Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Moodle sessions on Tuesday 13 July 2010

Keynote Presentation – Martin Dougiamas
Plenary Room



Moodle being used in 215 countries, by 35M users in 85 languages

Biggest users are from non-English speaking countries

Huge development since 1999

Moodle 2.0 functions:
  • 20 new themes
  • Blocks - docked and undocked:
    1) navigation block
    2) settings block
  • 2 x homepagees:
    1) my home (customisable)
    2) courses/sites
  • All settings are listed together
  • Blocks can be added (like gadgets in Google)
  • privates files - block file repository (could also be available to students)
  • All files tagged with licence types
  • Much better file management/ saving changes
  • better messenging
  • blogs can be synchronised with other external blogs
  • comments can be added to each page
  • workshop much easier to use, for peer and self assessment, students can also mark examples
  • Hub - site for sharing courses or links to courses (see or download) e.g., mooch - open comm. hub qa.moodle.net (reset every hour)
  • Survey customisable in 2.1

Now: release is still a working version - will be ready in a couple of weeks.

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Academic Analytics: Indicators of Engagement (11-11.30am)

by Colin Beer, Ken Clark, David Jones from Central Queensland University


See the abstract

Colin gathered data from the LMS and student information systems.

Main message of this presentation: number of hits correlated with grades. The higher the number of hits, the higher the student's grade.

This was a large study: n=91284

Mature-age students tended to use the LMS more frequently than younger students.

Colin described the teaching of flexible students as being removed from the "pollution of face-to-face teaching"

Students could be targeted for messages, depending on their click-count (less active students could be sent an encouragement message)

Purdue Uni - signals project, 67% improvement

There are many indicators of engagement but this study focused on one of these indicators (that is, the number of clicks students made online throughout the semester.

Colin is looking for collaborators for future research - I spoke to him later and he said he'd be happy for Avondale to be involved.

See Slideshow presentation on Slideshare


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Suggestions for future Moodle analytics: conceptions of teaching, visibility and reflection (11.30-12)

by Ken Clark from Central Queensland University

See Ken's abstract

Introduction ideas:

  • Staff interaction with students in one of the key influences on students' engagement (Fresen, 2007)
  • Relationships with students in a key factor in a successful teaching-learning situation
Results of the study:



  • In the old LMS, 27% of units used forums, others didn't
  • When they changed to Moodle, there were only 11% who didn't use forums
  • also introduced "minimum standards" (compliance measures) during the move to Moodle - this didn't make much of a difference as it was a top-down strategy.
  • Result: greater use of interaction via forums one the uni moved to using Moodle

Other comments by Ken:

  • Malikowslei et al (2007) - showed that staff start using the LMS in stages, starting with content dissemination tools
  • More student interaction in forums - correlated with a higher grade
  • Quantity and quality of staff engagement (Dawson & McWilliam)

Check out:

Presentation on Slideshare

Project website: http://indicatorsproject.wordpress.com/

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Moodle and the Scholarship of Teaching (12.00-12.30pm)

by Philip Marriott from University of South Australia

See Phil's abstract

Presentation based on these questions: How do we measure how good Moodle is? How can we measure effectiveness? Has teaching improved with the use of technology?

Background: Focusing on teachers and changes in the Scholarship of Teaching (SOT)

Phil's main points:



  • Russell (2005) showed that there was no significant difference - students didn't necessarily learn better or more
  • Whelan and Plass (2002) - no significant difference
  • Clark - media is not important
  • Cuban (1986) - stages of using technology include: from excitement through to disappointment (and other stages in between)
  • Many teachers become marginalised as teachers but Moodle puts them back in the link
  • Aim of scholarly teaching: makde transparent how learning was made possible.
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Keynote Presentation – Helen Carter (1.30-2.30)

University of Canberra

Who manages the LMS?

Centralisation/ decentralisation of support

Presentation drew upon:



  • Business Readiness Framework from the Open University (Sclater, 2006)
  • White Paper Ballarat Uni (Pallet & Wright, 2009)
Moodle at the University of Canberra:



  • May 2008 signed with Netspot
  • Second university in Australia to adopt Moodle
  • Students and teachers responded very positively
  • Educause 2009 - 10 tips for successful implementation of Moodle
  • Had excellent support from the university hierarchy
  • Had Moodle mentors
  • Use of terms was important - for example, "partnering" rather than "outsourcing"
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Incorporating Web2.0, Pedagogy 2.0 and Moodle 2.0 into your learning and teaching agenda: But just wait one sec (3.00-3.30pm)

by Michael Sankey from University of Southern Queensland

See Michael's abstract

76% study by distance
26 000 students

Conceptual shift to user participation

Mostly used for communication

Move from personal to shared

McLoughlin & Lee (2008) - "Pedagogy 2.0"

USQ do have minimum standards

Staff must add a welcome, be online at least 3 times a week, have a 48-hour response turnaround, must say how they plan to use the online environment

Over 130 web 2.0 sites that could be used for education

10 things to be careful of (Dufen & Bachytanya 2007)
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Translating Learning Outcomes in Moodle (4.00-4.30pm)

by Srinivas Chemboli, Lynette Johns-Boast, Lauren Kane from The Australian National University (Engineering)

Based on John Biggs' constructive alignment

Created a self-guided study tour using this process:

  • select an outcome
  • identify characteristics
  • use online instrument
  • develop

Activities were made up of flowcharts and online lessons

See the abstract

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Limits in developing innovative pedagogy with Moodle: The story of BIM (4.30-5.00pm)

by David Jones from Central Queensland University

BIM alllows students to create their own blog externally

Answer reflective questions

BIM creates a copy on Moodle

Integrates with gradebook on Moodle

Allows lecturer to see half-finished blog

"BIM" becomes an option in the "Dropdown menu" - add an activity

See David's abstract

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