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The
development of VLE Moodle activities for KS4
Chemistry |
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School: Leek
High School |
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Fellow: Peter Calder |
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Email: pacalder@btinternet.com |
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Interim report: |
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Introduction |
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Moodle (1) is a free learning
management system developed by M.Dougimas (2) that enables one to create powerful, flexible
and engaging learning experiences. Like most
virtual learning environments (VLE's), it make
extensive use of the Internet, with features
such as automated testing procedures (3) discussion
forums (4) Wikis (5), and student
tracking using the grade book (6). |
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Moodle focuses in on a pedagogy of social
constructionism (7) based on the ideas of: |
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Constructivism -
where people actively construct new knowledge
as they interact with their environment. |
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Constructionism -
where learning is particularly effective
when constructing something for others
to experience. |
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Social constructivism -
where people work collaborately to share
ideas and meaning of new knowledge, |
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Reflection - where
the knowledge base is critically evaluated. |
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Using Moodle enables the teacher to change
their role from a knowledge source to that of
facilitation and the learner learns through a
hands on dialogue with resource material (via
feedback as in the multiple choice and
lesson activities) and through peer interaction
(using the forum and Wiki activities).
Thus it is proposed that research be centred
around: |
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* self assessment procedures using a modularised
multiple choice format . On completion of the
assessment session students get immediate feedback.
* Use of the lesson activity where interactive
information is presented to students. On appraisal
of this information students understanding is
then tested using a variety of assessment procedures
(multiple choice, short answer and true false
questions.) Feedback is immediate and students
are given the opportunity to correct their mistakes.
In order to maintain student motivation one needs
to investigate the style of the initial information
source (visual, pictorial or verbal), the length
of the information source and the type of assessment
procedures.
*Student use of a forum. This is where students
are expected to present a question or misconception
which can be discussed by other members of the
forum. Possible answers are then discussed by
the group with some kind of agreement being realised.
The problem with this type of knowledge production
is that many students lurk and many contribute
in an immature inappropriate way. This activity
will only be attempted when students have had
considerable experience using Moodle.
*Use of a Wiki activity where students contribute
to the development of a constructed knowledge
base. Problems inherent with this are similar
to the use of the student forum. |
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The Participants |
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At the current time I am working
with a class of 14 year 11 high ability students
who are taking separate Science GCSE's in Biology,
Chemistry and Physics. Their timetable is 9 lessons
a fortnight of which 1 so far is based in the
computer room. As the demands of their GCSE exams
become greater much of the evaluative work will
be carried out by year 9 students who started
module 1 during November 2007. |
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What has been done, achieved and found
out so far |
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The 4 things I have been looking at were: |
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| a) |
the use of multiple choice
questioning |
b) |
the use of the Moodle
lesson activity |
| c) |
The use of student forums |
d) |
the use of wikis |
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a) The use of multiple choice questioning |
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This has been quite successful. 32 sets of
questions (each consisting of 10 questions with
a 4 response answer) covering all the topics
in the Gateway Chemistry Additional and Core
Modules have been completed. I hope to develop
these and produce a CD Rom so that other teachers
can use them. They will be produced in Word and
Moodle format so that teachers can adapt them
to their needs.
The MC Questions also provide automatic feedback
indicating whether the answer is correct or not. As
each question set is trialled it will be possible
to look at the data analysis for each multiple
question in terms of difficulty and discrimination. Each
set of questions took around 2 hours to construct. |
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b) The use of the Moodle
lesson activity |
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The second phase was to produce lesson activities
where the students interact with the lesson activity
then answer questions. This has proved to be
far more difficult than I had imagined. The key
to successful Moodle lesson activities is the
use of interactivity - students must be
engaged and must get something out of the process.
