Happy Birthday Moodle, now what about these growing pains you’ve got?

Happy Birthday!

Our Moodle is almost 10 years old. Inspired by a presentation from Wildern School we submitted a proposal to our Leadership team and in the April of 2004 Sean Keogh, then of Pteppic.net, installed our server and Moodle came to Perins.

Two years later, Mahara appeared and was then swiftly followed by our 1-1 notebook (now eLearning) scheme.

With our eLearning thinking it is quite grown up, rapidly approaching the tricky teens and under some pressure from its peers I thought it was time to look at it from a different perspective.

The presentation below was part of our regular 10 minute CPD to staff. It was given as we begin of the development of the next three year strategic plan and before an INSET Day where we consider, amongst other things, the role of eLearning.

[Best watched in new window by clicking the right hand icon and using the spacebar]

Some mildly controversial points….

Going for Gold….

The heady days of Daytime TV and extended lunches while “preparing” for a lecture or delaying a visit to the Physics Labs to get on with my (failing) project.

To paraphrase the show (and Henry Kelly), the “heat is on” to produce some ideas and guidance for the Senior Leadership Team as to where we take eLearning over the next three years.

Quite rightly the leadership team looks for direction in eLearning from the Director of eLearning (me!). In the 8 or so years I have been in this role it is clearer than ever that wider success can only be achieved when staff understand what eLearning is in terms of their:

• Pedagogy
• Andragogy (thanks Andy!)
• Subject knowledge and delivery
• Role outside of a lesson.

Going for Gold inadvertently led me to the idea of producing a planning document that gave the team options as to the degrees of approach we could take as a school. In the document I also gave some suggestions as to their priority and a possible timescale.

The areas I looked at were:

• Staff training and CPD
• Lesson Observations
• Reporting and management
• Department development planning
• Monitoring of devices

In addition, mainly for reference, I  looked at two separate but linked areas which were Roles & Responsibilities and Photocopying & Printing!!

The model was designed in the form of a rubric which seems to be quite a popular model. Its aim was to promote reflection, debate and discussion.

In my opinion, the development of any elearning strategy needs to address such issues before targets such as “50% use of notebooks in lessons” or “everyone develops a Mahara page as part of their learning” can be considered (or even avoided as this does not directly deal with issues of impact, progress and learning!)

Below is a snapshot of the area that deals with Roles and Responsibilities

Creating a vision for eLearning

The vision for elearning and digital devices  started out as 10 bullet points that were meant to summarise my thoughts and beliefs as to what I hoped you would see at my school by 2016 (to coincide with a new three year strategic plan).

When a colleague sent me a vision of a school he was applying to for an elearning role I was intrigued to see them develop this to include what the vision would mean to every “stakeholder” (rubbish word I know).

Currently at v3, the draft is a combines 10 key points with responsibilities (and rights) of:

• Senior Leadership team
• Students
• Teaching staff
• Support staff
• Team Leaders (Heads of Department)
• IT Service Team
• Parents

Link to pdf file: http://1drv.ms/1cS8bCi

Moodle 2.6 for Teachers: An Illustrated Guide. eBook: Mark Rollins:

See on Scoop.it – Moodle and Mahara

Moodle 2.6 for Teachers:-An Illustrated Guide. – Kindle edition by Mark Rollins. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets.

See on www.amazon.com

Mark does lots of excellent and often free stuff on Moodle and eLearning. His website/blog is highly recommended and covers all manner of features from strategic deployment of elearning to pedagogy changes and how to get started videos. Find it at http://muppetmasteruk.wordpress.com

He also does some highly recommended consultancy through his website http://e-teachuk.net

Mark also uses ScoopIT where he posts some super resources: http://www.scoop.it/t/e-learning-and-technology