Title: Virtual Learning Environments
1Open Source Software
- Virtual Learning Environments
2What is a Virtual Learning Environment?
- An online vehicle for teaching and learning
- Controlled access to curriculum modules
- Modules can be separately assessed and recorded
- Tracking of student activity and achievement
- Activities to facilitate, guide and monitor
learning - Access to learning resources and assessments
- Communication between the learners and
teachers/facilitators, and between peer groups
3Virtual Learning Environments
- Buy a VLE
- Digital Brain
- Blackboard
- WebCT
- VTLE (RM)
- BT Learning Centre
- Learning Gateway (MS)
- Free VLEs
- ATutor
- Moodle
- Claroline
- COSE
4Why bother?
- An online vehicle for teaching and learning
- 24/7 Access to resources and information
- Extends the learning environment beyond the
school to the home - Encourages parental involvement and home
learning - Safe, secure and focused learning environment
- Tailored to the needs of your students
- Supports individual needs
- Encourages group learning activities
5Why bother?
- An online vehicle for teaching and learning
- Develops a community, where information and
discussions can be shared. - Storage of work of students and teachers
- Students progress can be tracked and needs
identified more clearly. - A virtual storage cabinet of resources for all
teachers - Provides a global focus for education resources
and support for global issues and global
citizenship
6Why bother?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- (FAQ)
- How can I find the time for all this?
- It is not the way I work. Why should I try it?
- Will I need specialist knowledge?
- Will it raise standards?
- How can it save time?
- Will I need access to computers for my whole
class? - How often will I need access?
- Is work secure and safe?
7Why bother?
- Frequently Asked Questions
- (FAQ)
- Can I integrate this into my normal course?
- Can I use it as a complete course?
- Can I use online assessments and quiz ?
- Can I upload any file?
- Can I upload past papers?
- Can a student access the work of others??
- How is feedback provided to students?
- What happens if the site goes down?
- Why host it on the internet not an intranet?
8Are there alternatives to Virtual Learning
Environments?
Bloggers! (Web log) Entries made from home or
at work Point-and-click operation from a
browser Upload files for others to download Open
Access for all users Link to our bloggers
9What is Open Source Software?
Open source software is software whose source
code is open to public review. It is free to
download, free to modify, free to redistribute.
Links Open Source Definition Open Source
Licenses GNU General Public License More examples
of OS Software
10Advantages of using Open Source Software
Software evolves and improvements can happen
with far greater speed than proprietary software.
Bugs can be fixed, improvements and new
developments can be made available to
all.. Freely available, with a global support
community. Free to obtain, modify and
redistribute High quality, stable, secure
software available to all Wonderful gifts for
the educational community!
11 Open Source Software in Education
- Total cost of ownership is reduced,
- Freedom from being tied to particular products
- Lower costs for home-school communities
- Customise to fit your needs.
- Can be used on older computer systems.
- Allows productivity to increase for small outlay
- Saves money for cash-strapped schools
- Flexibility and adaptability to with changing
needs - Examples of Open Source Software?
- Apache webserver
- Squirrelmail webmail system
- sendmail, the most widely used email transport
software - Python programming language
12Proceed with caution
Do your homework first!
- What are our strengths?
- What do we need?
- What can a VLE offer?
- What is available?
- What are the teaching and learning
opportunities? - Do they match our requirements?
- What flexibility is provided?
- What other issues need to be considered?
13Information and Guidance?
- FERL Further Education Resources for Learning.
An Internet based information service for
lecturers and other practitioners in Further
Education colleges funded by the FEFC and managed
by BECTa. Links to guidance/help pages - Why have a VLE?
- Evaluating Learning Platforms
- Purchasing a VLEStaff Development
- Piloting a VLE
- Mainstreaming a VLE
- Administration
- Case Studies
- How to Get it all Wrong
- List of Case Studies
-
14Information and Guidance?
- JISC Joint Information Systems Committee.An
independent advisory body that works with further
and higher education by providing strategic
guidance, advice and opportunities use to use ICT
to support learning, teaching, research and
administration. - Useful documents
- MLEs and VLEs explained
15Open Source Case Study 1
- A challenge
- What else can we be doing to
- support our students?
