Moodle 2: Features for Teachers

It's typical!
You wait for one PowerPoint and 2 come along at the same time!!

For various reasons, our organisation is only now starting its move from Moodle v1.9 to v2 (v2.5 is the current stable version available). I've been looking for a good presentation for our teaching staff covering the new improved features.

There are lots of 'Top 5 Features' presentations but I wanted a quick overview of all the new bits that teachers should look out for as they start to test the new setup. None of these really did the job I wanted.

I sat down and created my own presentation (see slideshare below).

Moodle 2: Features for Teachers 2.0 to 2.5 v131004 from Pete Richardson

Having completed my presentation, I then came across another one that would have done nicely, even if rather American in flavour. It is more detailed than I wanted but I'll give the link below because it can act as a second step.

• http://www.slideshare.net/cmerdcelearning/whats-new-in-moodle-2

I'll keep updating my presentation as new versions and features develop so do come back after each major Moodle revision.
If you want the full detail of changes, use the following link and change the _2.0_ bit to _2.1_ or _2.2_ etc for each revision so far: http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_2.0_release_notes

I feel the weekend is calling - TGIF

Embedding Youtube Video in PowerPoint 2010

As resources become much more media rich, learners (and teachers) need to know how to find or create audio and video clips and then use them in their teaching/assessment materials.

This post describes how to embed a Youtube video into PowerPoint 2010 and what to do when that doesn't work!

In PowerPoint 2007 the only video you could easily add to your presentation was one that you had on your computer as a video file. Techie types were able to create and edit a Shockwave Object to embed a Youtube video (see later for details).

Firstly, find a Youtube video that you want to embed in your presentation.

Underneath the video, click on Share and then on Embed.

Make sure that the Use old embed code box is ticked and then copy the code and paste it into the PowerPoint dialogue box (see below for how to open the dialogue box).

PowerPoint 2010 added an option to use 'Video from website' (click on Insert and then under Media click on Video then on 'from website').

A dialogue box opens ready for you to paste in the Youtube embed code. However, the embed code from Youtube DOESN'T WORK (at the time of posting) but there is a fix.


The embed code looks like this:

In the PowerPoint dialogue box, edit your embed code as shown below:

value="// should be edited to value=http://
src="// should be edited to src=http://
version=3&amp should be edited to version=2&amp (this appears twice)

Click on the Insert button and a black box appears on your PPT slide.
Right click on the Movie box and select Preview. The movie start image and controls should appear ready to play.


If you prefer, you can watch Ron Bosch's movie of embedding a video and fixing the code problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V0gm98Xj4g

or embedded in Blogger (this does work OK :-)

PowerPoint 2007
A friend gave me the following PowerPoint that contains a slide with a Shockwave object that you can copy into your PPT 2007 presentation and then edit for your chosen Youtube clip. The instructions are on the slide also.

Download and save a copy of the PPT file from Google Drive:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4qrMq-w6bVwN0JkRmFkWXFvWDA/edit?usp=sharing

Have fun with these over the weekend ....

TGIF

The Qualities of a Good Teacher and Learner (HE in FE)

Towards the end of the last academic year I asked for the thoughts of our HE staff on what makes a good teacher and learner. I asked;

 What are the main qualities which make a good (I guess I mean effective) teacher?

I used an open ended question so that I wouldn't influence the responses. I was however interested in what staff would say about the use of computers and the Internet (and maybe mobile devices and Apps).
There was quite a diversity of words and phrases used with relatively few items appearing in all responses.

For the teacher, a few words were mentioned by a number of respondents:

• knowledge
• patience
• humour
• challenging

And for the learner, words mentioned multiple times:

• motivated
• confident
• willing
• interested

The following paragraphs show what roughly 10% of my HE teacher sample think make a good teacher and learner.

A good/effective teacher is:

• Patient with a sense of humour and somebody who respects and is interested in students as individuals and is fair and consistent.
• Approachable, caring, honest, encouraging, positive, constructive, enthusiastic, engaging, inspirational, innovative, adaptable and challenging.
• Skilled and knowledgeable in their subject area and knows how to make difficult things understandable, interesting, enjoyable and relevant.
• Able to see things from a student perspective and welcomes student input and collaboration while empowering and instilling confidence without pretending to know everything.

