Sharing Can be Electronic, Too
Have you ever wanted to create an online course.
I mean a real course.
Real Teacher/ Learner Resources
What if you were able to use these resources for your course?
- Text Pages
- Simple pages written using plain text
- You could apply a number of built-in formatting types to turn your plain text into nice-looking Web pages
- HTML Pages
- Easy to develop Web pages
- Each page would be stored in the database, not as a file, so you wouldn't have to keep track of them
- Files and Web Pages
- You could add live links to active Internet Web pages
- You could also upload files and make these files available to participants who are studying your course
- These files could include MP3 files (sound recordings), movies, and Flash™ animations
- Your content could be displayed in windows, pop up windows, or frames
- Directory
- You could display a whole directory (and its subdirectories) of course files. Students could browse and view all those files
- Labels
- You could create Labels and embed text and images among the other links on the course page
Real Tools (All Built In)
Would your online course make use of these tools if they were built in to the course software?
Built in tools (all structured as re-usable modules) include:
- Assignments
- You can list learning assignments and learning activities
- Chat
- Course participants can communicate with each other
- Glossary
- You can build a running record of specific technical terms and tailor-make the selection of these terms to your course
- Forums
- Course participants can interact with the course presenter and other participants
- Journal
- Participants can make use of online journals to keep a learning log or running record of their explorations into your course content
- Lessons
- You can structure your presentation
- Quizzes
- Quizzes can be a learning and memory aide, rather than a grade-extracting tool
- Surveys
- You can set up online questionnaires for participants
- Wikis
- You can set up a presenter or participant interactive dictionary/ encyclopedia. This is interactive because one or more people can edit or add to the text of the definitions and explanations
- Workshops
- These are hands-on/ learning lab assignments
All this built-in capacity is available with the Open Source product, Moodle™
What does All this Learning Power Cost?
Surprise, you can have all this power at your fingertips for free, or almost/ nearly free.
If you have an old computer that you can use, the cost is free.
If you want to place your course on a course exchange, the cost is free
Here is one Moodle™ Exchange
Strategic Open Source of Texas Moodle™ Exchange
If you want to place your course on a dedicated Moodle™ site, the cost is $4.95 per month
SiteGround.com Moodle™ hosting site
Classroom Toolkit is building a tutorial site with a hosting plan that costs $3.95 per month.
Note: The GoDadd.com hosting does not support Moodle™, however PHP™ and MYSQL™ are supported, so the installation of Moodle™ is not that difficult.
Classroom Toolkit Tutorial Site
What Classroom Toolkit Tutorials will do is illustrate the concepts, methods and skills required for teachers to create, edit and adapt our unique materials.
Automated Management
Building online courses is time consuming...labor intensive. Fortunately, Moodle(TM) handles (almost hides) the behind-the-scenes technology/ processes, allowing instructors to focus on course content.
Another advantage to the Moodle™ software learning and course management system is the entire Web is a learning playground for course participants.
You can pick and choose activities and materials and include these in your course as links. In this way, you support copyright and intellectual property rights of learning resource creators, while augmenting your course with the best that the Web World has to offer.
A Flexible Course Development Process
You can install the Moodle™ Course Management System on a server, on an old computer, or even on your desktop (or laptop) computer.
Then, you have a "build-as-you-go" course management system
You can develop and post online in a "build as you go" process (such as the Classroom Toolkit Tutorial project, or you can develop the entire course on your desktop computer and export the entire course in one operation.
Courses that are built on one computer can be copied to/ exported to an other computer that runs the Moodle™ Course Management System.
True computer platform (Windows™ Macintosh™ or Linux™) independence!
Completely Portable Learning
The Moodle™ software system contains a "pack and go" capacity.
This means that you can export your entire course, and copy/ send the course to any other Moodle&38482; system.
This is how a Moodle™ Exchange operates.
This is also how school districts can build an in-house collection of courses, because, once the course is imported, it can be customized, added-to or re-designed
An entire course can be used as a template for a more advanced course...or a template for another course.
Online Tutorials and Examples
Online tutorials are available for learning how to install and configure the Moodle™ Course Management System.
Examples include:
- Lots of How-to install and configure Moodle™ information
- Strategic Open Source of Texas Moodle™
- More how to configure a Moodle™ server
- Texas Computer Educator's Association (TCEA)
- Free Open Source Software Site that focuses upon Moodle™
- K12 Open Source - Free Open Source Software Moodle™
Online tutorials also show you how to build and manage the courses themselves.
Examples of these include:
- The official Moodle™ site that shows what a teacher can do with the software
- The Moodle™ Demonstration Site
- Extensive instructions on how to build Moodle™ courses
- Melbourne University Moodle™ How-to
- A how-to guide for developing and managing a Moodle™ course
- Earlham College Moodle™ How-To Guide
- Tutorials on how to implement the Classroom Toolkit strategy
- Classroom Toolkit Tutorials
A Special Note
Search the Internet for "Moodle How-to"and "Moodle courses". When you find course information that looks useful, login as "guest." Many Moodle™ courses are available for audit, and any guest can look them over without charge.
You will be amazed at what you can learn.
A Super-Special Offer
Ken Task, a retired Texas educator, has a special offer for any school district that wants to take him up on it.
Ken will travel to your school district and configure a Moodle™ server and teach your district's IT staff as he goes along.
The only cost: Ken's travel expenses.
You can contact Ken at:
Mail: Ken Task at K12 Open Source - Free Open Source Software
Mail: Ken Task at Strategic Open Source of Texas
Mail: Ken Task at Educational Service Center, Region 3, Texas
