Moodle for English Teachers 蘇正造 su ntjcpa edu tw

Moodle for English Teachers 蘇正造 (su@ntjcpa. edu. tw) 國立臺灣戲曲專科學校 國立臺灣師範大學博士班學生 1

Moodle for English Teachers • I. INTRODUCTION: – What is Moodle – Why is Moodle? – Some Technical Details • II. USEFUL MODULES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING – Basic Modules – Examples of How to Use Modules • III. HOW TO MAKE GOOD USE OF MOODLE – Create your online course – Conferencing Web Site – Online Community • IV. CONCLUSION 2

Official Moodle Website http: //moodle. org/ 3

INTRODUCTION • A Need of a Convenient Tool for Teachers & Students – Web Presence • Teachers might want to share with peers information on a particular area of expertise within their field; • They might want to help students establish a web presence so they can write authentically and communicatively to an audience that extends beyond the walls of classrooms – Content/Knowledge Management • Considerable chunk of data/documents that is required to be accessed quickly and managed easily but safely. • Difficulty of maintaining Websites 4

What is Moodle? A Course Management System (CMS) • Moodle: Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment • http: //moodle. org/: Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, open source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. • Matt Riordan (2003): Moodle is the name of a program that allows the classroom to extend onto the web. This program allows a common place for students to go for many classroom resources. () • Moodle is a free online course management system (CMS) which is especially good for language teaching. 5

How Popular? • How many Moodle Sites? – 10036 registered from 150 countries (http: //moodle. org/sites/ on March 10, 2006) • Portugal: 165 • Taiwan: 164 sites • France : 158 sites • China: 53 sites • Hong Kong: Join the Moodle club: Don’t wait for your institution to 43 sites install a workable CMS. • India: 62 sites • Korea: 41 sites 6 • • United States of America: 2171 sites United Kingdom: 798 sites Spain: 715 sites Brazil: 400 sites Australia: 338 sites Thailand : 311 sites Japan : 166 sites

An Outlook of a Moodle system: Open Source for Educators http: //www. opensource. idv. tw/moodle/ 7

Why Moodle? • Free Opensource: Freedom and choice Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut? What do you know about modern engines? – Free: no payment, no advertisements – Full control: You can edit the setting/option for your need. – Extensibility: If you know its computer language, you can edit its code to fit your own use easily. • Content-based web management – Webpage (Html code) Wiki/ BBS/ Blog Php. Nuke/ XOOPS/ Moodle (content/module) – Save and archive your files online easily – Integrating your online source 8

Why Moodle? • Collaborative learning space – Moodle provides a collaborative medium, a place where we can all meet and read and write. – Semantic Web (http: //www. w 3. org/2001/sw/): “The Web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. • Good Support and Help – Help in Moodle System: A pop-up window to offer help. – Moodle. org: • Using Moodle • Moodle for Language Teaching • Other Special Features of Moodle – Easy installation on any computer – Windows, Macintosh or Linux – The Interface can be switched to more than 50 languages. – Extensible: If you know PHP, you can add new functions relatively easily. 9

Help: click A Pop-up window 10

Good Support and Help: Using Moodle http: //moodle. org/course/view. php? id=5 Find documents or ask/discuss questions on different forums 11

Good Support and Help: Moodle for Language Teaching http: //moodle. org/course/view. php? id=31 12

Some Technical Details 1/2 • Moodle need: a web server with PHP and my. SQL – A Web server: two options for your choice • IIS (included in Windows) • Apache http: //httpd. apache. org – PHP: a scripting program/language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. • http: //www. php. net/ – my. SQL: a database system • http: //www. mysql. com/ • Free download: – All of these are free. – Complete Install Packages (Moodle+Apache+My. SQL+PHP) at official Moodle Website. 13

Some Technical Details 2/2 • Get a Moodle system – Install by yourself (Refer to Moodle Installation: http: //www. opensource. idv. tw/moodle/course/view. php? id=16 ) • A nice computer connected to Internet • An IP (and domain name) • Software: Web server (Apache) +My. SQL+PHP+ Moodle – Convince your school to install it – Ask Moodle. com to set it up on your machine for you. Use Moodle. com’s hosting service. They will charges your some money. – Find a free host • Opensource for Educators: 700 registered from all over the world. http: //www. opensource. idv. tw/moodle/ • Opensource for Educators #1: http: //moodle. ntjcpa. edu. tw/ 14

II. USEFUL MODULES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING • Basic Modules – The People Box – Administering Your Class – Adding Content • Examples of How to Use Modules – – – – Self-introduction Forum Journal Glossary Quiz Assignment Multimedia integration Participants’ log 15

