Advanced Moodle Training with Netspot

Posted October 12, 2010
Filed under: Uncategorized |

What a great day today, with Mark Dreschler (@markdreschler) from Netspot providing some excellent pointers on the ins and outs of Moodle features.

Things we covered broadly today:

Groups and groupings: uses, differences, pros and cons
Database activity: the more I see of this one the more I think it's the jewel in the Moodle crown! The Book Review example (a database preset via @moodleman) we looked at is a good one to demo database functionality to those who aren't familiar with database terminology (as MD says, good combo is someone with DB knowledge and someone with design/html knowledge)
Forums: setting up assessable forums and groups (great functionality depending on the learning context and outcomes to be achieved)
Quizzes, in particular, calculated question types: the granularity is great and so useful for those inclined (I have no personal comments myself having just scraped through Maths at school!)
Glossary: differences between main and secondary glossaries and assessing activity using glossaries (some good examples emerging already from CIT teachers – you clever bunch

We have also been running weekly virtual sessions (via our eLearn Live Classroom) and these are generally going well, but I think we need a slight change in format and run these sessions focusing on a particular feature in eLearn (i.e. our Moodle) so teachers get a chance to see a piece of functionality from teaching/learning idea to execution. So, start with the teaching story or defined learning need, demo the solution as it has been delivered (to learners), then go through the 'how to' in setting it up and provide a cheat sheet as a takeaway at the end.

Another aspect I'd like to build up are some CIT-context specific learning objects that run through these features – as the virtual sessions would – but as self-paced resources. There are, however, soooooooo many tutorials and demos available from Moodle teachers and the wider Moodle community. Here are just some I've been using so far: