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Contributed by Lynda LaRoche, FITS Specialist & Moodle Support Coordinator

This year’s FITS Spring Workshop will be on Saturday, March 15th from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Julian Center.

The workshop will focus on Moodle and provide opportunities for both faculty members just starting to use Moodle as well as those wishing to enhance their current Moodle expertise. Breakout sessions will focus on topics such as the Moodle gradebook, steps in Moodle page design, an introduction to Moodle, copyright issues, and more. Also, there will be hands-on sessions where participants can work on their individual course with the aid of instructional technologists. By the end of the workshop, participants should feel comfortable enough with Moodle to build course sites.

To register for the 2008 FITS Spring Workshop on March 15th, please complete the short survey at http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB227HQ7YZKGC by March 11, 2008. Your feedback on this survey will help us identify on which features to focus during breakout sessions.

Also, we regret that this workshop is scheduled on the same date as the Women in Science Reunion. If you are involved with Women in Science, we encourage you to attend the reunion and we will be happy to find another time to help you with Moodle. Additional Moodle opportunities are listed at http://www.depauw.edu/univ/fits/events/events.asp#oncampus. You are also welcome to email us at  moodle at depauw.edu to request a department visit or a one-on-one session.

We hope to see you there!

Contributed by Michael Gough, Instructional Technologist and Coordinator of START

During winter term, FITS added two new enhancements to Moodle that faculty members expressed great interest in at the Moodle User Group (MUG) discussion sessions.

Gradebook Plus add-on

The “out of the box” Moodle gradebook proved functional, but was limited in that you could only add an assignment generated outside of Moodle by adding an “offline activity”, which adds an icon to the course site. While these offline activity icons could serve as reminders to students, they also can clutter up the course space. Another limitation was the original gradebook did not allow for easy grade changes. Faculty members wanting to change a grade had to open the submitted assignment to change the grade. This was somewhat unintuitive and an inconvenient step for instructors who naturally would go to the gradebook to make grade changes.

The new gradebook,” Gradebook Plus,” solves both of these problems. First, it has a “Manage Graded Events” tab. This allows instructors to add an assignment to the gradebook without the need for an offline activity. This enhancement did not replace the offline activity option, as some users still use it as a reminder tool for students. Second, the new gradebook has an “Edit Grades” tab. When you click on this tab, the gradebook loads the grades into editable text boxes where you can change a grade quickly and easily without having to leave the gradebook to go to an individual assignment.

If “use advanced options” is turned on, you will see 2 new tabs, Edit Grades and Manage Grade Events.

Finally, the new gradebook came with enhanced statistics as a fringe benefit. You can now view statistics on individual assignments as well as the overall final grades by clicking on the stats button next to the assignment. Students can also view these statistics if they wish.

The Feedback Module

The Feedback Module, our newest enhancement to Moodle, offers you the ability to build customized surveys for your students. You can choose from an assortment of different online question types to build your survey. You can also choose to make your survey anonymous and show or withhold results with the students. This could be a great way to gather quick informal feedback, or even build your own course evaluation survey.

If you have any questions about these new features or Moodle in general, please email  moodle at depauw.edu.

Contributed by Michael Gough, Instructional Technologist and Coordinator of START, and Dave Berque, Tenzer Family University Professor in Instructional Technology, Professor of Computer Science

Seventeen faculty members participated in the FITS fall workshop on November 17, which consisted of a condensed day-long look at two different technologies gaining use at DePauw, Moodle and Tablet PCs.

Using Moodle

To start the workshop, the 11 faculty members shared their goals for using Moodle in their teaching. Their ideas ranged across a variety of applications using Moodle, such as distributing course materials and library reserves, engaging their students in online discussion outside the classroom, or exchanging students’ papers electronically rather than in printed versions. They then spent the rest of the day in a variety of mini-sessions focused toward those goals.

A sample highlight from the workshop was a hands-on activity focused on how to set up Moodle to enable students to submit completed assignments online The faculty members were able to experience what Moodle is like from both the student and instructor perspectives. They first worked as a student and submitted mock assignments and received feedback on those assignments. Then, during the second half of the activity, they received assignments as an instructor from mock students and sent their feedback to the students.

At the end of the day, many participants were well on their way toward building their own Moodle courses and FITS instructional technologists will follow up with those faculty members throughout the coming weeks help them finish their courses.

FITS will also have a Moodle track during the Winter Term workshop. For more information on the Winter Term workshop see the next article.

Exploring Tablet PCs

The six faculty members who participated in the Tablet PC track had a full day of activities. Each participant was given a Tablet PC to use during the workshop. After learning how to use the Tablet’s digital pen to add ink to documents, participants heard from three colleagues who regularly use Tablet PCs to support their teaching. Participants also had hands-on experience with a variety of Tablet PC software applications and were able to practice annotating Word documents, Power Point presentations, and PDF files with digital ink. Each participant also took a “Tablet PC Deep Dive” which consisted of spending some time grading a student assignment, preparing an actual PowerPoint or DyKnow presentation, or annotating a research article.

Contributed by Michael Gough and Dave Berque

This year’s FITS fall workshop will be on Saturday, November 17^th from 8:30 to 2:00 in the Julian lab spaces on the first floor of Julian. We will have two different tracks, Tablet PCs and Moodle, running simultaneously. A continental breakfast and lunch will be provided. See descriptions of each track below. We ask that you sign up for only one track. To register, click on one of the links at the bottom of the article.

