We have a very powerful tool right here in our district, its called Moodle. Several of you use it and some of you have tried in the past then tabled it. I used it for my College American History class several years ago. But being a person who loves to design with DreamWeaver I tabled Moodle this school year for my College History class. Then Highland Community College switch their online courses over to Moodle in January which required me to again use Moodle. Over the last few months I’ve realized how much Moodle has to offer and again … IT’S a free resource!
No Paper Theme!
I strongly suggest everyone take a look at Moodle again. You can create homework assignments and then grade them right online (no paper). You can upload handouts of all kinds to be housed for the student to download when needed (no paper). Students can upload assignments (no paper). You can create discussion threads which allow students to discuss whatever topic you wish in cyber world (no paper). If you don’t use Quia you can create your own test which Moodle will grade for you (no paper). You can create a virtual chat with your students in class or in the evenings similar to ichat but with your students (no paper). You can create own surveys for students (no paper). You can create your own wiki and much, much more! All of this without using paper - think of the cost savings!
My favorite
Things that I’ve really like about using Moodle for my online Sociology course has been:
1) Latest Activity section. This section shows me when I log on what my students have been doing most recent. It helps me track the work. I can organize this several ways my favorite is “since the last time I logged into Moodle.” This way I don’t have to go through all the assignments I’ve already graded – just the assignments that are new (no matter where they are located in the course). By the way you can also organize 1 day, 7 days, 14 days ago as well.
2) Grading submitted work. This section allows me to organize the graded work in a way so I can find which assignments I haven’t graded.
3) You can leave comments right there so only the student can see the comments for that one assignment.
Moodle Meet (Social network site)
This summer the district will be hosting some training on “The Paperless Classroom”. One of those training’s will focus just on Moodle. I highly recommend you consider attending. But for now check out Moodle Meet.
“Moodle Meet” is a social network of educators who use Moodle. Like Facebook and MySpace this site brings together others who have an interest in using Moodle in the classroom. You can see how others use Moodle in their classroom. Tips that are both basic for the beginner and advance for those of you who’ve been doing Moodle for awhile. The site includes discussions on Moodle, videos providing demonstrations and more.
The site uses Ning as it’s host. You maybe familiar with Ning if you joined Classroom 2.0.
I would recommend you join this group if you’re interested in expanding the use of Moodle in the months ahead. When you apply for membership it will take a little bit before your approved. Make sure to complete all the information. After filling out the form and submitting it I had to wait 24 hours before getting an e-mail with my approval. Once I was approved I could get into the site and search around. You will find discussions/questions about Moodle. There are tips you can read or you can choose to watch videos on the how – to.
Categories: Resources · Study Skills
This week I thought I would share just a couple of websites I learned about during the MACE conference. In the weeks ahead I will provide even more from this conference with details on how to use them. But to get started I’m trying to provide a few easy one’s you can explore.
#1. Twitter your Congressmen … Many of you are familiar with Plurk. The social network site Kevin Honeycutt showed us back in January. Twitter is a much larger social networking site. http://www.twitter.com. But my post is not for Twitter but instead a way you can follow the Congressmen of your choice as they use twitter. Please note not all Congressmen have moved into the 21st century yet but the number is growing daily. Simply visit http://tweetcongress.org/ Then enter the zip code of your area (this gives you our two senators and Lynn Jenkins) or enter the Congressmen by name. At the time of my posting only Lynn Jenkins is twittering. But you can expect our Senators will be doing so soon. Oh yes, you can find a couple of links to polls and/or survey’s which Congressmen collect the opinion of the voters.
#2 Classtools.net allows you to create free educational games, activities and diagrams in a Flash! Host them on your own blog, website or intranet! No signup, no passwords, no charge! http://www.classtools.net. This includes templates which you can use. The following list are the most popular templates on the site as I write this blog post.
#3 iEARN.com … It was difficult for me to figure out what the third post should be here. I wanted to keep this post simple but so many good sites were shared at MACE. For this one I decided to introduce you to a site that allows teachers and students to partner up with teachers and students from around the world. Before you run away think of the different perspectives your students could have talking with others around the world. Whether it is a historical event, science project, piece of literature or application of math. Whether it was singing together, or sharing different cultural foods. The list here can go on and on! Once you visit this site you do have to create a free account. Doing this will place your name out there for teachers to find you as well as you being able to search the world for others. You go on to create a class account and setup students with their own log – ins. It’s difficult for me to show you more because it depends on what you decide to do that will lead to the next step. You can find samples of projects on the site, news related to the site, and professional development you can do online. Take a peak what do you have to loose short of opening the world to your students.
