Category: Program for Online Teaching

Moodle update

Lisa M Lane 8 Comments

MiraCosta College has arranged to offer both Moodle and ETUDES-NG by arrangement with Moodlerooms and the ETUDES consortium. I am delighted to report that these systems, in addition to Blackboard, will be operating for several years at least.

One of the conditions of doing this, in addition to minimal load on IT staff, was that I agree to be the “Faculty Lead” for Moodle, and my colleague John Turbeville the same for ETUDES-NG. In my case, this means I don’t have admin access, but am expected to assist faculty and lead anything having to do with upgrades or functionality, particularly third-party modules like WiZiQ (which we haven’t got quite working yet), Feedback and Questionnaire.

We updated to 1.9 a couple of weeks ago, so I encouraged current Moodlers to back up everything first. I thought a screencast might make it easier, so I made one. I even uploaded it to MoodleTutorials.org: it’s called Backing Up a Course.

Then questions began to roll in, as more faculty starting setting up their courses. Instead of answering each one by email, I began making more tutorials using Snapz Pro X:

Wish us luck! As I tried to tell IT, I ain’t no SysAdmin, but I’ll do my best.

Preventing Fear

Lisa M Lane 1 Comment

I dreamt the other night that I went to the first day of class as a student, an upper division or graduate class of some kind. About 20 students. The professor walks in and begins an interactive lecture. I realize I don’t understand what he’s talking about.

I look around and see that each of the other students has a stack of about 7 books. Seeing I’m lost, a helpful student opens one and points to a chapter for me. But it’s obvious from the way the professor is talking that everyone has read this already. Before the first day of class. Everyone is quite literally “on the same page”, and I have no idea what’s being discussed.

I’m thinking now, as I plan for workshops next week for faculty, whether faculty feel the same way. They come to the workshops, and it seems like they were supposed to know something before they came, but they don’t know what. I need a place to start to make them comfortable.

The emphasis on pedagogy, rather than technology, is one way to do that. We all can talk about teaching, classrooms, our students. Not everyone is online. If the approach is to take ones teaching methods, and apply them in a different environment, it not only properly de-emphasizes technology, it may increase the comfort level in seminars. My colleague Jim Sullivan did this so effectively last fall, and it’s an approach we all need to take as we help faculty navigate the technology for what it is: just a toolset for achieving your pedagogical goals.

Top 12 Things I Like About Moodle

Lisa M Lane 1 Comment

This is the list I used for today’s Using Moodle workshop of the top twelve things I like about Moodle (except that I have two #7s so it’s really thirteen):

1. Fewer clicks: I do not have to “drill down” (use multiple clicks) to create materials or move through the class.

2. Personalization: There are more customization options for every aspect of the course.

3. Visuals: I can use images to identify myself and my students visually, and add images anywhere in the class easily.

4. Intuitive layout: The default layout for the class is weekly, like a syllabus.

5. Gradebook edits: I can change any grade for any assignment in the Gradebook like a spreadsheet.

6. Blogs, wikis and feeds: if I want to use these, they are already built in.

7. Grading Scales: I create my own qualitative scales for discussion and grading, with pulldown menus

7. FAST TEST GRADING!: the manual grading mode makes it possible to see all the student responses to the same question on one screen, and grade them there quickly.

8. BETTER DISCUSSION!: the nested format creates a more natural discussion that is much easier for students and me to follow.

9. Real Messages: Messages to and from student pop up every time the course is entered, and message history is kept per student so I can access later.

10. Basic stats: Student use stats are on their profile page and easy to understand.

11. Easy chat: Simple chat room by week if desired.

12. Students self-enroll: Email addresses tend to be accurate because students control their enrollment.

Finding the Sweet Spot

Lisa M Lane 3 Comments

The smoke in So Cal has given me some time to think about last Friday’s workshops (it’s not like I’d go outside or anything!).