Tablet PC Track:

Participants will explore the ways Tablet PCs (essentially laptops with pens) can be used to support teaching and learning. Specific applications will include (a) using a digital pen to annotate student work and other material using Word, (b) using a digital pen together with standard tools such as PowerPoint to make classroom presentations more spontaneous, (c) using DyKnow classroom collaboration and notetaking software to engage students, and (d) using LectureScribe to make electronic answer keys. We will devote a significant amount of time to discussing the pedagogical implications of using pen-based computing. In addition, participants will be encouraged to bring electronic versions of papers that they need to grade (there will be time to get some grading done during the workshop) and/or electronic copies of professional reading they need to do, and/or classroom material they need to prepare. More details will be provided to workshop registrants.

Moodle Track

Faculty members will learn how different Moodle features could best meet their course needs while gaining hands on experience creating their course(s). Breakout sessions on popular topics will focus on the pedagogical uses of Moodle’s features and give a brief technical overview on how to use them. Participants should come with a goal for how they would like their course set up. Lots of time will be devoted toward individual course building and one-on-one support. By the end of the workshop, participants should feel comfortable enough with Moodle to meet the needs of their course goal. To register, click on the link below to take our short pre-registration survey. This will help us identify what features to focus on.

Register for the Tablet PC track

Register for the Moodle track

Contributed by David Diedriech

On Wednesday, October 3rd, FITS held its first Moodle showcase in the Julian auditorium. Three instructors – Matthew Balensuela, Jeff Hansen and Dave Guinee – presented examples of how they were using Moodle resources that were comparable to features in Blackboard. One of the many highlights included Dave showing the Moodle site that he uses as part of a collaborative class through NITLE. Several of those present offered suggestions and observations from their own courses. It was a great discussion!

Upcoming Moodle Showcases and Workshops:

Wednesday, November 7th
Moodle Showcase
“What I’ve learned about Moodle”
3:15 p.m. Julian Auditorium

Saturday, November 17th
FITS Saturday workshop
Click here for details

Contributed by Veronica Pejril

This spring, I began using Moodle for delivering content to my students in Music 110, Introduction to Music Technology. At first glance, the new system seemed overwhelming; whereas Blackboard offered me a predefined, rather linear template for delivering content and managing online interaction with my students, Moodle presented me with new choices to make that I’d never had to make before. Many of these choices were cosmetic in nature, such as page layout and theme choice. It was easy at first to get bogged down in, and even annoyed by, the details of presentation, before I got down to business and concerned myself with the task of adding content.

I was pleasantly surprised that linking to audio and video content from within Moodle provided live media-players on my students’ screens without having to take the extra step of “serving” that content elsewhere, as I had to do the previous semester with Blackboard. This was particularly helpful for my class; I was able to quickly share my students’ creative music projects online so they could listen to, review and critique each other’s work, all from within Moodle.

Another tool I discovered was the RSS Feeds block, which I used to consolidate content from my class blog into the students’ Moodle page. In the end, my students had just one place to go for all their online course content and announcements. Blackboard didn’t offer a way to integrate that blogged content into the course management system.

By the end of the spring semester, my perception of Moodle changed quite a bit, and I started thinking of it as something of a Swiss army knife for learning management. When all the knife’s tools are folded out, it looks and feels unmanageable and overly complex; by hiding those tools I didn’t need for my own curricular goals, the tool became simple and quite useful for my teaching.

FITS has created a Moodle Resources and Documentation course for you to use as a reference.

http://moodle.depauw.edu/course/view.php?id=48

(log in as Guest)

Friday, September 14th
Moodle Users Group (MUG) Meeting
Oriented toward faculty members who are already using Moodle, bi-weekly meetings for everyone to share ideas, ask questions, and discuss ways that Moodle can be used in teaching and learning.
Noon-1:00 p.m. Roy O. West Media Classroom

Monday, September 24th
Moodle Users Group (MUG) Meeting
Oriented toward faculty members who are already using Moodle, bi-weekly meetings for everyone to share ideas, ask questions, and discuss ways that Moodle can be used in teaching and learning.
3:00 p.m. Roy O. West Media Classroom

Wednesday, October 3rd
Moodle Showcase
“Doing Blackboard like things in Moodle”
3:00 p.m. Julian Auditorium

Monday, October 8th
Moodle Users Group (MUG) Meeting
Oriented toward faculty members who are already using Moodle, bi-weekly meetings for everyone to share ideas, ask questions, and discuss ways that Moodle can be used in teaching and learning.
3:15 p.m. Roy O. West Media Classroom

Wednesday, October 24th
Moodle Showcase
“Doing ‘New’ with Moodle”
3:15 p.m. Julian Auditorium

Friday, November 2th
Moodle Users Group (MUG) Meeting
Oriented toward faculty members who are already using Moodle, bi-weekly meetings for everyone to share ideas, ask questions, and discuss ways that Moodle can be used in teaching and learning.
Noon - 1:00 p.m. Roy O. West Instruction Room A

Wednesday, November 7th
Moodle Showcase
“What I’ve learned about Moodle”
3:15 p.m. Julian Auditorium

Friday, November 16th
Moodle Users Group (MUG) Meeting
Oriented toward faculty members who are already using Moodle, bi-weekly meetings for everyone to share ideas, ask questions, and discuss ways that Moodle can be used in teaching and learning.
Noon - 1:00 p.m. Roy O. West Media Classroom

Saturday, November 17th
FITS Saturday workshop
Times and Locations TBA

Friday, November 30th
Moodle Users Group (MUG) Meeting
Oriented toward faculty members who are already using Moodle, bi-weekly meetings for everyone to share ideas, ask questions, and discuss ways that Moodle can be used in teaching and learning.
Noon - 1:00 p.m. Roy O. West Instruction Room A