Comments for It’s the Learning, Stupid

Comment on Moodle and Google Apps after 9 Months – Our Students Respond by Nick Wiffen

Nick Wiffen — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 01:41:27 +0000

Moodle or Google? Why Moodle and Google?

Comment on Google Sites – Enabling students to aspire to a higher quality of research and presentation work by Dorothy

Dorothy — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:12:31 +0000

Great post Mark. We are using Google Sites extensively in our cluster as part of the managed learning environment. You may be interested in these ones from Tamaki College.
http://www.manaiakalani.org/school-projects/tamaki-college
Have you thought about presenting at the Google Apps Summit in Auckland on October 9th?

Comment on Fantastic Forms by Mark Callagher

Mark Callagher — Mon, 31 May 2010 04:21:53 +0000

No problem. Glad you find the blog useful. Go for it.

Comment on Fantastic Forms by Keeley Monroig

Keeley Monroig — Mon, 31 May 2010 01:50:54 +0000

Howdy there,this is Keeley Monroig,just observed your Post on google and i must say this blog is great.may I quote some of the writing found in the weblog to my local buddies?i’m not sure and what you think?in either case,Thx!

Comment on MyColl (Our New Moodle Site) – 2 months in by Darren

Darren — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:03:58 +0000

Hi Mark,

You may be right, but I think the difference comes in how the schools buy into it (shared environment) and leadership. The trouble with Myportfolio is it just sits out there ready for anyone to use, but there is no co-ordination or leadership when it comes to collaboration.

Cantatech and AorakiNet have a shared environment and I can see real possiblities starting to emerge, especially with our three year blended learning project which involves 30 teachers from 30 different schools. There is now a purpose for teachers to collaborate and this makes a difference. Without a shared environment (including Mahara and Google Apps) it would be far more difficult for these teachers to work together.

Pockets of sharing outside of this group is starting to occur as well.

I do agree that small steps have to be taken, but I’m not sure it has to happen within a school based environment. Darfield High School for example, has 1/3rd of its staff using Educo (the shared Moodle) this year. Last year it was around 5 teachers. The fact it is not branded as Darfield’s has made little difference.

I’m not trying to change your mind here. Your site looks great and it would be foolhardy to change now, but I think it would be great to see our larger schools working more closely together in the future (starting to happen now of course).

Comment on MyColl (Our New Moodle Site) – 2 months in by Mark Callagher

Mark Callagher — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:26:39 +0000

Hi Darren, we had exactly that with the Wellington Loop. A shared Moodle site between about 6 schools. Unfortunately the collaboration didn’t eventuate because Moodle (the tool) was used at varying levels between the schools. My belief is that Collaboration on a wider scale is a worthy goal, but small steps are required before we expect the jump into the utopia. Staff and students need to be comfortable in the environment, and particularly they need to learn to use it effectively. A strategically planned site, taking advantage of the already strong school identity has enabled our students and staff to move into that environment. A year down the track we could look at a collaborative interschool environment. However, I would prefer the current school Moodle to be used at say 80% effectiveness, rather than an interschool site used at 20% effectiveness. Small well planned steps is what I have come to believe over the last 3-4 years of experience.
A good example of a site that is collaborative throughout New Zealand is the Mahara ePortfolio site called MyPortfolio. Though from my experience, the goals are good but there is very little interschool collaboration. The schools that do use it are teachers working with a class or projects across year groups within the actual school. Again, an example of a site that espouses collaboration across schools, with little evidence of it.

Comment on MyColl (Our New Moodle Site) – 2 months in by Darren

Darren — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:16:57 +0000

Looks great Mark. My only challenge to you would be that like so many online environments this is focused on a single school. Wouldn’t it be better to have a shared environment between schools? This would provide an opportunity for rich collaboration between schools at both a teacher and student level. I know Moodle can be networked, but it is not the same believe me.

Then Moodle and Google Apps can be left to do what they do best which is develop learning online and the school site can be developed with Drupal or Joomla.

Not to knock what you are doing (it’s great), just wanted to throw it in there as a thought…

Comment on Implementing Moodle in a High School by Mark Callagher

Mark Callagher — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:35:11 +0000

Hi Sally. That is assuming we let technology “get in the way”. My belief is that we should use the Technology tools to “enhance” learning, organisation and communications – absolutely not to replace it.
My History students, thanks to the added use of technology, are now coming to class better informed and more knowledgeable. They access a greater range of ideas and information than any of my classes in the past. They now engage more, and at a deeper level, in the many “normal” discussions that we have in class.

If that is “letting technology get in the way” then I will take it any day…

Comment on Implementing Moodle in a High School by sally

sally — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +0000

It’s also nice, sometimes, when you switch off the technology and just have a good-ol’ fashioned face to face chat without letting technology get in the way.

Comment on Fast Changing Web Trends – Student Snapshots by Gerard

Gerard — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:15:33 +0000

Just did the exercise with one of my year 9 classes, http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1692171/Year_9_ICT_quiz

Thought you might like your year 9 students to compare, 18 students in my class at a south auckland school.