II. USEFUL MODULES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING • Basic Modules: for course management People Administration Adding a Resource Adding an Activity 16

Basic Modules • People – Participants • Profile • Activity reports 17

Basic Modules • Administering Your Class – – – – Turn editing on Settings Edit profile Teachers Students Groups Backup Restore Import course data Scales Grades Logs Files Help Teacher forum 18

Basic Modules • Adding Content – Adding a Resource • • • Compose a text page Compose a web page Link to a file or web site Display a directory Insert a label • • • • Assignment Chat Choice Forum Glossary Hot Potatoes Quiz Journal Lesson Quiz SCROM Survey Wiki Workshop – Adding an Activity 19

Examples of How to Use Modules • 1. Self-introduction: People Participant 20

Edit Profile Input your selfintroduction Upload your picture 21

Participant’s Profile 22

Examples of How to Use Modules • 2. Forum: a board for asynchronous discussion. – Unlimited numbers of forums: you can have as many forums as you want. – Two special features of forum in Moodle • Group (Mailing List): • Mugshot of the poster: 23

Forum Forced everyone to be subscribed => Group 24

Forum: Mugshot of the poster post and email with a tiny mugshot of the sender community 25

Forum: Mini-interview 26

3. Journal A private board that can only be seen by the teacher, who can offer feedback and a grade 27

4. Glossary A place allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary. 28

5. Quiz • • • Multiple Choice True/False Short Answer Numerical Question Matching Description Random Question Random Short-Answer Matching Embedded Answers (Cloze) 29

5. Quiz 30

5. Quiz: Result 31

6. Assignment Content of assignment Upload a single file Grade: Scale, Score (1 -100), No grade 32

6. Assignment • Feedback and Grading 33

7. Word & Multimedia Integration • Html or Word documents can be directly imported into Moodle by copy & paste without losing its format. • MP 3 and flash files can be uploaded and integrated into your course web. 34

7. Word Integration: Copy & paste without losing its format 35

7. Multimedia Integration • MP 3 & Flash: just put in the link 36

8. Participant’s log: Teachers can check their students log Today’s log All log 37

Log: Record keeping Trace what materials our students have accessed • Course log 38

Participant’s Log 39

Other modules: File 40

File: Upload 41

File: Link the file 42

III. HOW TO MAKE GOOD USE OF MOODLE • 1. Create your online course • 2. Conferencing Web Site • 3. Online Community 43

1. Create your online course: Course categories/ List 44

1. Create your online course Core block: course content 45 Side block

2. Conferencing/Journal Web Site • Pac. CALL: http: //paccall. org/Interact/ – Conference – Pac. CALL Journal 46

2. Conferencing/Journal Web Site • Wi. AOC 2005: Webheads in Action Online Convergence http: //www. opensource. idv. tw/moodle/course/view. php? i d=20 47

Wi. AOC 2005: Webheads in Action Online Convergence http: //www. wiaoc. org/ 48

3. Online Community • Student List Project http: //sl-lists. net/ 49

3. Online Community • Taiwanese Tertiary Teachers of English: Professional Development Program http: //www. opensource. idv. tw/moodle/course/view. php? id=22 – six-week program – Forum – Chatroom 50

Taiwanese Tertiary Teachers of English: Professional Development Program Conference Room in Talking Communities 51

Teacher Education in ELT http: //teachereducation. org. uk/ • An online community for teacher educators and teacher trainees with free courses (but Course Enrolment Key access control) • 52

World. Bridges http: //worldbridges. com/moodle/ • A global network of homegrown webcasting 53

Know. Place http: //www. knowplace. ca/ • A world learning community with free open source and charged courses. 54

Share/Put your documents/projects/activities online 55

Content/Knowledge Management • Learning English by Singing 56

IV. CONCLUSION • Moodle is: – A platform to save and achieve teaching material easily. – A collaborative online platform for teachers and students to learn together. • Humanware: “The key to successful use of technology in language teaching lies not in hardware or software but in humanware” (Warschauer & Meskill, 2000). • Teachers’ Participation: Moodle system does not promote learning or teaching on its own. Its effectiveness lies in the way of your participation and interaction to experience and feel that you are among like-minded people who share the same curiosities, needs and interests. • Join the open source & Moodle club and join our online communities today. 57

Thanks for your attention Comments and Discussion 58

• Visit me at http: //www. opensource. idv. tw/ and send your comments to su@ntjcpa. edu. tw MSN: vennysu@hotmail. com Yahoo: venny_sou • Thanks 59