class of only 7 students, but it’s been quite demanding in terms of preparation and instructions. During the orientation session, students were informed that all course materials and assignments will be shared on the learning management system. Pratt Institutes uses Moodle, but they’re a few versions behind. The system, however, has been very stable, so we never encountered any technical issues while using the LMS. My overall impression of this technology-enhanced course is positive despite a few reservations here and there. Most importantly, my students found it to be quite useful from an organizational perspective. The appreciated the fact that activities, resources, important dates and announcement were all in one place and organized weekly. This format made communicating a lot easier compared to email or handouts. In other words, using Moodle helped students stay on task and ensured that assignments were submitted on time (I didn’t even have to use the prevent late submissions function).
Moodle supports a variety of course types and allows instructors to incorporate both resources and activities. The most used resource tool is ‘Link to a file or a website”. I used this function throughout the semester to provide links reading and listening materials, and also to communicate about upcoming field trips (directions, Google maps, museum urls…etc). Essays were submitted using the ” upload a single file” option, under “Add activities”. Summaries, on the other hand, were submitted directly using the “online text” feature. I had them do it this way because the focus was on more on summarizing and less on the mechanics of the language (I asked them not to copy/paste from Word).
Next semester I will be piloting an e-portfolio project with my class which is very exciting. Pratt chose Mahara as its official e-portfolio platform because it’s simple and integrates seamlessly with Moodle. I will be reporting regularly on my experience using Moodle/Mahara, so stay tuned! In the mean time, feel free to subscribe to my blog, post a comment or both!
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