BP2_Moodle

For my first exploration I decided to research Moodle. I had heard good things about it from peers and colleagues. I must say that I was very impressed.

After watching some tutorials and spending a couple of hours playing around I created a working page. Moodle is great for creating an online environment where students can access everything. As a teacher it helps bridge the gap between the normal classroom and the online classroom.

I started by turning the editing on so that I could access the main page that the students would see. The great thing about the Moodle interface is that I can constantly see exactly what the site will look like. A problem that I was having in my classroom was that I didn't have a place to post all of our notes and extra resources. Our school uses ProgressBook but it was not "fun" for the students. Here I was able to post notes from every lesson, videos, Vokis, links, online quizzes, games, grades, calendars, blogs, and much more.

After a little bit of trial and error I created a basic page for one chapter that I will teach in Advanced Geometry this upcoming year. I set it up so that my students can click on a chapter at a time to see all of the materials associated with it. There is also a setting to set it up by date if someone has a similar schedule every year.

First I added an adobe link to each section of notes that I will teach in class. Then I added links to the textbook they will be using and links to videos they might find interesting. I also added a link to a Voki that I created to make the appearance more playful. 

Another use would be online quizzes if a student were absent on a certain day. The notes would be online, they would have to review them and take the quiz to makeup the participation points. I really love the endless possibilities and the ease it offers to teachers and students alike.

On the technical side of things I have the option of looking all of my files and links up in a giant library. It is nice to know that I can lock and unlock material as I go so that it is not too overwhelming for the students. There are also numerous reports that I can see as the teacher. Additionally, it is very safe for the students. Nobody can enter my online class unless given the passcode.

This is a Web 2.0 tool that I highly recommend and that I am going to continue to work on this summer for next school year.