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Moodle for English Teachers

蘇正造 (su@ntjcpa.edu.tw)

國立臺灣戲曲專科學校國立臺灣師範大學博士班學生

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Moodle for English Teachers

• I. INTRODUCTION:– What is Moodle – Why is Moodle?– Some Technical Details

• II. USEFUL MODULES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING– Basic Modules– Examples of How to Use Modules

• III. HOW TO MAKE GOOD USE OF MOODLE– Create your online course– Conferencing Web Site– Online Community

• IV. CONCLUSION

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Official Moodle Website http://moodle.org/

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INTRODUCTION

• A Need of a Convenient Tool for Teachers & Students– Web Presence

• Teachers might want to share with peers information on a particular area of expertise within their field;

• They might want to help students establish a web presence so they can write authentically and communicatively to an audience that extends beyond the walls of classrooms

– Content/Knowledge Management• Considerable chunk of data/documents that is required

to be accessed quickly and managed easily but safely.

• Difficulty of maintaining Websites

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What is Moodle? A Course Management System (CMS)

• Moodle: Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment

• http://moodle.org/: Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, open source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities.

• Matt Riordan (2003): Moodle is the name of a program that allows the classroom to extend onto the web. This program allows a common place for students to go for many classroom resources. ()

• Moodle is a free online course management system (CMS) which is especially good for language teaching.

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How Popular?

• How many Moodle Sites?– 10036 registered from 150 countries (

http://moodle.org/sites/ on March 10, 2006)• United States of America: 2171 sites • United Kingdom: 798 sites • Spain: 715 sites• Brazil: 400 sites • Australia: 338 sites • Thailand : 311 sites • Japan : 166 sites

• Join the Moodle club: Don’t wait for your institution to install a workable CMS.

• Portugal: 165• Taiwan: 164 sites    • France : 158 sites• China: 53 sites • Hong Kong: 43 sites • India: 62 sites • Korea: 41 sites

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An Outlook of a Moodle system: Open Source for Educators

http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/

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Why Moodle?

• Free Opensource: Freedom and choiceWould you buy a car with the hood welded shut?What do you know about modern engines?– Free: no payment, no advertisements – Full control: You can edit the setting/option for your n

eed.– Extensibility: If you know its computer language, you c

an edit its code to fit your own use easily. • Content-based web management

– Webpage (Html code) Wiki/ BBS/ Blog PhpNuke/ XOOPS/ Moodle (content/module)

– Save and archive your files online easily– Integrating your online source

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Why Moodle?

• Collaborative learning space– Moodle provides a collaborative medium, a place where we can all meet

and read and write.– Semantic Web (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/): “The Web can reach its full

potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people.

• Good Support and Help– Help in Moodle System: A pop-up window to offer help.– Moodle.org:

• Using Moodle• Moodle for Language Teaching

• Other Special Features of Moodle– Easy installation on any computer – Windows, Macintosh or Linux– The Interface can be switched to more than 50 languages. – Extensible: If you know PHP, you can add new functions relatively easily

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Help: click A Pop-up window

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Good Support and Help: Using Moodle http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5

Find documents or ask/discuss questions on different forums

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Good Support and Help: Moodle for Language Teaching

http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=31

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Some Technical Details 1/2

• Moodle need: a web server with PHP and mySQL– A Web server: two options for your choice

• IIS (included in Windows) • Apache http://httpd.apache.org

– PHP: a scripting program/language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.

• http://www.php.net/

– mySQL: a database system• http://www.mysql.com/

• Free download: – All of these are free. – Complete Install Packages (Moodle+Apache+MySQL+PHP) at o

fficial Moodle Website.

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Some Technical Details 2/2

• Get a Moodle system– Install by yourself (Refer to Moodle Installation: http://www.op

ensource.idv.tw/moodle/course/view.php?id=16 )• A nice computer connected to Internet• An IP (and domain name)• Software: Web server (Apache) +MySQL+PHP+ Moodle

– Convince your school to install it – Ask Moodle.com to set it up on your machine for

you. Use Moodle.com’s hosting service. They will charges your some money.