A wordle analysis of replies about teacher qualities

A good/effective learner is:

• Willing to make an effort, get involved, make mistakes, accept advice and support and has a desire to succeed to the best of their abilities.
• Receptive, enthusiastic, positive, interested, responsive and resilient.
• Self-disciplined to meet deadlines, manage time, attend class, listen and has the confidence to question and challenge.
• Able to study, use resources and demonstrate their learning.

A wordle analysis of replies about learner qualities

Qualities common to teachers and learners:

• Effective teachers and learners are good communicators, they take time to listen, are organised and manage their time well, confident, resilient and use reflection to improve their performance.

I don’t think too much can be inferred from the fact that the ability to use computers and the Internet to teach or study/learn effectively was not mentioned. It may be that this is being taken for granted, in the same way that being literate and numerate were not mentioned. The question itself asked respondents to focus on qualities, probably understood by respondents to mean ‘personal’ qualities, rather than specific skills or competencies.

The list itself however is informative - how many of the qualities shown do you posses?

TGIF
(and a Bank Holiday Monday too - :-))))

PS My thanks to those people who took the time to reply (about 18% of the FE staff that also deliver HE courses).

Moodle Tool (& Pedagogy) Guide for Teachers

Last week I realised that so far in my Friday posts I haven't included probably the best Moodle handout I've ever seen. The Moodle Tool Guide created by Joyce Seitzinger a few years ago (May 2010) presents ease of use for the main Moodle tools BUT most interestingly, relates these to pedagogy (ie teaching techniques/approaches).

Most staff development for Learning Technologies focuses on 'which button to press' to get the technology to work. There is however a serious lack of resources that guide teachers to appropriate and effective teaching and learning techniques centred around specific digital tools.

There is a lot of research literature and erudite papers about 'ePedagogy' (if such a thing exists) but most busy teachers I think want advice that is more easy to engage with.The teaching approaches listed are fairly basic:

• Information Transfer
•  Assess Learning
• Communication & Interaction
• Co-create Content
• Bloom's Cognitive Hierarchy

 However, the list is perfect for the busy teacher.

The handout is here: http://www.cats-pyjamas.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/MoodleToolGuideforTeachers_May2010_JS.pdf

The PowerPoint slide used to create the pdf is here: http://www.cats-pyjamas.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/MoodleToolGuideforTeachers_Shared_May2010_.pptx
(ie you can edit the PPT to create your own customised guide)

There is even a Flickr group to share photos of the guide in use (Joyce is very keen on social endeavour):
http://www.flickr.com/groups/moodletoolguide

A Moodle 2 version is in development by Gavin Henrick. I'm sure for those of you who have 'gone M2' there will be lots of discussion to come. Me? I am going TGIF.

Top Digital Tips for Teachers

I was asked to provide an input to a group of secondary school teachers who are promoting the use of Learning Technology within their schools. I was given the title 'Top Tips'.  After considering a variety of tip type lists, I decided to list the principles that underpin the work I do to promote the use of digital approaches.

I started teaching secondary school science in 1978 and have been using computers in my teaching since then. I have also taught on FE, undergraduate and Masters level courses and over the last 11 years I have been a Learning Technologist providing staff development, support and advice for FE teachers and managers.

The following list has guided my work with teachers over many years:

1. Priorities the digital
2. Make your VLE your foundation
3. Expect learners to engage
4. Make digital demands
5. Look before you make
6. Try one new thing
7. Join a group
8. Review your pedagogy
9. Give CPD time
10. Face the fear

This list assumes that the organisation that you work for is providing adequate digital kit and web connectivity. If not, the top tip is to encourage managers to adopt a digital focus and allocate appropriate resourcing. Sometimes however, you may only persuade managers to change once a large enough number of teachers have already engaged!

