MOODLE BY DREW BUDDIE (IOW CONFERENCE 08)

How many of us have a VLE in school? More and more, I guess, though it is not by any means standard, and even if you do, it can be dramatically underused. I went to this session prepared to be convinced about the benefits of Moodle and was blown away. Drew Buddie's use of this VLE appears to be as energetic and hands-on as the man himself, and as he led us through the various areas and applications, I was increasingly impressed. Here are some of Drew's tips and ideas..

• Give your Moodle site a cool name. This gives it a personality and makes it much less clinical. www.anagramgenius.com is a website which can be useful here.
• If your Moodle site is not an official school site, there is no need for a crest etc. The kids may be more likely to use it.
• The calendar is hyperlinked so that if work is set, it is linked into the pupils' calendar.
• You can start a course with closed eye, and only open it up once the pupils are in the room, then save and close the eye at the end of the lesson. This is useful for tests and for those subjects in new GCSE where they have to guarantee that the work is only done in that lesson
• Alter the administration for permissions, to allow people to view
• You only see courses you are enrolled for as a pupil
• Turn editing on = how you add things
• You can pack up your course leaving out pupil contribution and then reuse it the next year
• Put past paper questions onto Moodle for that course.
• Show parents the submitted assignments (or that the pupils haven’t submitted at all!)
• You can mark on the document or give feedback and let them try again
• If being strict with deadlines, then close the course for submissions at a given time
• Export the submissions data for each pupil and you will have table with results for each answer
• Sandbox area is a work in progress area and then move it once finished
• You can store content on a memory stick and show people what you have done at courses or at 'Show and Tell' sessions
• The course name can be too long so giev it a short name for the breadcrumb trail
• Use an agreed code for the school Moodle e.g. MFL for all our courses
• Students when log in see next ten things that affect them in school
• Hot Potatoes tells you how many clicks it takes the pupils to get the answer right
• Chat facility - ‘Next chat time’ sets when they can chat. This is good e.g. for the day before their A level exam. It is safe because only course members are on, plus there is a permanent record of what you chatted about, to protect the teacher. Also, pupils can cut and paste into a Word doc and then search for key words to find discussions they have missed
• Choices are good for AfL e.g. ‘Have you enjoyed this weekend?’ Set options and then save and return to course. Once voted, select ‘Choices’ then select ‘View responses’
• The forum can be used for example with G&T pupils, given pseudonyms, and Year 7 pupils discuss with Year 13 anonymously
  I think that Moodle has tremendous potential, although like anything Web 2.0, you only get out what you put in!