– Find a free host • Opensource for Educators: 700 registered from all over t

he world. http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/ • Opensource for Educators #1:

http://moodle.ntjcpa.edu.tw/

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II. USEFUL MODULES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING

• Basic Modules– The People Box– Administering Your Class– Adding Content

• Examples of How to Use Modules– Self-introduction– Forum– Journal– Glossary– Quiz– Assignment– Multimedia integration– Participants’ log

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II. USEFUL MODULES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING

• Basic Modules: for course management

People

AdministrationAdding an

ActivityAdding a Resource

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Basic Modules

• People– Participants

• Profile• Activity reports

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Basic Modules• Administering Your Class

– Turn editing on – Settings – Edit profile – Teachers – Students – Groups – Backup – Restore – Import course data – Scales – Grades – Logs – Files – Help – Teacher forum

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Basic Modules• Adding Content

– Adding a Resource• Compose a text page • Compose a web page• Link to a file or web site• Display a directory• Insert a label

– Adding an Activity• Assignment• Chat• Choice• Forum• Glossary• Hot Potatoes Quiz• Journal• Lesson• Quiz• SCROM• Survey• Wiki• Workshop

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Examples of How to Use Modules

• 1. Self-introduction: People Participant

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Edit ProfileInput your self-

introduction

Upload your picture

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Participant’s Profile

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Examples of How to Use Modules

• 2. Forum: a board for asynchronous discussion.– Unlimited numbers of forums: you can hav

e as many forums as you want.– Two special features of forum in Moodle

• Group (Mailing List): • Mugshot of the poster:

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Forum Forced everyone to be subscribed => Group

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Forum: Mugshot of the posterpost and email with a tiny mugshot of the sender

community

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Forum: Mini-interview

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3. JournalA private board that can only be seen by the teacher, who can offer

feedback and a grade

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4. Glossary A place allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions,

like a dictionary.

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5. Quiz

• Multiple Choice• True/False• Short Answer• Numerical Question• Matching• Description• Random Question• Random Short-Answer Matching• Embedded Answers (Cloze)

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5. Quiz

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5. Quiz: Result

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6. Assignment

Upload a single file

Grade: Scale, Score (1-100),

No grade

Content of assignment

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6. Assignment

• Feedback and Grading

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7. Word & Multimedia Integration

• Html or Word documents can be directly imported into Moodle by copy & paste without losing its format.

• MP3 and flash files can be uploaded and integrated into your course web.

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7. Word Integration:Copy & paste without losing its format

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7. Multimedia Integration

• MP3 & Flash: just put in the link

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8. Participant’s log:Teachers can check their students log

Today’s log

All log

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Log: Record keeping Trace what materials our students have accessed

• Course log

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Participant’s Log

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Other modules: File

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File: Upload

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File: Link the file

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III. HOW TO MAKE GOOD USE OF MOODLE

• 1. Create your online course

• 2. Conferencing Web Site

• 3. Online Community

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1. Create your online course:Course categories/ List

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1. Create your online courseCore block:

course content

Side block

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2. Conferencing/Journal Web Site• PacCALL: http://paccall.org/Interact/

– Conference– PacCALL Journal

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2. Conferencing/Journal Web Site

• WiAOC 2005: Webheads in Action Online Convergence http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/course/view.php?id=20

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WiAOC 2005: Webheads in Action Online Convergencehttp://www.wiaoc.org/

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3. Online Community

• Student List Project http://sl-lists.net/

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3. Online Community• Taiwanese Tertiary Teachers of English: Professional Development P

rogram http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/course/view.php?id=22 – six-week program– Forum– Chatroom

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Taiwanese Tertiary Teachers of English: Professional Development Program

Conference Room in Talking Communities

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Teacher Education in ELThttp://teachereducation.org.uk/

• An online community for teacher educators and teacher trainees with free courses (but Course Enrolment Key access control)

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WorldBridges http://worldbridges.com/moodle/

• A global network of homegrown webcasting

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KnowPlace http://www.knowplace.ca/

• A world learning community with free open source and charged courses.

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Share/Put your documents/projects/activities online

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Content/Knowledge Management

• Learning English by Singing

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IV. CONCLUSION• Moodle is:

– A platform to save and achieve teaching material easily.– A collaborative online platform for teachers and students to

learn together. • Humanware: “The key to successful use of technolog

y in language teaching lies not in hardware or software but in humanware” (Warschauer & Meskill, 2000).

• Teachers’ Participation: Moodle system does not promote learning or teaching on its own. Its effectiveness lies in the way of your participation and interaction to experience and feel that you are among like-minded people who share the same curiosities, needs and interests.

• Join the open source & Moodle club and join our online communities today.

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ThanksThanks for your attention

Comments and Discussion

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• Visit me at http://www.opensource.idv.tw/

and send your comments toand send your comments tosu@ntjcpa.edu.twsu@ntjcpa.edu.tw

MSN: vennysu@hotmail.comYahoo: venny_sou

• Thanks