Jim Farmer

As presented at theJefferson Overseas Schools Technology Institute

June 20, 2006 | Fairfax, Virginia USA

eLearning and Moodle

The three keys to eLearning: content, content, and content

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• Introductory survey course

• Skills development course

• Theory discussion course

• Capstone course

Jason Cole in “Using Moodle,” 2005

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Types of e-Learning

Seizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of Online Educationin the United States, 2002 and 2003, Sloan Consortium, Sep 2003

Portion Online Type of Course0% Traditional

1 to 29% Web Facilitated30 to 79% Blended/Hybrid

80+% Online

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Accommodating student needs

Early work by Pat Suppes has demonstrated that students have different learning styles, which he represented as “trajectories” of learning based on when different students mastered course content.

The flexibility of eLearning suggest opportunities to transform classical “term-based” learning.

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Diverse learning trajectories

Middle school students at Stanford University, 1996, Stillinger and Suppes

Hours of on-line computer time

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Learning trajectories

Based on the work of Pat Suppes at Stanford University

Conte

nt

Mas

tery

Cours

e G

rade

TimeEnd of

Scheduled Term

ABCDF

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Quick learner

Conte

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Mas

tery

Cours

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rade

TimeEnd of

Scheduled Term

ABCDF

Boredom vs. supplementary course content?

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Conte

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Mas

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Cours

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TimeEnd of

Scheduled Term

ABCDF

Monitoring tools can quickly identify students that are at risk

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Conte

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Mas

tery

Cours

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TimeEnd of

Scheduled Term

ABCDF

Immutable time constraints limit a capable student

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Observations

Based on observations by Bryan Williams, remote-learning.net, in supporting Moodle services.

• Students will continue learning if the eLearning resources are available.• Quick learners will go beyond the scope

of a course if materials are available.

• Those slow to learn or interruptions to their learning will succeed if given additional time.

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Unexpected externality

Conte

nt

Mas

tery

Cours

e G

rade

TimeEnd of

Scheduled Term

ABCDF

Unforeseen events resulting in inactivity

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Investing in courseware

Cost of Course Content per Studentfor various levels of Course Development costs

$0

$200

$400

$600

$800

$1,000

10 100 1,000 10,000

Class size, 3-year, 6-term course life

Cos

t per

stu

dent

US$6,000US$37,500US$120,000US$1,000,000

The emerging learning environment

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• Professional specialists• Move process control from faculty to learning

designers (and learning systems)

• Mergers or consortia to achieve economies of scale

• Public pressures to improve cost/benefit

• More granular content, more flexibility in schedule, multi-format learning materials

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• Change in culture from teacher-centered instruction to student learning

• Change in organization form –functional organization needed

• Acceptance of increased “automation”

• Development of feedback to achieve adaptive leaving activities

• Adoption of standard learning objectives for all courses (No Child Left Behind).

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Transformation is feasible

• eLearning has produced an experienced and knowledgeable cadre (many attending JOSTI).

• Increased effectiveness and reduced costs have been broadly demonstrated.

• All needed information and education technologies have been developed and are being used somewhere.

Moodle and the Moodle community

Emerging communities of practice

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Moodle

• Supports constructivist learning—demonstrated effectiveness—and other methods of instruction as well

• Complies with standards for content, interoperability, and “additions”

• Professional documentation in the form of published books

• Effective internationalization

• Broadly adopted

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The Moodle community

• Teachers are the largest part of the Moodle community (using the Moodle Website).

• Producing shared content and “best practices” for teaching and learning

• Authoring useful documentation

• “Remarkably helpful” teacher-to-teacher dialogue

• Dedicated knowledgeable partners

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Introductory installation and use

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Installing and adding courses

Blackboard’s community

These slides illustrate comments about Blackboard made during the presentation.

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The Blackboard community

“Bb Connections is a central hub, a town square of sorts, where our users can collaborate and share best practices, to deepen their knowledge and expertise in all things Blackboard.”

From communities.blackboard.com, 29 June 2006

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“Hands on introductory course”

The end

jxf@immagic.comjxf@Georgetown.edu

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Credits

This presentation is based on materials developed for Georgetown University, the UK Joint Information Systems Committee, and Oxford University.

im+m’s Jon Allen provided graphical design and graphics, and suggestions on presentation.