Jim‘s plan for the workshop went well, though we did have to remind people that their big goals should focus on pedagogy rather on content. As people talked about their needs, I created a list of issues and possible solutions. The list was organized as we went along, according to the categories I semi-remembered from the current e-learning research. Because each presenter had different strategies, a lot of possible solutions emerged.

At the Showcase which followed, I had expected instructors to show off their online classes, but since each only had 10 minutes, they each showed one special thing they’re doing. Historian Karl Golemo demonstrated not only his PowerPoint with Audio, but also talked about having students submit assignments as PDF files, then commenting in handwriting on his electronic Wacom Intuos Pad tablet using Bluebeam PDF Revu. (This approach, it turns out, is featured in recent research by Vicky Morgan and Cheri Toledo). Julie Harland demonstrated how she’s integrated Pearson’s Course Compass CMS into her classes. Louisa Moon showed us her illustrated lectures and how she runs discussion in Blackboard (she’s been my inspiration for years!). Karen Smith showed how she structures discussion for hospitality students (who often have English as a second language). Kit Hudnutt showed how she has used Articulate software to create interactive units inside the CMS for internship orientations.

What was really apparent in both workshops was that two key strategies for online instructors are:

  • find something you love doing in class, and try to replicate it online
  • find one thing you really want to do online, and become an expert at that, whether it’s an application or a technique

For example, one instructor wants to do foreign language conversation online, and becomes an expert at Skype and Elluminate to achieve that goal. Another wants to duplicate work in groups, and becomes expert at the Groups feature in the course management system. Another loves podcasting, and begins recording lectures and posting them with RSS syndication. They ask questions, they Google things, they play with applications. After the initial learning curve, creating materials or facilitating interaction takes very little time.

In other words, each of us has a “sweet spot”, something we care about or a technology we love to use. We get really good at it, and it provides the core of our online classes. This was enlightening to me — none of us are great at all of it, but our sweet spots keep our enthusiasm going and that communicates to students, even (or especially!) in an online environment.

Friday Workshops

Lisa M Lane

In a couple of days, we’ll be offering two workshops at MiraCosta: one is a Beginning Online Teaching workshop and another an Online Class Showcase. Each is only 80 minutes long!

The Showcase is the result of a number of instructors, those who’d been teaching online a short time, asking if there was any way they could get into the classes of more experienced folks and look around. The ensuing discussion led to a number of concerns:

  1. that unauthorized people would get to look around the classes
  2. that such unauthorized people might use things they see for evaluation purposes
  3. the people would get in at some level of access that might make it possible for them to “mess up” the class they’re visiting
  4. that there wasn’t time to “clean up” the class before people visited

I really do understand these concerns, but my gut response was to wonder whether the instructors understood that they would control who is added, that they would surely only add them at the student access level, and that they shouldn’t feel shy about their class since it was clearly good enough for their current students. In a larger sense, some fear is justified — any number of technical people have access to all our courses and all our administrators. But I didn’t get the feeling that this larger concern was the source of the objections, but rather a more immediate feeling of threat.

The result is that instead of having an open lab session with participants clicking around our offerings, we’ll have a presentation tour of some online classes. This will give people a chance to see how five or six instructors set up and run online classes, without risking any discomfort on the part of those demonstrating.

For the Beginner’s workshop, instead of presenting a formula or process, our intention (developed by Jim Sullivan) is to discover what the participants need in terms of guidance. We’ll do this by asking: what are the top three things you wish to achieve in your online class? Then we hope to cluster ideas as they emerge and offer some advice.

The Results Are In: CMS and Pedagogy

Lisa M Lane 4 Comments

Finally I managed to crack the code and get into the database with my surveys from last spring (don’t ask). I had surveyed MiraCosta’s online instructors (most of whom use Blackboard) and a number from San Diego Community College District (WebCT).

I was assessing the extent to which faculty fully use their course management system to achieve their pedagogical goals.

