Well our new Moodle Site (MyColl) has now been going just over 2 months. The idea to replace our school Microsoft File Sharepoint(less) site with Moodle grew last year as some staff started using a “Rebel” Moodle site that I provisioned. By early October I also had a handful of students requesting that we replace it. Two of the students helped me develop a site plan and they came up with the idea of naming it “MyColl” (as Wellington College students often refer to themselves as Coll Boys). I whipped up a Photoshop mock-up of what the site would look like. I was careful to include the integration of Google Apps Education Edition as an essential element. I presented the idea to the school’s Senior Management team Mid October. The idea was that the site would be the “hub” of online activity for the school on top of being a teaching & learning site.
By the end of October the site was hosted and themed for us by Totali. They also provided a tool called TSync which syncs password changes on the school’s Active Directory through to online services. We also made MyColl the browser home page on all computers, plus we enabled SSO (single-sign-on) so that students and staff were automatically signed into Google Apps when signed into Moodle.
Key Features of MyColl
- Students Input and Ownership – they named it and also designed the logo (over 1/3 of the school voted online for the student finalists who submitted their Logo design online)
- The MyTools dropdown provides access to all student Google Apps
- We do not allow students to change photos (their school ID is uploaded for them), First or Last Name, and Email Addresses – this forces them to access school Gmail accounts. If they want to fool around then they use FaceBook.
- A Gmail Block appears (once logged in) on the front page with unread mail headings displayed
- We turned off Moodle Calendar completely – opting instead for the more generic Google Calendar (all departments are required to place assessment dates on the school assessment calendar embedded in the site. We also have our standard Public Calendar embedded and a Sports Calendar was also added.
- School Events and information are updated regularly on the home page (though we are currently in the April School Holidays)
- There are a range of public pages for parental and public access and information. A number of pages and most courses require logins.
The site is deemed to be “under construction” as a number of pages are still to be added over the next few months (we are aiming for one new page/course every week or two).
How successful has it been?
I am presenting the site to the New Zealand Moodle Moot (Conference) this week. My presentation is on the integration of Moodle and Google Apps with a discussion around Google Docs as a teaching & learning tool. As I was putting together the presentation I gathered some statistics on our MyColl site.
Key Statistics Are:
- We are averaging 1200 “Unique” logins per week (out of a school of 1530 students and 120 staff) – From Moodle Stats
- We are averaging about 1500 “Absolute Unique Visitors” Daily – Google Analytics (interpreted this means from a different browser/computer)
- Interesting is that although there is a drop-off of “Absolute Unique Visitors” on Friday and Saturday, Sunday when school is closed sees us maintain the 1500 visitors.
- In the last 15 DAYs of school (since we enabled Google Analytics) we have had 28,400 Visits, 8700 Absolute Unique Visitors with 116,840 Pageviews.
Considering we have been effectively going for only 9 school weeks this is very encouraging. Only about 25-30% of teachers are using it regularly with their students. As training is provided and courses are developed over coming months, we should see the usage really take off!
Why has it been successful?
I believe that the integration of Google Apps with the Moodle Site has been one of the keys. The site is steadily growing to become the communication hub of the school as well as an effective growing eLearning site.
Feel free to explore the site at http://mycoll.school.nz and ask any questions here.
Canterbury University (New Zealand) has just announced that they will be ditching Blackboard for Moodle and have started the shift process for full adoption by the start of 2010.
Canterbury University implemented a steering group which recommended Moodle be trialled against their current Blackboard CMS. The steering group’s final decision based process had these criteria:
- Usability (by teachers and students)
- Operational (reliability, external support, features and flexibility)
- Strategic (future proofing, adaptation, stability of provider)
- Cost (transition and long term)
- Risk
Their executive summary report had Moodle coming out ahead of Blackboard in most of the above criteria (equal in other criteria but never behind Blackboard) and was strongly supported by amongst staff (70% outright preference for Moodle).
A link to Canterbury University’s LMS Review Process and be accessed
here and a full public report (PDF) can be accessed
here.
If you or your school have decided to start using the Moodle LMS then this post may be of some use to you.
Self Hosting or Managed Hosting?
Although Moodle is a free open source Learning Management System downloadable from Moodle.org, it does require some ongoing technical support if you are wanting to go down the Self Hosting track. Even hosting it on a cheap overseas site such as GoDaddy.com or Bluehost.com can incur problems down the track, particularly if your site attracts a lot of traffic such as multiple users logging on and multiple daily emails. Even if your school hosts the site then you will need to be have some good technical assistance.
One option for self hosting is to contract a Moodle specialist such as Catalyst who can set up the site to your specifications. They can then monitor and manage from off-site. This could initially be the safest self-hosting track
Managed hosting is easier but more expensive. Companies such as Catalyst or HRDNZ are both Moodle specialists and would be the way to go. Just be aware that with managed hosting there may be limitations on the number of add-ons that you can install. I chose the managed hosting solution with my classes as my school chose to use Microsoft SharePoint (Ughhh!) and I wanted something more interactive etc (see my earlier post “Why Choose Moodle” for more on this). Managed hosting initially allowed me to gain confidence with Moodle as a learning tool without worrying about technical issues.
Training
- HRDNZ earlier this year started a 12 week MoodleBites Course. One important aspect of this is that you take on the role of a student – it is important to see Moodle from the users point of view as you are constructing your course. MoodleBites also gives you training and tips on the many tools that you can incorporate into your online course. You can also interact with other “students” and ask questions in the discussion forums.
- Northtec has been running a course called CeLDD (Certificate in Elearning Design & Development) for the last 2 years.
This course is approximately 12 months but is more comprehensive than MoodleBites. It discusses wider eLearning issues and pedagogy and there are some tasks to complete – it is well worth looking at.
- Moodle School is a great website to become more familiar with Moodle. They have free short courses and links to a great range of resources.
- Julian Ridden of NSW Australia runs Moodle Playpen which showcases latest moodle developments within a Moodle site. He also has a great Moodle Blog.
- Finally, there is an annual conference in New Zealand called Moodle Moot. This year it is in Napier in the second week of these October holidays.
Well hopefully that gives you a few pointers from someone who has been moodling along for 2 years now…
At a recent presentation I was asked by a Secondary School Senior Manager: “How do I decide what Learning Management System to use?” I have come across this question many times and my answer is to at least NOT let your school technicians influence the decision. The decision should be made on the basis of an investigation of Management Systems and whether or not they provide the tools that the users require. The next question is “who are the users?”
An LMS should first and foremost be considered a Learning tool rather than a management tool and thus it should meet the pedagogical requirements of the users who are the Teachers rather than the Senior Management or Technicians. I have listed below a set of requirements that I looked as a teacher when evaluating different LMS’s:
- Content can be organised in the way that I want
- It is highly interactive for students
- There are many features available from which I can choose from
- It is highly intuitive for the users – both the student and the teacher
- It is robust enough for anyone to use without breaking
- It is reliable and can handle many users
You will note that I did not include cost. As a teacher this is not a concern for me – it is management’s job to make sure that the best LMS is used and to then consider how to cover the cost of implementation.
I chose to use the Moodle LMS because it met the requirements set out above. I will be making additional posts about Moodle and its many features and advantages regularly. Below is a snapshot of one of the courses that I have taught using Moodle with a Year 11 History class. I have also included some labels to highlight some of the features of the course homepage:
