Ted's Moodle Adventures: Chapter 2: Teaching with Moodle: Week 1

The Teaching with Moodle class just finished Week 1 (Getting Started with Moodle). A few observations:

The course itself is written using, and presented via, the Moodle environment, which makes the system that much easier to learn.

The main study information is presented as "books", which resemble PowerPoint slide shows, with embedded tutorial videos. There are two books for Week 1. The "Setting up your course" book explains how to initialize a new Moodle course, what the Dashboard is, how to lay out a course, and basic editing. The "Learning on the side" book explains some of the standard course blocks (these are similar to blog areas) such as Navigation and Administration, and several of the optional blocks.

The course (and in general, most Moodle courses) has a Forum area where students can ask questions and teachers or administrators or other students can answer them. I've found this most useful in getting some good answers. In a way, this is not surprising since there are over four thousand other course participants!

Each course is divided into one or more sections. For instance, this course has six - a Welcome section, one section for each of the four weeks of the class, and an Extra resources section. The sections are where you actually place your course materials, such as the books (see above), surveys, quizzes, other files to read, etc.

Last but not least, as part of the sign-up for this course, we were given the skeleton of a practice course, which will be used for the actual writing exercises. We cannot keep this course on the Moodle official site, but we can download it, then re-upload it to a personal Moodle site such as MoodleCloud.

So far, I've liked the course and am learning a lot, but the rubber will hit the road when I try writing my own materials!

Ted's Moodle Adventures: Chapter 1: Entering the Moodlesphere

It has been a while since I've posted in this blog - I've been busy with other pursuits, such as teaching my Henrico County Adult Ed (Richmond, VA area) computer classes, and ramping up my math and computer training business, pcLearning4U. In addition, I'm dealing with trying to stay clear of the colon cancer that attacked me last year.

Also, as you may know, I started the pcLearning4U Blog (using WordPress, the other popular blogging platform). As part of that blogging effort, I am chronicling Judy (my wife) and my efforts to learn our Android devices (Samsung Galaxy S4 phone and Tab4 tablet). These blog posts are listed under Ted and Judy's Android Adventures (see the TOC for a table of contents for these posts).

Last but not least, as much as I enjoy teaching classes, I've always wanted to write my own courseware. A number of years back, I briefly took a look at the Moodle open-source online learning platform, and have kept up a light interest in the subject. Then it happened - earlier this month, Dr. Nellie Deutsch, founder and CEO at IT4ALL, posted a link on LinkedIn to obtain a free Moodle site via MoodleCloud. I created my MoodleCloud site, with very little idea of what I wanted to do with this. I then came across a free Teaching with Moodle MOOC course that will get me started - and - this course starts in two weeks. The course covers a lot of the basics, lasts for 4 weeks, and according to the instructors, will take 3-4 hours per work to do. Needless to say, I signed up!

As I progress through my Moodle experiences, I will add chapters on this blog to this adventure story.

Versal

I recently began experimenting with Versal, a new courseware development platform. This platform enables the developer to quickly implement the structure of a course without difficult coding. The platform is still in beta, so there are a lot of problems and limits, but the Help Center is very responsive - I got answers to some concerns and glitches within 24 hours.

To develop or take courses, you need to sign up for a free Versal account, a very easy process.

The good news - you can put your ideas "on paper" very quickly. The bad news - text handling is still very rudimentary, as you will see if you choose to take my demo course (see below)!

There are a lot of "gadgets" included that allow you to display charts, math formulas, etc. When you are creating or modifying a course, you can see the gadgets (you have to scroll to the right to see them all). You then drag the gadget onto your work area and modify as able/desired

As a test bed for Versal, and in support of my business, I've created a brief demo course on how to do word problems that resolve to a quadratic equation.

Please feel free to take this course and let me know your thoughts! There are also some other demo courses accessible from the Versal home page.

Last but not least, Versal is free for now (unless you have a lot of learners accessing the course - see Versal for Teams for more details). The only thing they expect (and this is not required) is that if you use Versal, you act as an informal beta tester and send them any suggestions and issues.

Sophia

Sophia.

What is Sophia? It is a platform for posting tutorials for various academic subjects, in video, PowerPoint, or PDF format. Where did they get the name? No idea - maybe the originator is a fan of "The Golden Girls"?

• How much does it cost a student to use Sophia? Nothing. 
• How much does it cost a teacher to post a tutorial on Sophia? Nada. 
• How much can a teacher make via Sophia? Zilch.
• What's the potential for positive name recognition if you post a useful tutorial on Sophia? Priceless.

Take a look at the website:

I've viewed a couple of tutorials so far, including a very good one called Conditional Formatting in Excel, which contains slide and video content. It is very easy to search for tutorials on your favorite subject.