16Case Study 1 Providing more support
Initial Ideas
- More Individual support within lessons
- Additional support at lunchtimes and after
school - Individual programmes of study
- Exploring new teaching methods and learning
styles - Increase number and range of choices
- Home/School links
- Parental involvement
17Case Study 1 Providing more support
Constraints
- Making it all fit into scheduled lessons
- Commitments of staff and students outside of
scheduled lessons - Mismatch between timetables between teachers and
students for additional support. -
18Case Study 1 Providing more support
VLE Initial questions
- What are our needs?
- What new opportunities for teaching and learning
can a VLE provide? - Can we match our requirements with a VLE?
- Is it flexible enough to change with us!
- What INSET is required?
- Is 24/7 access available?
- Can a VLE be applied and used in context with our
courses? - Do we have the infrastructure to make it
accessible to all students - How much will it cost?
19Case Study 1 Providing more support
VLE Why Open Source?
- Open Source
- No ties
- Flexible
- Meets our requirements
- Easy to install and backup
- Easy to create, change, modify courses
- Select range of facilities
- Ability to save our courses
- Overall costs are low
- Provides a range of new teaching opportunities
and learning styles
20Case Study 1 An Open Source solution
Moodle it!
MOODLE is an acronym for. Modular
Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment
It is also a verb that describes the process
of lazily meandering through something,
doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an
enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight
and creativity ..
21Case Study 1 An Open Source solution
Moodle it!
MOODLE is an acronym for. Modular
Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment
It is also a verb that describes the process
of lazily meandering through something,
doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an
enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight
and creativity ..
22Case Study 1 An Open Source solution
Moodle it!
MOODLE is an acronym for. Modular
Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment
It is also a verb that describes the process
of lazily meandering through something,
doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an
enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight
and creativity ..
23Case Study 1 An Open Source solution
Moodle it!
MOODLE is an acronym for. Modular
Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment
It is also a verb that describes the process
of lazily meandering through something,
doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an
enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight
and creativity ..
24Case Study 2 A Teachers Support Facility
http//www.scienceblog.org/support/
- Upload or download your work.
- Share work with colleagues.
- Have access to your work on a 24/7 basis,
- Never lose work again.
- Share ideas, thoughts with colleagues.
- Go to the Online Library of resources.
- Work together, according to your schedule
- Learn how to develop new learning resources
- Embark on a global educational adventure!
25Case Study 2 A Teachers Support Facility
A place to save and share resources. Access from
home or at school
26What is Moodle?
- A software package designed to help educators
create quality online courses. -
- A course management system (CMS) or Learning
Management Systems (LMS) or Virtual Learning
Environment (VLE). - Supports social constructionist pedagogy
- Open Source software
- FREE to download it, use it, modify it and
distribute it ( GNU General Public License). - Supports a range of platforms Unix, Linux,
Windows, Mac OS X, Netware and any other system
that supports PHP, including most webhost
providers. - Data is stored in a single database such as
MySQL and PostgreSQL. Can also be used with
Oracle, Access, Interbase, ODBC and others. - Available in 34 languages
27Who created Moodle?
- Martin Dougiamas created Moodle
- Martin is Australian, living in Perth.
- Moodle started out as a hobby for Martin,
- and grew into the subject of his PhD thesis
- "The use of Open Source software to support a
social - constructionist epistemology of teaching and
learning - within Internet-based communities of reflective
inquiry", - Moodle is now being used in many schools,
- universities and other educational
- communities.
Martin Dougiamas
More Information is available from Using
Learning Communities to Create an Open Source
Course Management System Moodles Home
28Who uses Moodle?
