The state techs attended a Moodle training on Wednesday, part one of a two-day event. Wednesday was all about the teacher/student side of the online learning management system. Each participant walked through a series of examples, demonstrating the various types of forums, quizzes, resources, etc that can be used in the Moodle environment.
The biggest advantage to Moodle over other LMS set-ups: Moodle is free and open source. There is also quite a large community of developers and installations.
The biggest "issue" with Moodle (in my opinion): the interface. The way units (or whatever you choose to call them) are laid out, everything is in blocks on the screen, giving the user a distinctly utilitarian feel for things. Even with a custom skin/theme (we were shown some custom examples), the basic layout is the same. Then again, maybe I am just growing weary of the "two-column" and "three-column" layout we seem to find everywhere online these days (just take a look at your Facebook layout, or heck even this blog's layout). With Moodle, though, at least you can hide certain blocks until the appropriate time. This allows for limiting the number of class units displayed, keeping things a little tidier.
I see Moodle as a way to complement the other online professional development offerings the state of Arkansas has: ArkansasIDEAS, iTunesU, and the new Digital Sandbox. Though, the Sandbox is not really for PD, it is for teachers and students to conduct online collaboration in a closed environment. ArkansasIDEAS currently structures its PD in a self-directed, self-paced manner. A Moodle implementation would allow for facilitated (and/or blended) online professional development. It would not surprise me if ArkansasIDEAS moved to a facilitated (again, and/or blended) course offering.
How would that work in our state? Well, teachers are required to have so many hours of "seat time" (as it is called). With a blended environment, teachers could take a 6-week course (1 hour per week) and get 6 hours of seat time credit. It wouldnt even have to be that stretched out. Let's say the course was designed for 6 days, one hour each day. Still, the teacher received 6-hours of seat time.
Eventually, I see a hybrid model for PD where earned credits are tied to the course and material and not tied to how long someone sits in a chair. Well, that's my hope, anyway.
Thursday's Moodle training takes us to the administration side of a Moodle environment.
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