Why I Use

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Why I Use

• EFL Geek 25/11/2006

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How I got started

• Geocities
• Yahoo Groups
• Site built with dreamweaver
• Moodle
• Questions

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Geocities

• Very simple
• Ugly
• Not dynamic
• Content must be manually updated
• No interactivity available

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Yahoo Groups

• Pros
• Some dynamic content
• Mailing lists
• Downloads
• Free
• Language localization

• Cons
• Difficult to customize appearance
• Small feature set
• Spam

5
Dreamweaver Site

• Pros
• Complete control
• Feature set
• Appearance
• security
• As dynamic as you want it to be

• Cons
• High cost
• Hosting, software,
• Time commitment
• Skills
• Php, html, css, photoshop etc
• Got a bug?
• you need to figure it out alone

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Moodle

• Why I use Moodle
• How I use Moodle
• Pointers for new Moodlers

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Why use Moodle?

• Feature intensive
• Easy to use
• Pedagogically based
• Community support
• Possible to add desired features if you pay
• I paid for address blocking
• Roles feature added in this way

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Feature Intensive

• Themes
• Multiple courses
• Course formats
• Weekly, topic, discussion
• Enrollment keys
• Group and course
• WYSISWYG editor
• Logs
• Roles
• Full teacher
• Tutor (non-editing teacher)

• Modules
• Assignment
• Forum
• Wiki
• Quiz
• Glossary
• Resource
• Downloadable files
• Embedded multimedia
• Grades
• Mailing list

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Moodle

• Why I use Moodle
• How I use Moodle
• Pointers for new Moodlers

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How I use Moodle

• Weekly information
• Supplemental info
• Handouts to print
• Online homework

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Groups

• Multiple sections but only one moodle course
• Can keep separate or allow interaction
• Course level
• Activity level

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News

• Mailing list
• Send to every student
• Only students in one course
• Only students in one group

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Multimedia

• Easily embed multimedia
• Audio
• Mp3s
• wav
• Video
• Youtube
• Google video
• flash

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Assignments

• 3 types
• Inline text
• Upload single file
• Offline activity
• Resubmit
• students can resubmit assignments after they have
  been graded
• Able to accept or decline late submissions

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Quizzes

• Embed media in questions or answers
• Randomly shuffle questions or answers
• Allow retakes
• Limited or unlimited
• Average, best, first, or last attempt
• Time delays between attempts

• Multiple question answer types
• Matching
• Multiple choice
• Cloze
• True/false
• Essay/short answer
• Automatic grading

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Glossaries

• Teachers add content
• Or students or both
• Organized by
• Date
• Category
• Author
• Alphabetically
• Autolinking
• Enabled at glossary or word level

• Multiple formats
• Encyclopedia
• FAQ
• Dictionary
• Can be global or only at the course level

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Logs

• See all activity at site or course level
• Limit by activity, group, individuals
• Outline report
• Shows everything that a student looked at or did

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Logs

• Complete report
• Shows complete entries/text submitted

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Moodle

• Why I use Moodle
• How I use Moodle
• Pointers for new Moodlers

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Pointers

• Keep it Simple Stupid
• Do only 1 or 2 things
• Message board downloads for example
• Expand and tweak slowly

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Pointers

• Make a sandbox
• a second install where you can safely experiment
• Backup regularly
• Auto backups work
• Manual backups are a good habit

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Resources

• Moodle support forum and downloads
• http//moodle.org
• My blog email
• http//eflgeek.com
• eslteacher_at_gmail.com
• My moodle site (personal and Hanyang)
• http//xxxxxxx.com
• http//eslclassroom.net