- There are almost 700 sites which have registered,
- in over 67 countries! (January 2004)
- Albania Argentina Australia Austria
Belgium Bolivia Brazil - Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica
Croatia (Hrvatska) - Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominican
Republic Ecuador - Finland France Germany Greece Guatemala
Honduras Hong - Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia
Iran (Islamic Republic of) - Ireland Italy Japan Korea Republic of
Lithuania Malaysia - Mexico Morocco Nepal Netherlands New
Zealand Nicaragua - Norway Pakistan Peru Philippines Poland
Portugal Romania - Russian Federation Saudi Arabia Singapore
Slovakia (Slovak - Republic) South Africa Spain Sweden
Switzerland Taiwan - Thailand Trinidad and Tobago Turkey Ukraine
United Arab - Emirates United Kingdom United States of
America Uruguay - Venezuela ..
- Download your Moodle now!
29Who uses Moodle?
Coolwebschools Moodle
Openschools Moodle
Supporting 21st Century Science
30Teacher to Facilitator?
- Moodle supports a change of role from teacher
to a facilitator - A change from source of knowledge' to being an
influencer and role model of class culture, - Facilitator connects with students by -
addresses individual learning needs, -
moderating discussions and activities -
collectively leads students towards the learning
goals of the class. - The future developments of Moodle provide more
support for this approach
31The Philosophy ?
- Social constructionist pedagogy
- A social group in which the focus is on
both group and individual activities
Constructing Collaborating
Creating Sharing
32Moodle Site Management
- An administrator Control of the site is by an
administrator user defined during setup - Plug-in "themes" The administrator can
customise the site colours, fonts, layout etc to
suit local needs - Plug-in activity modules These can be added to
existing Moodle installations - Plug-in language packs Currently there are
language packs for over 34 languages. These can
be edited using a built-in web-based editor.
33Moodle Course Management (1)
- A teacher administrator has full control over all
settings for a course, including restricting
other teachers - Choice of course formats such as by week, by
topic or a discussion-focused social format - Flexible array of course activities Forums,
Journals, Quizzes, Resources, Choices, Surveys,
Assignments, Chats, Workshops - Display recent changes to the course since the
last login can be displayed on the course home
page - Easy editing of text for resources, forum
postings, journal entries using an embedded
WYSIWYG HTML editor
34Moodle Course Management (2)
- Grades for Forums, Journals, Quizzes and
Assignments can be viewed on one page (and
downloaded as a spreadsheet file) - User logging and tracking full activity
reports for each student are available with
graphs and details about each module. Also a
detailed review of each students involvement
including postings, journal entries etc - Mail integration copies of forum posts,
teacher feedback etc can be mailed in HTML or
plain text. - Custom scales teachers can define their own
scales to be used for grading forums, assignments
and journals - Courses can be packaged
- as a single zip file using the Backup function.
These can be restored on any Moodle server.
35Moodle Course structure
- Weekly formatEach week consists of activities.
Some might have deadlines, others might be
open. - Topics formatPresented and organised into
topics. A topic is not restricted to any time
limit. - Social formatAll activities are presented and
organised into a single forum. Could also be
used as noticeboards
36Moodle Course structure
- Weekly formatEach week consists of activities.
Some might have deadlines, others might be
open. - Topics formatPresented and organised into
topics. A topic is not restricted to any time
limit. - Social formatAll activities are presented and
organised into a single forum. Could also be
used as noticeboards
37Moodle Modules
Modules available for Moodle
- Assignment
- Attendance
- Chat
- Choice
- Dialogue
- Exercise
- Forum
- Glossary
- Journal
- Quiz
- Resource
- Survey
- WebQuest
- Webwork
- Workshop
More details
38Moodle Assignment Module
- Can be specified with a due date and a maximum
grade. - Students can upload assignments They are
date-stamped. Different file formats are
allowed - Late assignments are allowedThe amount of
lateness is shown clearly to the teacher - Whole-class assessment Grades and comments
provided for each assignment, on one page in one
form. Viewable by assigned teachers - Teacher feedback This is appended to the
assignment page for each student. Notification
is sent by e-mail - Resubmission of assignments This can be allowed
by teachers after grading (for re-grading)
39Moodle Forum Module
- Different types of forums are available,teacher-
only,course news, open-to-all,
one-thread-per-user. - All postings have the authors photo attached.
