Moodle: a toolbox for creating learning communities (Martin Dougiamas)

Moodle is a course management system (CMS, VLE, LMS) that has been gaining in popularity world-wide. Moodle's focus on pedagogy is often cited but what does this really mean?

In this presentation Martin Dougiamas, the founder of Moodle, goes into detail about his views of social constructionism and how they were applied (and sometimes not applied!) to the development of the Moodle software package and the Moodle community.

He'll also discuss the extent to which this referent is evident in courses made with the existing versions of Moodle, and what kind of pedagogy-related developments are planned in the near future.

So what now... (James Clay)

So... You’ve spent quite a bit of time and money and decided which route to do down with choosing your VLE. You’ve seen them in action, tried them out, talked and discussed, but you’ve now made your decision.

You’ve thought about the advantages and disadvantages of both open source and commercial software.

You have managed to sort the budgeting out so that you can procure the server to host the VLE.

You have spent many a long meeting discussing security issues with your Network Manager, but at last the VLE is accessible from both inside the network and from outside as well.

You’ve convinced an enthusiastic champion to pilot a course for you on the VLE with their students.

It works!

So why isn’t everyone using it?

So what now?

James Clay, Director of the Western Colleges Consortium, will offer the insight gained from five years supporting their partner colleges in the implementation of the VLE from a holistic whole college approach.

There is more to implementing a VLE than just the technology.

Implementing an Institutional VLE (Stephen Clarke)

This paper outlines the process, undertaken at the University of Birmingham, to implement an Institutional VLE (iVLE).

Outlined first is a brief background to the University, setting the context in which the iVLE has been embedded. This is followed by a brief history of elearning at the University, showing how the iVLE has contributed to the development and embedding of good elearning practice.

The next area of focus is the current situation, showing the level of uptake and highlighting the key ways in which the student experience is being enhanced by the use of elearning.

Based on lessons learned over the last five years the paper then highlights a 'model' approach to the implementation of an iVLE as it would be done now, with the tools, knowledge and expertise that are currently available.

Finally the paper explores the challenges that face the University over the next five to ten years to maintain a high-quality elearning service in the face of exponentially rising demand.

The session will lead to online questions and discussion.

How effective has VLE implementation been, and what lessons can we learn? (Philip Butler)

The London Regional User Group meetings in London and the SE regions have been examining the effectiveness of VLE implementations in FE in the UK. Evidence from government surveys (Becta November 2004), backed up by anecdotal evidence from the regional user groups, suggests that although exciting and innovative work is being developed by practitioners, institutions have been slow to embed e-learning. A number of key strands have emerged, and chief amongst these is the powerful premise that only when transformation of institutions has taken place can any real transformation of learning happen. Implementation may be the driver but pedagogy is the key.

Rules of Engagement - achievements and barriers (Tara Phelan)

In this presentation Tara looks at Shipley College's VLE Implementation Plan, focussing on how it engaged staff in the VLE using a variety of methods, 'catching all'. She includes how they integrated and use the NLN Materials, not just for students to learn but to encourage staff to use the VLE.

Shipley College also changed VLEs, and she looks at how they successfully transferred from one VLE system to another seamlessly, with the help of the Intranet.

She also considers how the VLE is beginning to help bridge the gap between different college systems e.g. by using person codes for logins.

She describes how the VLE has more coverage and exposure now and therefore more staff interested in using the VLE, and the part students play in this.

Finally, she will be looking at the achievements and problems of implementing a VLE, the successes and failures with students and staff, and delving into the 'what ifs? What, if anything, would Shipley College change if given a second chance?

Comparison of student performance and satisfaction using different delivery modes (Iain McPhee)

The University of Paisley first validated the Masters in alcohol and drugs studies in 1979 specifically to meet demand from addiction and research. Recent course changes offer flexible modes of study both on campus and online study in a virtual learning environment (VLE) using the web based leaning platform Blackboard.

This study evaluates student performance and satisfaction on three separate modes of course delivery in a blended learning environment over 3 years, from 2001 to 2004.