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Permissions

im+m publications are in the public domain and can be freely reproduced. Information in this presentation was taken from public sources or with permission and can be redistributed.

The presentation itself can be reproduced and redistributed provided there are no changes made to the content and it is reproduced in its entirety.

Supplementary material

Student perspective

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Students expectations shaped by...

• Their use of information portals

• Their use of the Internet

• Their life in a “real-time, information rich” environment.

Be prepared:

94% of Internet-using (78%) youths age 12-17 use the Internet for school research, 71% say it is the major source for their school projects and reports, 58% use a school or class Website, 17% have created a Webpage for school, 74% use Instant Messaging.

Pew Internet, August 2002

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Students prefer

• A portal

• Single sign-on even if that means revealing personal logons and passwords [aggregation/credential caching]

• Selection of content [portlets] and layout [user profile]

• Common portlet navigation and icons [consistent look & feel]

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Students now expect...

• Customer service 24 hours a day,7 days a week

• Complete information froma single source

• Information by Web, e-mail, telephone, facsimile, and wireless devices• response time of 15 seconds for telephone, 10

seconds for Web, and 2 hours for e-mail and facsimile

• access to a complete customer history

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Types of e-Learning

Seizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of Online Educationin the United States, 2002 and 2003, Sloan Consortium, Sep 2003

Portion of Content Delivered Online Type of Course Typical Description

0% Traditional Course with no online technology used - content is delivered in writing or orally.

1 to 29% Web Facilitated

Course which uses web-based technology to facilitate what is essentially a face-to-face couse. Uses a course management system (CMS) or web pages to post the syllabus and assignments, for example.

30-69% Blended./Hybrid

Course that blends online and face-to-face delivery. Substantial proportion of the content is delivered online, typically uses online discussions, typically has some fact-to-face meetings.

80+% OnlineA course where most of the content is delived online. Typically has no face-to-face meetings.

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Students learn at different rates

Time to Course Completion

0

50

100

150

200

250

0 25 50 75 100

Percentage of Students

Cal

enda

r Day

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5

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25

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nect

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Calendar DaysConnect TimeLog. (Calendar Days)

Sillinger and Suppes, 1999

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Students work differently

Distribution of Time of a SessionAlgebra 2

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16Number of Hours per Session

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cent

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Expected changes

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Learning support

TraditionalClassroom

BlendedLearning

LearningEnvironment 2015

Library On-line catalog On-line repository (JSTOR + ArtStor)

Course content, repositories, remedial learning objects

Faculty role Lecture, office hours

Lecture or review, on-line office hours

Lecture or review, on-line video-enhanced office hours

Academic support Teaching assistants

Teaching assistants, help desk, assessment center

Tutors, help desk

Progress monitoring Interim grades Interim gradesContinuous assessment of mastery, learning styles, and effort

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Content and teaching

TraditionalClassroom

BlendedLearning

LearningEnvironment 2015

Content delivery none or linear sequenced adaptive

Content format text, images text, images, audio, video

text, images, audio, video

Content source faculty faculty + support instructional design and multimedia specialists

Collaboration e-mail, forums e-mail, chat, forums, Wiki

e-mail, chat, forums, Wiki, audio and video conferencing

Learning station Web browser Web browser with plug-ins

Web browser with plugins, personal learning environment for some courses

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Content development

TraditionalClassroom

BlendedLearning

LearningEnvironment 2015

Process Faculty choiceFaculty choice + multimedia development

Specialized course development roles and software, multimedia production facilities

Scope of content Faculty defined Faculty definedInterinstitutionally defined learning objectives (transfer)

Assessments Faculty authored

Faculty authored

Assessment specialist authors

Reuse None or limited None or limitedPublished and open learning objects and media objects

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“Engineered courses”

Lübeck University of Applied Sciences

• Learning objectives (using EU transfer course objectives)

• Contract author only for draft text and media suggestions

• Development Manager• Instructional design

• Media development

• Assessment authoring

In separate units

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Lübeck University of Applied Sciences

• Technical support (separate from faculty)

• Tutor

• Domain competence

• Native language of the student regardless of the language of the course

• Selected for ability to communicate

• Academic Services Support System

(see also University of Oxford and Open University UK)