1. Prioritise the digital
   Many teachers feel that they don’t have the time to learn and use digital techniques and resources. In these cases, Time = Priority! We are all busy people but we find the time to do all sorts of things because we prioritise them. Lack of time = lack of priority.
2. Make your VLE your foundation
   Provide all the essential, and extension, resources for your teaching and assessment over the web for anytime and anyplace access. Use your VLE (Learning Platform) on a daily basis during your teaching so learners see it in action. This assumes that there is a minimum of 1 staff PC and projector in every classroom.
3. Expect learners to engage
   If you don’t adopt a positive attitude toward the beneficial role that digital tools and resources can bring to learning, don’t be surprised if your learners don’t engage.  If you use digital and you train your learners to use digital, your expectations will be met (assuming you have a good relationship with your students).
4. Make digital demands
   Sometimes called ‘Blended Learning’, mix traditional teaching & learning techniques with newer digital approaches (see also 8 and 9 below). Add digital tasks, in class or outside the classroom to develop student’s digital knowledge, skills, confidence and competence. This is one crucial aspect for their future.
5. Look before you make
   Most teachers like to make teaching and learning resources but there is a World Wide Web of ready to go resources. With effective search techniques and a list of trusted websites you can save masses of time (your librarian might also help you find eResources). Only make something new if it doesn’t already exist.
6. Try one new thing
   There are a wide variety of digital materials, methods and technologies available. Plan to try something new each term/year and give yourself time to play, implement and most importantly review new things. Done regularly, your digital repertoire quickly increases.
7. Join a group
   Find a local or national interest group that shares ideas, good practice, new resources etc that can be a source of inspiration and support. Once you’ve lurked for a while, become active in your communication and collaboration.
8. Review your pedagogy
   Think about your teaching approach and how it works for preparing learners for a digital and connected world. Social constructivism seems to work well in a digital context.
9. Give CPD time
   The points above won’t happen without some thought, training and practice. Use some CPD time to increase your own knowledge, skills, confidence and competence.
10. Face the fear
    For some teachers, using new technologies and resources with students is daunting. There was a time when just standing in front of a class was daunting (but most of us overcame that one). Remember:

• experience is that quality that lets us keep a sense of humour when things go wrong!
• the idea that young people are innately better than we are with technology is a myth!
• DON’T PANIC (and have a backup plan).

I haven’t provided links to further information above because new resources appear all the time.

However, the following links are fairly current:
Teacher resources - www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk
Tools and Reviews - http://c4lpt.co.uk/directory-of-learning-performance-tools/
CPD Focus - http://futurelab.org.uk/resources/digital-literacy-professional-development-resource
Teachers Online - #addcym on Twitter

I hope you find something useful in there.
It is for you, the reader, to decide if this list constitutes 'Top Tips' or not (it does work for me however) and thanks to LearnTech Wales (an FE interest group) and RSC Wales (a support group) for your thoughts on the list.

Tip 11 - have good weekends - TGIF

Find it, make it, use it, share it

Find it, make it, use it, share it: learning in digital Wales - A report from the Digital Classroom Teaching Task and Finish Group.

The Welsh Assembly Minister for Education and Skills, Leighton Andrews, commissioned a review of digital classroom teaching in September 2011. A 'Digital Classroom Teaching Task and Finish' group was set up consisting of two Primary and one secondary school head teacher, an ILT Manager from an FE college, six members of community and commercial organisations and two LEA advisers.

The group consulted widely from November 2011 until February 2012 to answer the question posed by the minister;

‘Which digital classroom delivery aspects should be adopted to transform learning and teaching for those aged 3-19'?

In particular, the group was asked to consider:

• how high-quality, accessible digital classroom content could be developed;
• how National Grid for Learning (NGfL) Cymru was used, and whether there was a more effective way to deliver its aims;
• whether and how a cloud-based content delivery system (e.g. the 'iTunes University' model); would work alongside a virtual learning environment (VLE) for Wales; 
• how high-quality English and Welsh language content could be generated;
• how to develop Welsh intellectual property which can be used to deliver digital teaching content;
• and how teachers might get the digital teaching skills to use ICT to transform schools.

The group published their report in March 2012 (http://wales.gov.uk/docs/dcells/publications/120328digitalen.pdf) and video case studies were commissioned by the group (http://www.learningobservatory.com/digital-classroom-teaching/).

The report's vision is encapsulated by John Putt, the Headteacher of Holywell High School;

"Learning throughout the world is standing at a very interesting crossroads and this is in the main to do with the ubiquity of access to information anywhere in the globe. The information accessible to educators and learners is vast and the potential to collaborate, co-construct and learn with others has never been so great. As a nation Wales must harness this vast open learning potential and put in place some of the necessary principles, frameworks and processes to tap into this in order to ensure a place at the ‘top’ table of learning futures but more importantly to equip its educators and young people for the exciting and creative challenges that lie ahead. In such a world learning will be more dynamic and we need to switch our learners and ourselves on to this by understanding that the ability to learn and use new skills and technologies in a collaborative way will be key to the future."