Group 1 on campus study (full and part time)
Group 2 online study without any face-to-face contact (part time only)
Group 3 online study with face-to-face tutorial (part time only)

• The findings of the study will be discussed in terms of recruitment and performance.
• The student experience and its enhancement will be explored
• The tutor experiences and workload implications in achieving parity in a blended learning environment will be examined.
  

VLEs and accessibility – keeping the learner in focus (Alistair McNaught, John Sewell, Simon Ball)

VLEs can offer immense opportunities to learners with access needs but they can also create significant barriers. Increasingly, as the technology matures, the barriers are less about the technology and more about pedagogy, planning and approaches.

In this presentation we will start by exploring the benefits VLEs (properly integrated into other learning modalities) can bring to a wide range of learner needs using examples across the sectors from specialist colleges to HE. We will then explore the potential barriers VLEs create – either as a result of the technology or as a result of poor practice.

Finally, we will create an area of a VLE (with guest access) where we have hosted learning materials demonstrating “before and after” accessibility practice to illustrate for delegates how accessibility is as much to do with the content as the platform.

Supporting Deaf students in tertiary study through an online communication system (Jennifer Jackson-Hall)

In January 2006 AUT University set up an online support service for Deaf students at our university and also included students at other tertiary institutes in the Auckland region . The system used is Blackboard. The participants in this group are Deaf students, sign language students, interpreter students, interpreters and resource staff at various universities. The Visual Languages staff at AUT University were involved in the design and promotion of the system.

The purpose of the online space is to:

• Value sign language at university
• Provide a forum for notices and information sharing
• Include signing video clips of individuals introducing themselves
• Photos from events - eg camps and meetings
• Advertise social events and encourage attendance
• Share Maori cultural resources
• Promote student services through signed interviews
• Encourage tertiary providers to work together
• Link in Deaf students who may be the only Deaf person at a university

The paper examines the results from using Blackboard in this way.

VLE implementation and cultural change (Ian Chowcat)

This presentation will focus on the lessons learnt in implementing a VLE in a large-scale e-learning project covering schools, colleges, community learning, and SMEs. The South Yorkshire e-Learning Project, operating as e-sy.info www.e-sy.info, is a £42 million EU-funded project with matched funding from the four local authorities of South Yorkshire. The programme, operating since 2002, aims at raising the skill levels of the current and future workforce by:

• expanding the place of ICT and broader digital skills within the curriculum and aiming to raise attainment, hence equipping learners with the ICT skills they need for employment and for life and providing internationally recognized qualifications
• harnessing higher ICT skills and the digital habits of younger learners to develop e-learning across all subject areas, in order to develop more personalized learning, foster inclusion, increase engagement, and ultimately improve achievement.

Through the project so far over 30,000 people have engaged in e-learning. The project involved the provision of a single VLE across all the four districts and covering all sectors, in conjunction with the supply of IT hardware and networks. What has emerged from this activity, supported by an independent evaluation report, has been the recognition that the process of implementing and embedding e-learning in education and training is more than just a technical matter. It is a project of cultural change. However, in order to bring about such change the availability of technology is insufficient in itself. There must be drivers for change that lead teachers and trainers to look to an e-learning solution, and training and support processes in place that help them work with online resources in appropriate ways.

The presentation will draw on the lessons learnt from this project to look at:

• what are the drivers for change in education and in society?
• what changes are needed in institutions, in curriculum and in pedagogy?
• what support is needed to help educational institutions and practitioners make this change?
• what are the implications for the services delivered by, and the design of, learning platforms? Are VLEs the answer?

Implementing a VLE in a secondary school - changing the culture of learning (James Harris)

St Wilfrid's is a a large (1650 pupil) 11-18 CE Technology College in Blackburn. We draw from a very wide area, but we have a relatively high incidence of computer and internet provision at home. In 2000 we started piloting digitalbrain as a VLE to encourage continuity of work and resources and to start to change the culture of learning. This was based upon clear strategic planning for the use of ICT in the school and a clear idea of how ICT could improve learning. We have worked to remove barriers to the use of the VLE, but we are still on a journey to embed its use in teaching and learning across the school.

