The annual MoodleMoot is a great opportunity to come together to share experiences on using Moodle.
Highlight
My highlight of this year’s Moot was Rebecca Barrington’s presentation on how to put the ‘oo’ back in Moodle. Rebecca, Head of e-Learning at the Cornwall College Group, shared her tips on how to get users excited by Moodle again. This really resonated with me. As City has been a Moodle user since 2010, it is easy to focus on negatives in Moodle, rather than the potential. At LEaD, we will be thinking about ways that we can help staff see the possibilities of Moodle and provide more opportunities for staff to share their practice in online course and activity design.
Here is a copy of my ‘Putting the ‘oo’ into Moodle’ from the PICO session today https://t.co/iQ3Ow0RbPC #mootieuk17
— Rebecca Barrington (@BBarrington) 11 April 2017
Key takeaways
Course Design
Learning analytics was a big theme this year, and of particular interest is how successful students use the VLE. At City we are interested in how we can use this to help inform effective course design.
Here’s the #Analytics research study I *flew through* this morning @ the #Mootieuk17 https://t.co/uwpjSWGIaS
— john whitmer (@johncwhitmer) 12 April 2017
Continuing on the course design theme Lewis Carr, AdaptiVLE Ltd, presented six steps for excellence in the design of learning content:
- Content and performance need alignment.
- Content innovation.
- Media and learning.
- Interactivity.
- Content optimisation.
- Learner engagement.
There was lots of talk about using H5P for building interactive content for Moodle. We’ve requested this plugin for our Moodle Development environment and are very excited to explore the potential of this prior to our annual Moodle update.
H5P getting a lot of attention #MootIEUK17 https://t.co/tiZOimDHWj
— Nina F Collins (@NinaFCollins) 11 April 2017
Moodle 3.2
Mary Cooch, Moodle Community Educator, provided a well timed insight into Competency Based Education (CBE). We’ve switched this feature on in our Moodle Development environment, but were struggling to understand the roles required to support a CBE framework. Mary’s session really helped us understand what’s required.
My slides on Competency based education in Moodle https://t.co/CXiCpp1GAB #mootieuk17
— Mary Cooch (@moodlefairy) 12 April 2017
Mary also talked us through some new features in Moodle 3.1 and Moodle 3.2 which can make a positive impact on staff and students.
Thanks for the tips @moodlefairy. Assignment override settings, duplicate lesson pages, make a choice for students, pin posts #mootieuk17
— Olivia (@livvyfox) 12 April 2017
My Moodle Covet Corner
Ove Ritola and Timo Salonen, University of Vaasa, presented on their Moodle Dashboard to provide a streamlined student experience. We are still talking about how well this was designed and what a useful resource it is for students.
Love the Moodle dashboard showing all grades, upcoming exams and lectures from University of Vaasa #MootIEUK17
— Olivia (@livvyfox) 11 April 2017
Dashboard to consolidate and simplify online student experience, University of Vaasa – niiiiice! Very similar to OU strategy #MootIEUK17 pic.twitter.com/9mD4HFiwOo
— OU Learning Systems (@GoTeamLTS) 11 April 2017
City presentations
My colleague Natalia Czuba and I presented on what we discovered about Moodle. We presented findings from our Moodle evaluation with staff and student users. We outlined the development of a new grade report plugin, by our colleagues in ERES, to improve the visibility of feedback on assessments for students.
Up the City girls @livvyfox @elearnblog #mootieuk17 pic.twitter.com/GdxTvzNTB9
— Naomi W (@omi_1) 11 April 2017
Cass lecturers, Professor Clive Holtham and Dr. Martin Rich, presented on making innovative simulation learning happen through community and collaboration.
@bunhill talking about how colleagues, peers and past MoodleMoot presentations helped him to develop innovation in simulation #MootIEUK17
— Olivia (@livvyfox) 11 April 2017
Online simulations facilitated through groups, groupings, forums and time release of forum posts. #MootIEUK17
— Olivia (@livvyfox) 11 April 2017
It was a great MoodleMoot. I left with lots of practical ideas and timely advice that will help with our update to Moodle 3.2 on 27th June.