The group feel that a National Body in Wales, the name 'Hwb' has been suggested, is needed to oversee the transformation process with a team of local officers working with regional collaborative networks of school based e-Coordinators and FE college ILT Managers supporting the work of classroom teachers. A National digital repository will be created containing resources created or commissioned by the Welsh Government and its agencies, trusted sources and resources created by teachers and learners themselves. The resources and the networks of people will be accessed through a 'Hwb Portal', envisioned as a 'dynamic dashboard customised to the learner'.

Recommendations are made covering 'Supporting Teachers', 'Sharing skills and resources', 'A national Digital collection', 'External conditions for success' and 'Hwb'.

The headline recommendations are:

1. Establish a powerful organisation (working title ‘Hwb’) to manage, oversee and develop these recommendations. Its remit will be to lead, promote and support the use of digital resources and technologies by learners and teachers, and create and develop a national digital collection for learning and teaching in English and Welsh.
2. Establish a group, including representations from existing practitioners, as well as other bodies both public and private, to govern the implementation of these recommendations.
3. Ensure that a substantial difference is made to educators’ digital competencies and skills, and how they apply them to learning and teaching, by prioritising training and sharing good practice.
4. A national digital collection should be created by acquiring English- and Welsh-language resources through commissioning, purchasing, obtaining licenses, and also through actively encouraging contributions from learners and teachers.
5. Give all users their own individual logon ID, potentially for a lifetime of learning. This will take them into their personalised user experience and will be accessed from anywhere.
6. Ensure that learners and teachers have the freedom to access rich learning and teaching resources from anywhere, at any time and from any device.
7. Manage intellectual property rights in learning and teaching resources to ensure maximum access by learners and teachers and create income from external licensing.
8. Commission new resources in English and Welsh and procure national licences for existing materials and tools, to ensure economies of scale when building the national digital collection.
9. Use existing tried and tested web-based products and services to disseminate existing and new content.
10. Ensure that a culture of digital citizenship is encouraged and developed by learners and teachers. In addition to key digital skills, this will help learners develop the competencies and values to use digital technologies responsibly, ethically and safely, with an understanding of the security and legal issues surrounding the ‘digital space’.

My Initial Response
The report is well written with a very clear presentation of the vision, the resulting key ideas and the reasoning involved. I like the notion of the Hwb and agree with most of what is said. The report forms
an excellent summary of the main issues talked about for many years by the Learning Technology community.

A major reservation however is the balance between ‘teacher education/training’ and ‘Content collection’. My feeling is that the patchy uptake and use of digital materials and methods is not due to the lack of resources but due more to the lack of teacher skills and positive attitudes. The greater emphasis for me should be on teachers not resources.

I understand that the report has to be visionary/aspirational but there are many statements that are rather simplistic and some acknowledgement of the reality of teacher behaviour, conflicting classroom and
institutional imperatives, funding and scheduling would have helped to alert a ‘lay reader’ of the enormity of the component tasks. There is a clear feel that the group has obvious practical experience but in the absence of some level of realism, the report might as well have started ‘Dear Santa’ (or at least ‘pay for it’ added to the title).

For instance on p4, many in the Learning Technology world would agree wholeheartedly with:

“the belief that teachers and learners now live in a world where communication and knowledge are routinely digital, ubiquitous and highly interactive, and that the processes of learning and teaching can, and must, take advantage of what digital technologies offer.”

I’m sure a sizable proportion of classroom teachers would have reservations about this, especially when thinking of Monday morning, Lesson 1.

When talking about supporting teachers on p9 one recommendation is to:

“Define a set of standard digital competencies needed by teachers ...”

JISC have spent millions of pounds over many years investigating such competency frameworks with little consensus (likewise the X4L projects that focused on learning object, digital repositories and resource metadata come to mind when reading p20-22).

One could argue that I’m picking on specific details here but the devil IS in the detail.

The biggest detail of course is funding. The DCELLS eLearning strategy document from 2003/4 showed what happens to vision when funding is not addressed. I would love somebody to say that adequate funding has been earmarked over the next 5 years to make these recommendations a reality. Somehow I doubt that anybody, not even the Minister, would be able to make that promise.