I hope to create a tutorial myself soon. Why do it, if you can't make money via Sophia? Free advertising - you are allowed to mention your business in the tutorial description, as the author of the example above does.

Please feel free to comment.

Thanks - Ted

Pinterest

Hi folks,

A few words about Pinterest. My first thought was "what a peculiar name". I then decided to visit the site, and look at a few pin boards. The concept seemed a bit odd at first - an online version of a physical picture-only bulletin board. When I signed up, this seemed even odder - it asked me what my preferences were regarding art, etc., and I was given built-in people's boards to follow - I didn't realize my taste in art was so avant-garde!

After deleting a few of the follow-ees, and keeping a few that I found aesthetically interesting, I then went about creating some boards of my own, including one for my current place of residence (Richmond, Virginia) and one for my computer training business (pcLearning4U). The interface for adding ones own pictures, and re-using others (called repinning) is reasonably simple. I've also added a board for elearning-related items, and via searches in Google and Pinterest itself, have begun to see if and how Pinterest is supporting elearning/courseware-related efforts.

Much to my pleasant surprise, there is a lot of stuff out there! I had more luck doing Google searches on "Pinterest elearning" and "Pinterest courseware" than searching on Pinterest itself. I am just now scratching the surface of looking into Pinterest's elearning uses. A couple of uses are for lists of available courseware (such as Eric Sheninger's site), and for elearning-related infographics (such as Juan Antonio Ortiz' site).

I'm not sure if Pinterest itself is a good delivery tool for elearning content - at this point, it appears to be more useful as an information organizer, and a very good one at that.

As for myself, my use of this app is just beginning. All suggestions, in particular for the elearning board of my site, are greatly appreciated, as are all general comments regarding this post. If you are interested in keeping up with my efforts, please feel free to follow the board at the link above.

Thanks - Ted

More Do-it-yourself eLearning

Recently, my vehicle wouldn't start, so assuming the battery had drained, I decided to jump-start it with another vehicle. I followed these steps:

• Googled 'how to jump start a car'
• Visited this site
• Printed the relevant pages
• Successfully did the jump-start
• Drove the vehicle, parked it, tried to start it again, and the battery drained again

It then became apparent after inspecting the battery that the battery probably needed replacement. To disconnect the old battery, and connect the new one, I followed these steps.

• Googled 'how to disconnect a car battery'
• Watched this YouTube video
• Disconnected the old battery and took it to the store
• Had them test it, and, after confirming its demise, bought the new battery
• Googled 'how to connect a car battery'
• Watched this YouTube video
• Installed the new battery, drove the vehicle, parked it, and it started OK!

The moral of this story is not that I got my vehicle running again - it's that eLearning is all around you, even in this informal form!

eFront eLearning blog

I've added the eFront blog to the Blogroll, authored by Christopher Pappas. This is a very good eLearning blog, which features, among other things, Christopher's list of the top eLearning and workplace learning blogs. From the blog, you can also do other things such as subscribe to the eFront newsletter and like the eFront Facebook page.

I urge all my readers to take a look at this site and participate as desired!

Need a Job? Have a job to post? Use LinkedIn?

To all my blog readers:

Did you know that LinkedIn groups now contain Jobs sections? The Courseware Development group job board is now open for business!

Note that this board just got started - if you have any courseware or eLearning-related positions, you are encouraged to post them on the board! If you are looking for such a position, feel free to look at the posted jobs (check back frequently), and follow up as desired.

Please contact me if you have questions.

Thanks - Ted

Get Spacey!

To all:

The Courseware Development Group has been started on MySpace, one of the original social networks. To join and/or look around, please visit the group at this link. Hope to see many of you there!

Thanks - Ted

Twitter eLearning List

To all Twitter Users:

Twitter now has lists, which are in effect subgroups of your followers that you set up for a particular reason (and a follower can be assigned to more than one list). Lists can be public (and can be followed as if they are Twitter users themselves), or kept private.

For example - I set up a public list that shows the Tweets of my followers (people and companies) who are interested in eLearning:

@tedkopp/elearning

Please feel free to follow the list and/or me - if you do follow me, and are interested in eLearning, I'll add you to the list!

Jammed Garbage Disposal

You may be asking, what does a jammed garbage disposal have to do with eLearning?

Well, folks, we had just bought a new disposal a couple of years ago, and a narrow glass bottle fell into the darn thang, and it jammed, so instead of calling the plumber (or even the store I bought it from), I consulted the Internet (the "e" part) and Googled "jammed garbage disposal" for solutions (the "Learning" part).

