Over the past 4 years I’ve used several different platforms for classroom websites including wikispaces, wordpress and moodle. They each have strengths and weaknesses, and they all have one thing in common: it takes a lot of work to keep them updated throughout the year. By the end of this year I was taxed out and unsure if I was willing to continue with class websites, the reason being that I wasn’t convinced that my students really used them very much.
One of the most intriguing aspects of using technology in the classroom is the concept of blended learning. Blended learning, loosely stated, is a model where students are involved in a mix of distance/remote instruction combined with face-to-face (f2f) instruction. I think in many ways blended learning epitomizes some of the ideas behind 21st Century Learning. Obviously the infusion of technology is one area, but I consider the technology angle to be more of an enablement of the other concepts in 21st Century Learning.
Building a Moodle course site was just the type of activity and motivation I’ve been looking for, for many different reasons. First of all, I’ve been interested in Moodle since around February of 2010. I went as far as installing a Moodle site on my hosted domain and tried playing with it. Other than creating a couple of course titles and inserting a forum activity, I did not get very far.
As part of my development plan to engage and enhance student learning in the math and sciences, I would like to implement an online Learning Management System (LMS) to integrate with the subjects that I am teaching. The purpose of using an LMS is to achieve three primary goals. First, I would like to increase the frequency of on-topic course discussions, both student to student and student to teacher. Secondly, I plan on delivering lessons integrated with multimedia, and third, I will be incorporating some engaging Assessment for Learning techniques through the use of the LMS.
I’m always interested in ways that technology can be expanded, and one of the big areas for all types of tech is the expansion of mobile computing; therefore, I set out to see what options are available for a mobile Moodle.
A few google searches didn’t reveal a lot. There seemed to be a couple of apps that were aimed at making a mobile moodle solution but it wasn’t clear as to the maturity of these solutions of if they were even being actively developed.