One ray of hope however surrounds the ‘dashboard’. This is a great idea and probably the best place to start the transformation. The description sounds like a customised Netvibes for Welsh Education
(www.netvibes.com). Some of the aggregator, communication and self management functionality will be quick and relatively cheap to setup which will allow the more enthusiastic teachers and learners to form
pioneer communities and networks to begin sharing opinions, resources, tools and methods. If WAG were to fund a Hwb team that could deliver phase 1 of the dashboard across Wales in a timely manner, the rest of
the reports visionary recommendations might then look more realistic and achievable.

Time will tell if a sustainable funding 'map' is created but for now - TGIF.

TeachMeet – Show and Tell for Teachers

I heard of TeachMeets about 5 years ago and attended one a year later. I went to another a few days ago. My experience at each has been very different and while I think any event where teachers share what interests them is good news, I have some reservations. I’ll come back to that later.

TeachMeets started in Scotland in 2005 when Ewan McIntosh, David Noble and John Johnston, who knew each other on-line, met in-person for the first time to share how they had been using new technologies in education. The informal TeachMeets started with a dozen or so people in the Jolly Judge pub in Edinburgh (the Scots have a style I can relate to).
See: TeachMeet – The Story so far…. by Iain Hallahan (http://h-blog.me.uk/?p=161)

The idea caught on and events are now organised across the country by a wide variety of people and organizations with a wide variety of foci. Many events are promoted through an open pbworks site.
See: http://teachmeet.pbworks.com/w/page/19975349/FrontPage (the Navigator Panel to the right of the page gives links to details for each event).

The mid-week event was hosted by an Llandrillo FE College and was well attended by college staff, nearby secondary school teachers and some Local Authority IT staff. The organisers, NGfL Cymru and RSC Wales provided a live webcast for those who preferred the comfort of their own laptop (and recorded clips of each presentation). There were 15 micro presentations (7 mins each) and 3 nano presentations (2 mins each) and a rather nice buffet half way through (see here for details). All presenters spoke with knowledge and enthusiasm for their topic. I learnt something from almost every presentation and I will highlight those bits over the next few months. Today though, I will mention 3 topics that seemed to connect with me more than the others:

• Questioning (David Morris) – Most teachers are aware of closed and open type questions but the message here was to get students to ask the questions rather than the teachers as a way to encourage curiosity.
• Wordwall (Josh Smith) – I’ve investigated a number of voting systems over the years and most are variations on a basic theme. The handsets shown and the presentation software represent a completely new approach to collecting feedback. Shows huge potential!
• Digital Leaders (Allan Heard) – It’s really interesting to see how pupils will respond when you give them some status and a purpose.

The whole evening was extremely well planned and executed although I would have welcomed some more time for questions and networking, a very professional event.

And there lies my reservation; professional.

The first TeachMeet I attended was very informal, more like the original format but it turned out rather chaotic because there were too many people. Reading

TGIFIain Hallahan’s blog further (http://h-blog.me.uk/?p=225) there are fundamentalist stirrings at the moment that explain my reluctance to endorse the approach whole heartedly.  There seems to be a desire to get back to more informal smaller gatherings that mix the social and the professional in more equal balance. I look forward to future TeachMeets that are more ‘a chat with friends’ than a ‘professional conference’.

Teachers Shouldn't Have Friends

When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of time after school hanging around various bus stop shelters* with my friends 'being social'. If one of our teachers started hanging around with us we would have reacted quite strongly (or being the polite young man I was, we would probably have just gone somewhere else :-^).

Teachers 'Friending' students is the digital equivalent.

Now as a teacher, advice was given by my organisation a few years ago stating clearly that 'Friending' is inappropriate.
A few teachers from one of the departments wanted to know recently how to 'quickly' unfriend people because of the details/photos that they were starting to see about their students.

TEACHERS SHOULDN'T HAVE STUDENTS

AS FACEBOOK FRIENDS

The whole issue of why a teacher should want to use Facebook for educational purposes in the first place will be the topic for another Friday.

By coincidence, the Guardian published an article (Teachers warned over befriending pupils on Facebook) a few days later. Communication is a slippery sucker:

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said,

but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. 

Sometimes it's better not to say anything in certain surroundings!!

TGIF

*I'm glad to report that as I've got older the bus stop thing has changed (hmmm).