“Thought” … ask your students how many people they talk to now outside Holton, Ks. With online gaming I bet there are number of students who now communicate with friends in different parts of the country. How do they communicate? Text, phone, online systems, Skye, virtual chat, etc. etc. etc.
Categories: MACE Spring 2009 · Resources · Training · Uncategorized
Diigo.com is a social network site and more. You must create a Free account to start this. Once you create the account Diigo will send you an verification e-mail. Mine was delivered to my junk mail. Being a social network site you can then create your own dashboard (website) with information related to you.
Let me highlight a few things it can do.
1. It’s a bookmark site. By that I mean you add and organize your book marks similar to your browser. As you create the bookmark you add tags (terms that describe the site making it easier to sort).
2. You can share your book marks with others with similar interest. For example right here at HHS all the science teachers could share the bookmarks of sites they use or find related to the field of science. Think of the power. Instead of searching alone on the Internet you become a department system. Better yet, you can find others on diigo that have similar interest and join their book marks. This opens you up to thousands, thousands and thousands of possible sites.
3. You also download a tool that becomes part of your bowser. (This is easy to do and only needs to be done once.) When you find a site of interest you click this tool. Now you can highlight parts of that website. Then when you visit the site again it remembers what you highlighted!
*Tool 
Photo by http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3043/2622997333_034e0fb9f3.jpg
Sticky Notes
Photo https://peteandcentral.wikispaces.com/file/view/Picture_3.png
4. Another use of the tool allows you to create sticky notes (notes that float on top of the site). You can add comments that are private or shared with any groups that you belong to. Like the highlight it remembers your sticky notes as well when you return to the site.
Photo by http://www.online-tech-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/highlight-and-add-comments-on-diigo.jpg
(Note: to see anything you highlighted or a sticky note you must click on the Diigo button that was installed. This is what helps it remember all that neat stuff.)
5. Another use of the tool allows you to make comments but to me this is similar to sticky notes.
6. As #4 stated. You can join groups. These groups are others on diigo that have similar interest. So not only can you share your sites but you can share your comments with them as well.
7. Find out who else is looking at a web page.
Photo by http://www.online-tech-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/diigo-users-reading-the-same-content-1.jpg
There’s so much more. You can learn more about Diigo.com by visiting YouTube. This is a 9 minute video that highlights how this all works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcecBgRd3ig
Categories: Classroom Managment · For Fun · Resources · Training
Several other sessions were offered as well.
Quia provided training through the Internet. If you wish to watch the video simply go back for review check out this video. (The video was created by capturing the screen with ScreenFlow). Video is 1 hr long (50 MB)
Categories: Feb. 9th Professional Training · Resources
February 9, 2009 · 1 Comment
In an attempt to organize the many blogs I’m discovering. I thought I use this blog site as a collection point. Each week I will try to post the links with a brief overview of the newest blog post. My goal is to make it easier for my staff to find blogs either by other educators or blogs related to educational issues. In just the first week I collected at least 30 different forms of blogs. But to not overload staff I will try to limit my post to just 5 a week.
Week #1 (Feb. 2nd – 8th)
Mrs. Smoke .. Tech teacher from Andover, Ks. http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com/ This week “Educational Blogs You Should Be Investigating”. She has created a blog of other blogs broken down by grade level, curriculum and subject matter. Wow .. great stuff.
Richard Byrne high school teacher from Maine. Free Tech stuff for teachers … http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ The newest blog deals with Geography tools. But you will find stuff for all curriculum areas on his blog site.
Steve Hargadon is the Director of the K12 Open Technologies Initiative http://www.stevehargadon.com/2009/01/some-things-ive-learned-about-building.html has a blog on “Some Things I’ve Learned About Building Effective Social Networks”
The Journal (this is a collection of writers) .. http://www.thejournal.com/the/21stcenturyskills/home/ The current blog entry is on 21st Century Skills.
Read Write Web by Ravit Lichtenberg .. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/10_ways_social_media_will_change_in_2009.php the current blog “10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009″.
Categories: Feb. 9th Professional Training · General Discussion · Resources