The paper will further discuss strategies used to embed its use and the impact that it has had on classroom practice.

Using Moodle in a secondary school - creating an exemplar (Ted Walker)

Rawlins Community College is a Leicestershire Upper School of approximately 1300 students in the age range 14 to 18. Moodle was introduced into the curriculum during the academic year 2005/2006 and has seen various levels of take-up from both academic departments and the pastoral system. We have decided that, in order to develop our use of the platform and fully capitalise upon its potential to improve teaching and learning, it would be helpful to establish a model department, showcasing exemplar practice and to become a focus for continuing staff training across the whole College. Our intention is to use the General Studies Department.

Our presentation:

• will explain the rationale and vision of our adoption of Moodle as a VLE at secondary school level;
• will consider the factors influencing its take-up amongst staff and students;
• will show how e-learning, via the Moodle platform, can deliver improvements in the quality of teaching and learning and improve management effectiveness within a school department. We will emphasise how we actually developed the practical use of the platform to achieve this, with exemplar materials / lessons / assessment methods etc.
• will address any unforeseen developments, benefits or difficulties encountered by this approach.
  

Accommodating different aptitudes and abilities in student use of online resources (Simon Bates, Judy Hardy, David McKain)

This paper will present details of our attempts to provide the large, heterogeneous student cohort on a first-year introductory university Physics course with the possibility of interactive and differentiated routes through the online course material that is used to supplement the traditional face-to-face teaching of the course.

The cohort of approximately 250 each year arrive with diverse prior experiences of the subject at school and different motivations for studying the course itself (compulsory or elective). The online course material is built in such a way as to offer students a choice of routes through the material that is able to reflect their personal requirements. This is achieved by a combination of aggregation of granular learning objects, and two constructs we call "inlines" and "popups" that are used to denote portions of material that form the "flesh on the skeleton" and resources that are "off the beaten track", respectively. These provide the basis for differentation of routes through the material in terms of both breadth and depth. We describe the roles of these constructs and provide links to specific illustrative examples. In addition, collection of tracking information on how the students have actually utilised the online materials during the most recent run of the course has enabled us to analyse and illustrate the different ways in which students have exploited this flexibility.

Clear differences emerge compared to the model of a VLE providing an online repository for static lecture notes and course materials. We describe how such materials are created and deployed by our course teams (noting the particular requirements of a subject that is intrinsically mathematical in nature and the knock-on consquences for the display of mathematical content within a VLE).

An overview of the impact of Open Source VLEs (Peter Kilcoyne)

Open source VLEs in particular Moodle have had a massive impact over the last year in UK post 16 education. This session will examine why so many institutions have changed to Open Source solutions and what impact this may have on the future of elearning.

VLEs and learner interaction - a comparative analysis from a practitioner's perspective (John Webber)

This paper will explore the contrasting communication tools available within two widely used VLEs (Blackboard and Moodle) and discuss the differences in learner interactions achieved using these tools. Over the last four years we have been progressively embedding a VLE within teaching and learning across the college. As the intentions and expectations of teachers and learners has risen year on year, the need to review the choice of learning environment software has become apparent. The research behind this paper forms part of that review.

Drawing on recent work with students using these different virtual learning environments, this paper will explore the question: "To what degree do the tools we use enlarge or constrain students' perception of learning and the contributions made by themselves, their peers and the teaching staff."

Developing an Augmented Learning Environment (Lee Williamson)

The falling price of wireless technology now means that investment in a 'trolley-full' of wireless laptops provides a more economic, more flexible and a more effective method of classroom management than an extensive cable infrastructure and 'fixed station' IT suite.

Electronic Whiteboards are now top of the innovative teachers wish list, and significant government investment is now beginning to bear fruit. Add to the mix the possibilities offered by the functionality of VLEs and the pedagogical opportunities available to the creative teacher seem almost limitless.

This presentation aims to outline the key considerations which will ultimately lead to a convergence of these elements into a single teaching and learning experience: the Augmented Learning Environment

The presentation will include a brief summary of VLE functionality based on a comparative analysis of popular solutions, and a possible set of standards; and examine the common myths and excuses used by staff in avoiding its integration into course delivery; and look at how to develop a strategy to encourage staff take-up of VLE functions.

