Sure it’s been a long time, but that’s what happens when teacher evaluations, AP tests and lots of fun weekends with the kids crowd into your schedule. Everything but the latter was drudgery.
Now it’s time to get back to the real work at hand.The first order of business is the formal introduction of Moodle to the faculty. Although our Moodle has been in place since December and some teachers and students have been in it since January, most of the faculty are unfamiliar with it beyond their reaction to the odd name. Most of the school’s efforts have focused on the development of authentic assessment tools (for want of better label) for implementation next year; it’s been real tough to get an edge in wordwise. So it’s important to use the fifteen minutes of faculty time wisely.
How do you introduce the tools of Moodle to convince teachers that it is worthwhile and at the same time easy to use? In order to demonstrate its versatility, I think I’ll have show the forums, quizzes, class glossaries, assignments and lessons. In order to shows its ease of use, I’ll have to flip through a few quick screen shots to show how quickly these things can be added to any course. Yet this approach can alienate teachers.
Showing all of the things Moodle can do may be overwhelming. Despite any of my explanations and screen shots, they won’t buy the argument that it is easy to use, especially when that argument comes from me.
I’m afraid they will not try Moodle before the end of the year, they’ll put it off, it will become a “summer project”. Instead of just trying just one forum discussion before the end of the school year, they will wait for “training”. But what will that training be? It will be a group of people in a computer lab clicking through the screens, not really following the step-by-step instructions and trying to get Moodle to do what they want. Anyone who has sat through one of those workshop training sessions knows this happens and there is nothing really wrong with it. Yet, couldn’t they try this on their own?
Have you ever noticed that there is no “Game-Boy for Dummies” book? Kids don’t need instruction manuals because they know that they only need to keep pushing the buttons to get it to work. If you were to try to sit them down and explain the function of each button and button sequence, they will quickly lose patience. Why learn about the entire function set of the Gameboy if all I have to do is figure out how to do the one thing I want to do right now?
The solution to the “fifteen minutes to Moodle” dilemma is to limit the introduction to just one or two features. Show a forum in action, save the other stuff for later. Offer to meet with any teacher, any time, to set up a forum for their class. Suggest that teachers speak with the other six teachers using Moodle for proof that it is easy to use. And for Pete’s sake, don’t even mention ELGG.
I’ll know by Tuesday if this works .
I am interested in hearing how your introduction to Moodle goes. I would think that you might want to show them what they can use to make their classes easier. Yes, there are a lot of cool features in Moodle, but I am wondering if they will be overwhelmed. Let me know what approaches worked and what did not.
I finished the screen-shot powerpoint that includes the forum, glossary, quiz and choice lessons. I’m hoping to convince them to try a forum before the end of the school year.
There’s a great example of collaboration from an art teacher whose students are posting pictures of their work in a forum and an English teacher whose students are writing reviews. This sparked several interesting discussion between the artists and reviewers, each seeing different things in the paintings.
In the end, I know I’ll go a little overboard. Hopefully the versatility will override the concern that it is too complicated by showing that all they have to is “add activity”.
For those teachers that are interested, I’m trying to get a skypecast Moodle professional development class to run in the summer.
I would be interested in seeing your Powerpoint if you are willing to share. Here is a link to mine.
http://faculty.harker.org/AngelaN/
Click on Moodle CAIS in the left hand margin. We have a lot of Moodlein teachers. I find teachig them one function at a time of their choosing most successful.
Thanks, Angela
The faculty presentation was nothing but screen shots, I just wanted to whet their appetite. Previously I had provided department supervisors with a cd full of narrated screen shot videos. You can find both of these linked off http://www.maherpages.net/
The most effective environment for professional development remains the elusive holy grail. Our latest experiment is Bridget Conferencing which allows easy screen sharing and voice conferencing. I’m teaching a summer course for teachers in the hopes that people will feel much more comfortable learning this in the comfort of their own home.
This is good. I wanted pictures to add in my school project and the images you have posted are good. Thanks for them buddy! I guess teacher will love my project due to these images and of course the information I provided.