- Discussions can be viewed as nested, flat,
threaded, oldest or newest first - Every registered user can join, or the teacher
can force subscription for all - The teacher can choose not to allow replies
- Discussion threads can be easily moved between
forums - Attached images are shown inline
40Moodle Journal Module
- Journals are private between student and teacher.
- Each journal entry can be directed by an open
question. - The whole class can be assessed on one page in
one form - Teacher feedback is appended to the journal entry
page, and notification is mailed out.
41MoodleQuiz Module (1)
- Teachers can define a database of questions for
re-use in different quizzes - Questions can be stored in categories for easy
access, and these categories can be "published"
to make them accessible from any course on the
site. - Quizzes are automatically graded, and can be
re-graded if questions are modified - Quizzes can have a limited time window outside of
which they are not available - At the teacher's option, quizzes can be attempted
multiple times, and can show feedback and/or
correct answers - Quiz questions and quiz answers can be shuffled
(randomised) to reduce cheating - Questions allow HTML and images
42MoodleQuiz Module (2)
- Multiple-choice questions single or multiple
answers - Short Answer questions words or phrases
- True-False questions
- Matching questions
- Random questions
- Numerical questions (with allowable ranges)
- Embedded-answer questions (cloze style)
- Embedded descriptive text and graphics
Administration Panels
43Moodle Assignment Module
- .
- Assignments can be viewed online, or downloaded
- Teacher can attach feedback comments
- Notification is sent out by e-mail
- Resubmission can be granted for assignments, for
re-grading
44Moodle Assignment Module
- Assignments can be specified with a due date and
a maximum grade. - Students can upload their assignments (any file
format) to the server - they are date-stamped. - Late assignments are allowed, but the amount of
lateness is shown clearly to the teacher - For each particular assignment, the whole class
can be assessed (grade and comment) on one page
in one form.
45Installing Moodle
http//www.webschool.org.uk/science/powerpoint/moo
dleinstall.ppt
46Installation requirements
- Choose a hosting company which provides a MySQL
(open source database) and PHP (embedded
scripting language) - Make sure they offer Fantastico.
- No special technical knowledge is required for
the installation of Moodle - It is all controlled using 'point and click'
operations. - Once installed, you can build your own Virtual
Learning Environment, to suit the needs of your
school. -
47Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
Fantastico! is usually installed on Linux hosting
accounts with CPanel
- 1. Logon to the Control Panel
- Use the username and password supplied with
Welcome Mail!
bse33ugo
48Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
Select Fantastico! From the Control
Panel
49Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
50Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
51Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
supportme
52Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
53Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
54Installing Moodle License Information
Agree to the terms of the GPL License
55Installing Moodle Version Information
Current version of Moodle is displayed..
56Installing Moodle Release Notes
Notes about the current version No input
required here . just continue with the
installation
57Installing Moodle Database Tables
58Installing Moodle Database Upgrade
59Installing Moodle Configuration
Specify the configuration variables A few are
shown here. The default settings usually work
! They can be changed at any time by the
Administrator
60Installing Moodle Site Format
Configure the site format presented to visitors
61Installing Moodle Admin. Profile
Set the User Profile for the Administrator A few
items are shown here. They can be changed at any
time
62Moodle Ready to go!
Moodle has been installed and configured. Courses
can now be added.
63Science Support Websites
Image Galleries www.supportscience.org/cgi-bin/im
agefolio/imageFolio.cgi www.webucation.org/gallery
/ Virtual Learning Environment
Websites www.coolwebschool.org/moodle/ www.opensch
ool.org.uk/support/ 21st Century Support
Sites www.21stcenturyscience.org.uk/support/ www.
scienceblog.org/community/index.php Blogging
User Logon www.webschool.org.uk/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi
- North Chadderton School Home
- www.webschool.org.uk
- Community Websites
- www.mywebschool.org/postnuke/
- www.scibase.org/
- http//www.scigallery.org/blogger/modules/news
- http//www.scigallery.org/blogger/modules/news/
- Databases ( for KS3 and Science Links)
- These were originally developed for the ASE
- www.scilinks.org.uk/
- www.scishop.org
North Chadderton School Websites Constructed
using Open Source Software