This presentation will refer to exemplar activities and early classroom experiments aiming to develop a new 'arsenal' of techniques. It will examine the pedagogical possibilities of integrating the key functions of VLE into an IT enhanced teaching environment. Examples of using real time research and live feedback will be given, including using NLN materials as part of classroom delivery, using discussion forums for collective note-taking, embedding digital technology into classroom activity, using digital photography, pod casting, video diaries etc.

Federated Teaching: How e-learning will create genuine student centredness (Geoff Rebbeck)

The recent FE White Paper seeks amongst other things to encourage colleges and other providers to work together to provide students with one learning journey provided if necessary from a patchwork of provision. This approach to learning is possible now through the accommodation of e-learning. Technology accommodates a subtlety of choice and combination not previous available. Up to now, these have been fine aspirations but impractical because of the inability of paper-based systems to provide the structure and support to make it truly work. Likewise e-learning has concentrated heavily on producing content that was interactive and of high quality. With the wider implementation of open source VLEs, the focus is turning to the value of activity rather than content in supporting e-learning.

This does not mean that Colleges create new, broader cartels and offer 'split campus' courses because that would offer the student no real change. Genuine student centredness means that the student decides with help where they can have their needs best met for specific and particular parts of their training for employment.

This represents great challenges to colleges, in areas of administration, structure, culture, and not least finding a way to offer a fractured curriculum, offered in modules. This presentation will explore how college organisational structures must change as it moves from ones based on the constraints of paper, to the new freedoms of electronic storage and transmission of information. Federated Teaching is the descriptive term used in the White Paper to describe this new provision of learning. Amongst other things colleges will need to consider is how they wish to compete with other providers theoretically from anywhere in the world. Each college must ask itself what unique feature it has to offer students.

Integration of Pedagogical and Operational Levels for Quality Assurance in Instructional Design: a Moodle example (Niki Lambropoulos)

The turn of the Millennium found the individuals and organisations in a transition from the Industrial Age to the Information and Collaboration Age. The collapse of some Online Learning (OL) initiatives (e.g. UKeU) does not indicate the failure of the OL concept per se but rather the lack of Quality Assurance (QA). On the quest for quality, Instructional Design (ID) for Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) seems of extreme importance. This presentation suggests an approach for ID, based on Bannon's (1994) proposition of integrating design, use and evaluation in systems design. Based on his suggestion, a new approach may be anchored in the integration of VLE pedagogical and operational levels, providing quality control and thus, QA in VLEs. Instructional Engineering aims to integrate analysis, design, evaluation and usefor VLES sustainability. Initial analysis may be scrutinized in depth in the sub-stages of description, analysis and planning. Real-time research, and evaluation tools and techniques function as the underpinning structure for this integration.

The Instructional Engineering phases unfolded in a series of studies. Based on these findings, Moodle was enhanced with real-time evaluation tools as well as applications to facilitate collaborative community learning. In the last evaluation study, 54 participants used Moodle for collaborative learning activities. The results from this study are presented.

Nurturing communities of professional practice (Linda Lafferty)

The presentation will comment on observations gathered by the author whilst planning, organising, implementing and evaluating a series of three etaster events, which ran between March and July 2003, involving the use of online mentors to support 'first time' learner experiences with use of the Institution's established virtual learning environment Blackboard.

The etasters were designed as a 'sample' of what learners might expect in terms of online process and application as well as providing a means of promoting the University's Chartered Teacher Programme. In addition to carefully crafted objectives rooted in lessons learned during the author's involvement in the design and facilitation of a prototype online programme, there were also some unwritten objectives associated with the etasters and these were:

(i) To consider alternative ways of supporting learners in online environments

Due to a number of factors, not least the demand from potential participants, each cohort was projected to total in excess of 200 learners. Therefore as part of the overall planning and preparation of the series of events, careful thought had to be given over to how best to support the learners in light of the demand for places.

