THIS IS A GREAT BOOK! (And you can quote me on that!) I would have been proud to write this book. No; I don’t work for Packt and nobody’s paying me to say so and I don’t personally know the authors – so why do I think it’s so good? Because, like the words of the King in Alice in Wonderland, they “begin at the beginning, go on until [they] come to the end – and then stop” The book – which is available from Packt here - takes you through all you need to know about Mahara from accessing it as a student, to using it as a teacher/tutor to installing and managing it as primary administrator. And all in a friendly, easy to use style with helpful screenshots. An achievement all the more admirable as it is written by several people rather than one author.
The book begins by explaining what Mahara is and does and why we might want to use it – we are encouraged to register at a Mahara site such as mahara.org to see how it works. A nice touch of the book is that they have set up a Mahara especially for readers to practise/play on so you don’t even need to have your own install when you begin.
We are shown how to set up our profile page, upload files,write blogs, create Views and are taken gently to the teacher/course leader role where we learn about groups and assessing students’ work. I especially liked the way the book follows three Mahara users – Punam, a primary teacher with a county Mahara install; Janet a learning technologist at a corporate university and Neil who works for a UK 14-19 vocational training provider. This means that each time we find out something about Mahara we get to see how it might be applied in specific circumstances – we enter the thoughts of Punam,Janet or Neil. (I’ve made a mental note to copy this idea in future writing!)
The final couple of chapters deal with the site settings and main administration which are easy to digest now we have gathered a detailed understanding of how Mahara works at its different levels. At the end are two appendices which are as important as the rest of the book even though they are in the final few pages: planning hints on how to implement your Mahara and instructions for installation. The first appendix is really useful and, although I have less experience in Mahara than Moodle, I do appreciate (from having advised on how to fix really badly implemented Moodles) how important it is to think it through in advance. The second appendix is also essential -someone has to install your Mahara! But as it might only concern a limited number of readers it is rightly kept to the end.
You can read a sample chapter here on the Packt site -but why read a sample chapter? If you are interested in getting Mahara then just go and buy the whole book!
When teachers first start learning how to use Moodle they aren’t aware that you don’t have to upload each precious Word document or Powerpoint one at a time – it is perfectly fine to put them in a folder, compress/zip the folder and upload that to Moodle. After that you can either show the folder (display a directory) or link to each of its contents individually.
However, developer Guy Thomas has come up with another way, a simpler way, to upload multiple files all at once. It is a contributed module -ie, you have to download and install to your Moodle -and is called the Enhanced File Resource Module. It is very new, so expect some changes and bugs to be fixed but it can be downloaded from Moodle here. Its big advantage over zipping is in ease of use – teachers just click “browse”; select several files from their computer and the module will automatically upload them as separate resources on the Moodle page.
Do I like it? Yes – enough to make a short screen cast below. Does it worry me? A little – while it’s great for encouraging teachers to upload their resources in a quick and non-techie way- it does list them on the course page in a long line which might just bring about the dreaded “scroll of death”. The message is the same as with wine and chocolate – use in moderation and do not over-indulge!
Ok -this is just a bit of fun as I have spent the last two days getting my head around the Workshop in Moodle 2.0 (see blog post here). Andrew Field of Content Generator has just released a beta version of his latest Flash game – On Target. As a teacher of (increasingly)young children I always enjoy his games because they are easy to create and many of them work in Moodle as SCORM objects which means when students play them, their scores are recorded in the gradebook – so you can justify your fun! This latest game is no exception and I thought I would highlight it by posing a few questions to test your knowledge of what’s new in Moodle 2.0. How many can you get right – and – more important – how good is your aim?
CLICK HERE TO PLAY !
I’ve been trying to get my head around the new Workshop module for Moodle 2.0, because I really want to encourage lots of teachers to use it. Peer Assessment and Self-Evaluation are Big Things in education currently, and Moodle’s workshop module offers both these facilities. They say the best way to learn is often to explain to somebody else and so, having watched with interest David Mudrak’s presentation at the imoot, here below is my attempt to make and understand Workshop 2.0 If you spot any glaring errors, let me know. The Workshop test site is here if you want a play. I know I have missed lots out -but’s just a first journey and one I hope, others will make as well, as we move into Moodle 2.0.
I have just finished reading Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques by Susan Smith Nash with William Rice and published by Packt as one of their Moodle book series. I confess to having a sentimental attachment to this book as its original version was both the first book on Moodle I ever read (and I never thought I would end up writing one myself!) and the first book I reviewed in my first blog post on this blog. The book has been updated for Moodle 1.9 – you might wish to read my original review first. I had initially planned to deal with it as a brand new book and review it as such – but certain aspects prevented that, as I will outline later on.
Susan Smith Nash is an expert in online course development -indeed, she is the e-learning queen - and what I liked about her update was the way she blended her ideas and suggestions both theoretical and practical with William Rice’s original “solutions”. This is not a book for beginners in Moodle, although it does give some step by step instructions. What it does that makes it different from many software books is that it gives a pedagogical background to what is done in Moodle: you aren’t just making forums or choices because they are there – you get explanations as to why and how they will help your students develop their skills or knowledge and examples of Best Practice.
Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques follows a very methodical structure, starting the reader off with the fairly simple forum and leaving him empowered at the end having gained an understanding of the Lesson module and Workshop module, two of the most (I think) challenging modules to set up. On the way we investigate chat, quizzes, choice, wikis and glossaries , learning ways to use them where are students are “in charge” and we are the facilitators. (One slight point of issue by the way – I am not sure you can use the “single simple discussion” forum type with separate groups in the way suggested here as a method of students and teachers having their own private communication area; I don’t think this works?) Likewise, there seems to be an assumption that the reader has an admin role rather than a regular teacher role – the reader is shown how to override student permissions for example to prevent them starting new forum threads but this is not normally available to a teacher unless admin allows it – a possible source of confusion?
Susan Smith Nash has added an extra chapter to the original, building on William’s solutions for the workshop module where she offers ideas for using it as a portfolio/gallery where students can showcase work, collaborate and comment on each others’ items all within a positive and encouraging environment. Susan has also elaborated more on the detailed instructions for setting up Lessons and workshops, which I think readers will appreciate as they are so complex. Indeed, the workshop in 1.9 is actually not recommended for use – although I use it! – as it has been totally revamped and simplifed ready for Moodle 2.0. Many people will still be using Moodle 1.9 for a long time yet and so this will be helpful to them.
Different versions of Moodle (and indeed books) is something I will come back to now. I mentioned at the start I had planned to deal with this book entirely separately from its original version, published in 2007 but am unable to. Much of this book is the same as my first copy back then -which is fine as the activities and pedagogy still apply – but I was puzzled a few times by the screenshots which didn’t tie in with my own Moodle – until I realised that the gradebook used in this book is actually a Moodle 1.8 gradebook and not the current one. This is disappointing, as using the gradebook is such a vital part of Moodle and it has undergone a number of enhancements during Moodle 1.9 which simply aren’t reflected in the screenshots of this book. Readers not used to the gradebook might be confused by this.
Overall then – and with the above mentioned caveats – this is a” teaching solutions” book, a book to spark off inspiration, rather than a how to Moodle book – and if you are competent with Moodle and lacking in ideas – perhaps this is a book for you!