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Virtual Learning Environments

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Title: Virtual Learning Environments


1
Open Source Software
  • Virtual Learning Environments

2
What 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

3
Virtual Learning Environments
  • Buy a VLE
  • Digital Brain
  • Blackboard
  • WebCT
  • VTLE (RM)
  • BT Learning Centre
  • Learning Gateway (MS)
  • Free VLEs
  • ATutor
  • Moodle
  • Claroline
  • COSE

4
Why 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

5
Why 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

6
Why 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?

7
Why 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?

8
Are 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
9
What 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
10
Advantages 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

12
Proceed 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?

13
Information 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

14
Information 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

15
Open Source Case Study 1
  • A challenge
  • What else can we be doing to
  • support our students?

16
Case 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

17
Case 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.

18
Case 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?

19
Case 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

20
Case 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 ..
21
Case 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 ..
22
Case 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 ..
23
Case 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 ..
24
Case 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!

25
Case Study 2 A Teachers Support Facility

A place to save and share resources. Access from
home or at school
26
What 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

27
Who 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
28
Who 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!

29
Who uses Moodle?
  • North Chadderton School

Coolwebschools Moodle
Openschools Moodle
Supporting 21st Century Science
30
Teacher 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

31
The Philosophy ?
  • Social constructionist pedagogy
  • A social group in which the focus is on
    both group and individual activities

Constructing Collaborating
Creating Sharing
32
Moodle 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.

33
Moodle 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

34
Moodle 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.

35
Moodle 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

36
Moodle 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

37
Moodle Modules
Modules available for Moodle
  • Assignment
  • Attendance
  • Chat
  • Choice
  • Dialogue
  • Exercise
  • Forum
  • Glossary
  • Journal
  • Quiz
  • Resource
  • Survey
  • WebQuest
  • Webwork
  • Workshop

More details
38
Moodle 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)

39
Moodle 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

40
Moodle 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.

41
MoodleQuiz 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

42
MoodleQuiz 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
43
Moodle 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

44
Moodle 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.

45
Installing Moodle
  • Fantastico!

http//www.webschool.org.uk/science/powerpoint/moo
dleinstall.ppt
46
Installation 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.

47
Installing 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

48
Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
Select Fantastico! From the Control
Panel
49
Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
50
Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
51
Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
supportme
52
Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
53
Installing Moodle Using Fantastico
54
Installing Moodle License Information
Agree to the terms of the GPL License
55
Installing Moodle Version Information
Current version of Moodle is displayed..
56
Installing Moodle Release Notes
Notes about the current version No input
required here . just continue with the
installation
57
Installing Moodle Database Tables
58
Installing Moodle Database Upgrade
59
Installing 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
60
Installing Moodle Site Format
Configure the site format presented to visitors
61
Installing Moodle Admin. Profile
Set the User Profile for the Administrator A few
items are shown here. They can be changed at any
time
62
Moodle Ready to go!
Moodle has been installed and configured. Courses
can now be added.
63
Science 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
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