Mooving to Moodle

1
Mooving to Moodle

• Amy Brown and Deana St. Peter
• Guilford Technical Community College
• February 18, 2008

2
What LMS is your school using?

• Blackboard
• WebCT
• Educator
• Moodle
• Other/Not Applicable

3
Is your school considering Moodle?

• Yes
• No
• Maybe

4
What is the main thing your school likes about
Blackboard?

• Its familiar
• Menu/folder organization
• Look and feel
• Gradebook
• We dont use Blackboard

5
Whats the main thing your school does NOT like
about Blackboard?

• Price
• Menu/folder organization
• Look and feel
• Gradebook
• Limited options
• We dont use Blackboard

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GTCC backstory

• Over 10 years on Blackboard
• Part of NCLC Blackboard consortium
• Experienced some customer service issues with
  Blackboard and ASP hosting

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GTCC - Moodle

• System Office was pushing Moodle as a solution
• RFP for second wave of NCMUG project
• Distance Learning and five faculty attended
  Moodle training summer 2007

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Blackboard
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Facebook
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Moodle
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(No Transcript)
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Blackboard vs. Moodle

• Annual license fee vs. Open source
• Folders vs. Blocks
• Content management system vs. Dynamic learning
  environment
• Faculty/Publisher-created content vs.
  Everyone-created content

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Move to Moodle

• Training (summer 2007)
• Pilot with faculty and students (fall 2007)
• Migration (spring 2008-fall 2008)
• Final Blackboard semester (spring 2009)

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GTCC number of sites

• Fall 2007 semester
• Blackboard over 800
• Moodle over 15
• Spring 2008 semester
• Blackboard over 800
• Moodle over 50
• Fall 2008 semester
• Moodle over 800
• Blackboard between 50-75

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GTCC faculty

• Blackboard is limiting
• Setting up assignments in BB is more time
  consumingmultiple steps
• Students cant contribute to course content (like
  glossaries and wikis)
• Blackboard can get bulkygo to this folder, open
  this sub-folder, download this file
• Moodle is more dynamicstudents create profiles
  with pictures, I can see all of their activity in
  one place, its easier for me to respond to them

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GTCC faculty

• Reaction to Moodle training
• Wow! Look at all the cool toys!
• Different types of assignments allow for
  different student interaction and different
  student-teacher interaction
• News forum, internal messaging, collaborative
  activities, etc.

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GTCC faculty

• Selling features of Moodle
• ProfilesI can see my students next to all of
  their work
• Activity reportsshow posts, blogs, submitted
  assignments, etc. all in one place
• Navigationall on one page, edit button allows
  for toggling back and forth

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Blackboard List of Students
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Moodle List of Students
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Blackboard Course Homepage
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Moodle Course Homepage
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Blackboard Discussion Boards
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Moodle Forums
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Blackboard Glossary
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Moodle Glossary
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Moodle Glossary with Student Contributions
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Blackboard Course Statistics
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Moodle Activity Reports
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Another Moodle Activity Report
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Blackboard as an Administrator
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Moodle as an Administrator
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Blackboard vs. Moodle Admin.

• Logging in as a someone else
• Search and add students to course
• Settings for self-creation of accounts
• Self-enroll process
• Enrollment file (user/course vs.
  user/course/group)
• Groups keep sections separate!

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Pros for switching to Moodle

• Open source better long-term financial
  investment for GTCC
• Flexibility and options
• More learning centered than Blackboard
• Faculty already online savvy, but switch gives us
  a chance to redefine what we do

35
Cons for switching to Moodle

• Migration of content
• Retrain faculty
• Running/Paying for 2 Learning Management System
  for migration
• Resistance to change
• Lacking a true equation editor
• Publishers are new to Moodle

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What is your top concern about moving to Moodle?

• Migration of content
• Retraining faculty
• Publisher content
• Reaction of faculty
• Other

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Do you think Moodle could work at your school?

• True
• False

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Teaching with Moodle
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Moodle Resources
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Books
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Moodle Activities
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Choice Activities
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Learning from Mistakes

• Moodle 1.8 gradebook
• Adaptive mode in quizzes
• Question names
• CamelCase in wikis
• Typos in News Forum and Mail now
• No block feature

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Moodle as a Student
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Moodle as a Student
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GTCC decision

• Moodle server with Remote Learner Level 4
• Use Blackboard through June 2009
• On-going training both face-to-face and online
• Aim for 95 of courses to be on Moodle by fall
  2008

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Team-teaching with Moodle

• Advantages
• Teachers can co-develop and share assignments
  without having to share students or a grade book.
• Students are put in separate groups and have
  access to their group only.
• We dont have to create separate forums, for
  example.

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Moodle sites at GTCC EPT 210
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Moodle sites at GTCC FIP 136
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Moodle sites at GTCC CIS 110
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Moodle sites at GTCC REL 110
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Innovative Instruction

• Wikis
• Blogs
• Responsibility for their own learning

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Administrating Moodle

• Blackboard head
• Tools are present, less sophistication
• Course copy process more options
• Enrollment file (users/courses vs.
  users/courses/groups)

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Moodle lessons from others

• Challenges
• Like learning to drive a new car
• Using the grade book and creating tests
• More features in Moodle

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Future of Moodle at GTCC

• Five instances
• Curriculum
• Business and Industry / Continuning Education
• Internal Training
• Testing
• Public

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Customizations

• iTunes U authentication part of login process
• 10 report - of hits, not actions
• Attendance form
• Streamline enrollment

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Information

• Amy Brown, Distance Learning
• albrown_at_gtcc.edu
• Deana St. Peter, English
• djstpeter_at_gtcc.edu

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What does the D stand for in Moodle?

• Domino
• Dynamic
• Devil

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Students are telling us that they like Moodle
better than Blackboard because ___________________
____.

• Its easier to use.
• They can create content as well as faculty.
• Profiles make it easier to interact.
• All of the above

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The group feature in Moodle allows you to keep
the sections separate yet see the same content.

• Yes
• No

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This was a good presentation.

• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Neutral
• Disagree
• Strongly Disagree