The 43 respondents to MiraCosta’s Blackboard & Pedagogy Survey set the following patterns:

  • About 40% were teaching fully online; the rest were using Bb for hybrids or on-site classes.
  • Over half had been using Bb for 3 or more years, so they were experienced.
  • Over 80% used the Gradebook and Assignment functions, followed by 48% for Messages, and 41% for Question Pools. Very few used Bb’s more advanced features such as Scholar, Glossary, Office Hours, or MERLOT.
  • 86% did make invisible features they weren’t using, and 93% do customize the Course Menu.
  • 77% run other programs inside Bb.
  • Most are unhappy with the discussion bard.
  • Most do not run a separate FAQ or technical forum on the board, nor a separate forum for students to socialize.
  • Almost 70% upload .doc or .pdf documents into Bb the most. 25% or less upload flash or movie files.
  • Most of the materials they load into Bb are text based (79%).
  • They are only moderately Web 2.0 savvy, with over 30% saying they are somewhat familiar with new uses of the Internet, and almost an equal number saying they aren’t very familiar.
  • They define their greatest workshop need pertaining to Bb as learning to use it more effectively (51%), and equal numbers feel it both inspires and limits or neither inspires or limits their teaching.

The WebCT respondents to my WebCT & Pedagogy Survey (17 of them) were almost all teaching fully online classes, with half teaching 3 years or more.

  • Like the MiraCostans, they used WebCT primarily for administrative tasks (email, calendar, assignments) with 82% using the discussion board.
  • Almost all made unused features invisible, but surprisingly only 70% change the Course Menu buttons.
  • 70% did run programs inside WebCT, and the same number were happy with its discussion board.
  • Half do not run a separate forum for technical issues, and 70% do not have a forum for students to socialize.
  • Like MiraCostans, most upload .doc and .pdf documents, though 70% upload HTML files, much larger than MiraCosta’s percentage (47%).
  • An overwhelming 82% of materials are text-based.
  • 41% said they were not very familiar with Web 2.0, but the percentage saying they are very familiar (24%) was double MiraCosta’s (12%).
  • 41% felt WebCT inspired their teaching, with 35% saying it both inspires and limits pedagogy.

My conclusions are disappointing in the sense that most faculty continue to use their CMS for administrative functions primarily, tend to upload desktop publishing formats instead of native HTML, and rely overwhelmingly on text materials. And these aren’t just newbies either.

However, although not as many as I’d hoped were using Web 2.0 interaction, I was delighted that most are trying to customize the CMS, in the menus themselves and/or making other programs appear inside the shell. Interactivity and rich media are certainly lacking, and in my opinion so is discussion design: few have separate areas for students to get technical help or to socialize, regardless of their satisfaction level with the discussion function.

Interestingly enough, most workshop participants surveyed this fall requested “how to”, “hands on” workshops, and “Making Blackboard Work for You” came out on top. I still sense a reversal of priorities here, but I’m hoping our workshops can help with that. Second place was “Making Online Discussion Work”, which is encouraging. Perhaps we can get people to look away from their CMS and think first about what they want to do?

Social Networking Workshop

Lisa M Lane 2 Comments

Social Networks and Online Learning

Web 2.0 sites for us and our students
Wikipedia list of social networking sites

Organizing and Sharing —
RSS aggregators that share the collection of feeds you read: Bloglines, FeedRaider, Netvibes
(Lisa’s Bloglines –> Blog roll; I read them in FeedRaider)
Bookmarks — organizing the wealth of the web through tagging: Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia
(Social tagging as side-effect of personal use)
Start Pages — organizing ourselves (Personal Learning Landscapes) — Protopage, Pageflakes
Blogs we read — sharing links to blogs can be done from within a blog and/or Bloglines, Technorati, Google Blogsearch
Images — Flickr
Video — YouTube: Web 2.0 video

Socializing — meeting and connecting with others
Student spaces: MySpace, Bebo
Online instructors at California community colleges: @ONE Moodle site (also see Lisa’s blogroll)
Personal connections: 43Things

Writing for everyone — blogging
A blog can be a whole website (Huffington Post), students can have blogs (Blogger, edublogs)
For educators: edublogs
WordPress, LiveJournal
Brad’s blog

Collaborating with wikis
Lisa’s sample wiki from San Elijo class

Virtual Reality
Second Life

Was I “in class”?