(ii) To develop a deeper understanding of the development needs required and associated with the role(s) of learner, eMentor and eModerator

Given the dynamic nature of online environments and the potential to develop "an intellectually challenging 'learning ecology'" the requisite skill set of all participants had to be identified and catered for as part of the event(s).

(iii) To provide an illustrative example of the real value of partnership working with a specific client base

All participants (learners and mentors) originated from the school sector and as such had "roles within roles". Consequently careful consideration had to be given as to how best to engage the mentors in their prime responsibility of providing 'online' support whilst at the same time providing them with appropriate opportunities to fulfil their own professional obligation of providing continuous professional development (CPD) advice prior to the commencement of the Chartered Teacher programme in September 2003.

The presentation will cover 4 key areas:

• Context
• Planning and Preparation
• Pedagogical implications
• Results
  

Introducing electronic learning to support independent learning with First Year Initial Teacher Training students. (Jay Deeble, Pam Maunders)

With the reduction of taught time on ITT courses, there has been encouragement to find ways to support students learning outside ICT workshops, to allow students to develop the requisite skills , knowledge and understanding to inform their future career. We have developed a suite of online documents to support the Foundation ICT course which allow students to revisit the taught session in their own time and at their own pace. Embedded are links to appropriate web sites and PowerPoints which reinforce teaching points. Students are guided through the range of material available and an attempt has been made to develop their skills as independent learners. An electronic portfolio provides opportunities to record evidence of their own learning and to record additional useful material.

Our paper charts our thinking as we develop materials and revise them, with suggestions within feedback from our students. We explore the choice of location for hosting the documents and the format, which seems to be clearest for our students. We examine some of the issues which affect the design of online documents and some of the problems found when trying to make them available to students in a range of locations. We consider the effect of attitudes of key partners in this learning situation, (developers, students, technical support and colleagues) and attempt to suggest some ways forward. The balance between face to face, private and online study is also considered. We identify a number of key issues for planning and delivery derived from this project and show how these will influence our future practice.

Becta: defining learning platforms (Peter Jackson)

My paper presents and discusses the thinking and work involved in the development by Becta of the Learning Platform Framework (LPF). In particular, it will consider the development of the Learning Platform Functional Requirements and the corresponding Technical Specifications.

The LPF is not concerned with defining products nor defining how products should talk to each other. The LPF is more than a list of approved "VLEs" - in fact it has moved considerably away from traditional descriptions of VLEs and MLEs and so on. This paper will therefore cover;

• What is a Learning Platform?
• How does it relate to a VLE or an MLE?
• How does it relate to MIS?
• What will schools get?
  

Learning Platforms in ACL: Cut to the Chase (Simon Fitzpatrick)

This presentation will comment on the on-going introduction and development of learning platforms in ACL, examples of emerging good practice and innovation, a comparison of the various types of learning platform currently being used, a commentary on the lessons learned from the ‘early adopters’ and a comparison with the evidence from other sectors.

We suggest that ACL’s tradition of achievement with minimal resource allows them to focus on the truly significant issues and to identify real learning opportunities – we will therefore provide evidence of some emerging success stories, as well as pointing out the lessons learnt from mistakes and projects that didn’t entirely go to plan.

Developing the use of Content Creation Tools (Arthur Loughran)

In our surveys of the use of Blackboard, both academic staff and students have identified the need for enhanced learning resources. The term 'enhanced learning resources' can be applied to a range of text and web based assets but it is commonly accepted that the assets incorporate of audio and video elements.

CLT has for many years supported the use of audio and video in and across a range of applications. For most of that time the audio/video assets have been produced in analogue formats. However in more recent times CLT has acquired a range of audio/video digital tools that can be used to produce digital assets on desktop PCs.

The range of tools includes Impatica for Powerpoint, Impatica OnCue, Camtasia, Snagit, Acoustica, Coursegenie and Reload. These tools have been utilised by academic staff and have proven to be of benefit to students.

The presentation will contain examples of how the tools have been used and link their use with the skill set that staff have had to develop in order to make sound use of the technologies.

The online discussion will promote debate about the pedagogic use of this type of technology, skills and staff training, institutional planning and support plus the costs associated with the implementation of desktop technologies.