Thursday, January 5, 2012

Lesson Activity in Moodle

I have just been arrowed a task that was not assigned to me end of last year - to design and build an elesson on the topic of "electricity" for our school's home-based learning.

Hm...so what is home based learning.  It is an initiative that is started by Ministry of Education (Singapore) in response to an incident many years back.  In 2003, because of the SARs outbreak, the schools where given sudden notice to close for two weeks.  These left the schools in flurry and especially the JCs, as lost in two weeks of precious curriculum had a great impact as the students were expected to sit for the A-levels in two years time.  The A-levels was deemed as an important milestone as it meant entrance to university of choice and the subsequent career path that the child would take.  So the schools set up contingency plans to get lessons, worksheets and notes delivered to students without face contact.

The schools in Singapore had been on e-learning bandwagon for some years, but it never really took off as students and teacher still feel it is the face-to-face interaction that is important.  Questions and lessons can be modified on the spot based on students' problems and understanding, unlike in the case of elessons, which tend to take a fixed path, and it afterall difficult, even for the most experienced teacher to anticipate every question the children are going to ask.

Anyway,  I have a dateline to meet, was just assigned the task yesterday and I have to get the lesson up by last week of January and first week of Feb, so I am as well get to it.

Resources for Learning to Build Moodle Lessons:

I have been using Moodle for the last two years and there is one feature that I would very much like to explore.  However, as it does take more than a few minutes to learn, so I have never got to learning it.  I guess it always boils down to this, there are so many things that we need to do, so we will only go about doing it or learning it when there is a need to.  (And that students will only learn things if they find it useful and when they need it.  It is the same with upgrading and teaching the skills to teachers,  JIT (just in time) teaching are the best.  At least, this is what I found that works for staff development in my department. Sharing are just for exposure to ideas and gives you an inkling who to approach. )


So first things first is to look at the possible resources on the Web that allows me to learn Moodle Lesson.  Below are some of the ones I really like:


 1.  "More Moodle - Lessons" by La Trobe University. (Last Accessed: 5th Jan 2012)
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/lms/assets/downloads/moodle/guides/user-guide-lessons_v1.0.pdf

I really like this one, as it explains clearly every step and what every setting the term means though I had a little problem following through as my school is currently using Moodle 1.9 and this version of guide is for Moodle 2.0.  We are upgrading to Moodle 2.1 in March....but that would be too late for me.

Behind this document also states some useful references for learning lessons.  I particularly like the videos listed. So I am also linking it here.

2.  YouTube Videos on "Creating a Lesson in Moodle" by LMikowychok

Ah....the wonder of Youtube.  You can now find so many video guides to doing so many things and so it is really no wonder.  These are a series of 3 videos which will guide you to create lesson in Moodle.  It is also good to view it through first to have a rough inkling and overview of what you can do.



Happy Moodling!









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