Lisa M Lane

Yesterday I could not come to my on-campus class, so I called in for a notice to be put up pointing students to the class website for live chat instead. I sent out an email from Moodle to all the students, who use the site continually, letting them know in case they didn’t need to come to campus otherwise and could do it from home. I asked that the notice send any students whe did come to campus to the open lab to join the chat. When I encountered protest, that too many students would jam up the lab, I made the chat optional and asked those not attending the chat to post in an asynchronous forum by 9 pm to get attendance credit.


Where I was not

I was then told I could not do this, that another instructor had been told the same a coupla weeks ago. I held the online chat (which was great!) and kept the transcript. Meanwhile, emails about my activities were sent to my dean, the campus provost, my chair and a number of others. Ultimately I was cited as absent by an administrator, and was asked by the Senate Pres to bring the issue to Senate Council in March.

My claim is that I was in class at the time specified, but I had moved the session online, therefore I was not absent. Was I in class or not? You make the call.

Blogs, Wikis and RSS, oh my

Lisa M Lane

A little less linear and a lot more complicated, our Blogs, Wikis and RSS workshop explored these more interactive tools for online learning. Jim Sullivan’s blog is rich in links and information, and his All Things Californian group class blog is a great example of how the tool can be effectively used. A good place to start would be either Edublogs or the old standby Blogger, now owned by Google.

I presented wikis, which are collaborative, editable collections of web pages. Students in one of my classes last semester drafted their quizzes (password is history103) in a PBWiki. The current Technology Master Plan is being developed in a schtuff wiki. I linked to it using a button in Blackboard, and the external URL, which can be done with any web-based program you’d want to use.

David Megill introduced us to RSS feeds (explained the “Oprah way” at this page), which can be collected and presented to students for selecting articles and topics. I use My Yahoo, which I didn’t realize was technically an “RSS feed aggregator” to get the latest articles from the BBC, movie listings, weather, and postings from the few blogs I read. But the fun part is making pages of feeds like this available to students, which David does with not only text feeds but podcasts, using Feedburner and iTunes.

Notes for Workshop: Audio, Video, Slideshows

Lisa M Lane

At this morning’s Program workshop, I created a model I kind of like so I’m going to share it. It’s an approach to learning multimedia based on three areas:

Input —
For lectures, I recommended recording onsite lectures using an MP3 recorder around ones neck. You could also use a USB microphone (either free-standing Snowball type or good quality headset). To get the best quality, stand rather than sit, and make sure the environment is very quiet. Save audio files as .aiff, the largest but best quality format. For video in class, use a digital camcorder, the files of which can be easily loaded into a computer. On a PC running Windows XP, the built-in Sound Recorder can be used. On a Mac, Audacity or iMovie is best.

Output —
Sound files should be in small sections, saved in a compressed format: .mp3 is the best quality, or .mov, .wav. iTunes can import .aiff as .mp3, and other programs you might use to edit (such as Audacity) can save as .mp3 or .wav. Quicktime Pro can convert anything to .mov, Quicktime’s native format, with a wide variety of compressions. Sound Recorder can compress a file to a smaller size. 22050 Hz Mono is best for lecture. Video output should utilize the H264 codec, which provides the best quality for the lowest file size.

Integration —
For beginners, the sound or video file can simply be posted or linked in Blackboard, or a link inserted into a web page. Embedding the file into a Blackboard page or a web page is not difficult, and puts the file in a specific place. Unless you work with code, however, it will not be possible to determine whether the file will open inside the Course Management System, in the browser, or in a stand-alone player (like WindowsMedia or QuickTime).