I had originally hoped to employ someone to write
Flash interactive questions but the logistics
of having to cope with LEA regulations and employment
laws made this impossible - I could not pay someone
a sum of money unless they were registered as
a consultant which my collaborator, a student
in his final year at University, was not. |
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c) The use of student forums |
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Forums have been used by our Year
11 students and have been reasonably successful but
they need to be far more structured to have any
educational merit. They have taken place during
lesson time and students have found them useful
but they have not sustained critical usage for
any real learning to go on. |
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d) The use of wikis |
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The use of Wikis has been a disaster - I have
found them hard to use being difficult to set
up - not something that has been useful. |
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Changes in the original plan and reasons
for the changes |
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As mentioned above the production
of Flash interactive questions has proved to
be too difficult and time consuming. Employing
a writer was, in the end, not a feasible proposition.
Interactivity of material is being pursued on
3 fronts: |
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a) Use of Interactive powerpoint presentations
b) Use of Adobe Captivate software - designed
to produce interactive Flash material.
c) Use of video film and Sun applets embedded
in the material. |
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| a) |
Use
of Interactive powerpoint presentations |
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As a source of guidance I am looking at the
interactive power point materials produced by
iteach (8) - an education consortium between
Hibernia college - Dublin and Canterbury Christ
Church University ( solely on line) - the guidelines
they have developed are based on good educational
practice devised by educationalists at MIT so
I intend to develop materials using this format. |
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| b) |
Use
of Adobe Captivate software -
Designed to produce interactive Flash
material this has been bought and will
be trialled out over the next few months. |
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| c) |
Use
of video film (9), Jmols (10) and
Sun applets (11) embedded
in the material. |
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Appropriate video representations together
with use of molecular formulae in the Jmol format
and interactive material in the form of Sun
applets have been collected and will be used
embedded as part of the interactive material. |
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Personal reflections |
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What I am trying to do with Moodle is far too
ambitious. The development of the interactive
material has taken far more time than expected
and there is very little in the literature that
I have found to give me any guidance on what
is the best, most appropriate method.
The multiple choice questions that have been
developed are mainly knowledge based and little
use, as yet has been made of any interactivity
in terms of student interaction that could be
used. To develop these I need to make more use
of video, animations using Sun applets and Jmol
representations of molecular formulae. These
can be embedded into the Moodle framework.
The Moodle lesson activities constructed so far
are too extensive - they need to be shortened
and contain less material. The forums used have
been useful but could be developed more whilst
the wikis have been un-useful, difficult to construct
and devise. I feel that although the idea behind
Moodle is an excellent one the learning curves
required to ensure that staff and students use
it to its full extent are not likely to be realised
by practitioners in the field. |
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The future |
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In the next 5 months I would like to focus
on two aspects of the project - i.e multiple
choice questions and Moodle interactive
lesson activities. I intend to: |
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(a) Improve the interactivity of the multiple
choice questions.
(b) produce multiple choice questions in a format
that can be easily used by a VLE such as Moodle
and by a text processer such as Word.
(c) develop interactive Moodle lesson activities
that follow a series of guidelines based on good
practice.
(d) produce all these materials on an open access
server running Moodle
Continue trialling and developing these materials
with year 9 students and obtain feedback about
the use of multiple choice questions and lessons
by the end of the year from both year 9 and 11
students. |
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Evaluation of the materials used |
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As year 11 students have been
involved in the use of Moodle for sometime their
impressions of the whole exercise will be evaluated
later on in the year.
However, when asked students enjoyed answering
the multiple choice questions and many stated
that the feedback supplied where their response
answer has been wrong has been useful.
Incoming year 9 students were asked for their
computer experiences at their previous middle
school. This was carried out using the questionnaire
module on Moodle. They will later on in the year
be asked for their impressions of Moodle together
with the use of multiple choice questions and
lessons.
Staff response to Moodle has been mixed. Only
2 departments (Science and ICT) have used it
to any degree but there is an Inservice session
run by these 2 departments on Moodle later on
in the year |
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Overall Summary |
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Overall the project has been very challenging.
The development of the multiple choice questions
with feedback have been relatively easy. The
main difficulty has been developing interactive
Moodle lesson activities by using appropriate
guidelines which have been hard to establish.
A lot of the work is trial and error and as such
has taken up much time. An enjoyable but exasperating
project with no easy answers. |
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References (all sighted Jan
7th 2008) |
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