Found this link - this in effect was the courseware. Among other things, I learned that the humming sound was the circuit breaker keeping the motor from overheating - in other words, electricity still flowed into the unit. They then suggested that I turn the central hex opening at the bottom of the unit to manually turn the motor and see if I could loosen the obstruction. Problem - I didn't have the correct size Allen wrench to do this. Solution - I found a sorta L-shaped thingy for a replaceable-head screwdriver that just happened to fit the opening.

So then I started to try to turn the motor, and the dang thing wouldn't budge. Then it budged a little. Then a bit more. Then a bit more as I heard a grinding sound as I turned it - hoping I was grinding the glass piece by hand, rather than stripping the gears. Tried running the disposal - still nothing but a humming sound. Finally, the thingy spun in a complete circle w/ no resistance, turned on the water, turned on the disposal - success! Last but not least, it handled cat food and coffee grounds as good as new.

Lessons learned:

• eLearning is all around you
• Feels good to not have to spend the money to call a repairman!

deLearning - the new Learning

Dear Readers,

It is my sad duty to inform all of you that eLearning has been abolished, effective immediately. After a careful review by some of the most well-respected minds in business and academia, this decision was made, for the good of mankind and other forms of life.

To undo the abject harm caused by the use of computers in the learning process, a new technique has been developed: deLearning. This technique will encourage all people to ditch the convenience of online learning to go back to doing things the way they were done for thousands of years. An application has already been placed with the United States Treasury to use some of the stimulus money to acquire old abacuses, slide rules, and other non-energy-expending (think green!) devices from museums and return them to active use. Also, as part of this new program, bean counters everywhere will have to use real beans. Last but not least, everyone will be taught how to use their fingers to count again (those with disabilities will be accommodated).

deLearning support groups will be set up. These will meet (in person, of course!) in small groups - a typical introduction will go something like this: "My name is Ted and I learn stuff over the computer" - the rest of the people will respond, "Hi Ted". Computer deprogrammers are also encouraged to attend these meetings to help the members overcome this gripping addiction.

Finally, since deLearning is in its infancy, please feel free to post any suggestions here that the Committee may be able to use to fine-tune the process. It is April now - all ideas are appreciated, from wise folks and from Fools.

Your humble blogger, Ted

eLearning is so big, it has its own Planet?

E-Learning Planet is a new eLearning site started and run by a fellow who goes by E-Learning Tyro. This Chennai, India-based site has a lot of very interesting features, including some lessons!

Take a look around and post your thoughts here - if you have any suggestions for additions and/or improvements, please email or tweet Mr. Tyro. Thanks!

eLearning Research - Brandon Hall

This company is an excellent source of eLearning information. You can subscribe to their free newsletter, which gives you free access to some of their reports. So far, I've looked at the eLearning 101 and Learning Technology Products 2009 reports, and found those to be very interesting and informative.

There is also a Facebook Group for those of you on Facebook who are interested in this subject.

MyLinkingPowerForum

For those of you who are members of Vincent Wright's groups: a branch of the Courseware Development Group has been set up on MyLinkingPowerForum.

Please look around and join if interested!

Thanks - Ted

tweetworks Courseware Development Group

For those of you on Twitter: since Twitter doesn't have a Groups capacity in its own right, I've set up a branch of the Courseware Development Group on tweetworks - please click this link to join, or to just look around. Thanks - Ted

LinkedIn eLearning Groups

Did you know that, in addition to the Courseware Development Group, there are several other groups on LinkedIn that are related to eLearning? Here are just a few (the ones that I belong to):

• (E-)learning network
• eLearn
• eLearning Advocates
• Instructional Designers
  
• Moodlers

I hope you find these useful!

Personal Experience: HP Learning Center

I recently took a free online class via Hewlett-Packard's Learning Center: JavaScript: web programming basics. Although the class was not very detailed, it did give a good overview of various aspects of using JavaScript, in a reasonable amount of time (it took me about four hours to complete). Also, the price was right!

The Learning Center now has over 100 free classes, including those that deal with Microsoft products. If you take any of these classes, please feel free to post your comments here!

IT Toolbox: e-learning-select group

Many of you know that IT Toolbox is a very rich and active IT-oriented community site. Among the many groups there is one devoted to eLearning, e-learning-select.

This group has many interesting discussions on it, for example, development product comparisons such as Blackboard vs. Moodle. Also, this group is in the Knowledge Management area of IT Toolbox - if KM interests you, there are a lot of other KM-oriented groups that you can join!

Learning eLearning at eLearning Learning

eLearning Learning is a very interesting eLearning-related community (surprise!) led by Tony Karrer of TechEmpower. To reach a subset of this community dedicated to Courseware Development, click the community logo located on this blog at right, directly below the About Me section.

As usual, please post all comments here - thanks!