I volunteered for what -tine called “Making the document live.” It involved going through all the materials and figuring out how to organize them. Putting them into segments or units. I had looked at the materials, and it seemed straightforward, but then I got stuck. I had thought up a framework, like a journalists “who, what, where, and when”. And that seemed to make sense for the kind of tasks that needed to be done, but trying to apply that structure to the materials just didn’t seem to work. I struggled with it for awhile, and then went with more of a unit structure. In hindsight, I should have just started putting things on Moodle and then shifted them around to the places they best seemed to fit. I think it would have worked better, because during my time of being stuck, I created 3 or 4 different Word documents, all with a slightly different organization scheme. After copying and pasting materials back and forth, I began to really lose track of what was what.
I hadn’t used Moodle before. Well, of course, as a student, I used the Moodle interface, but I hadn’t done any development in Moodle. So I was hesitant to start putting things on until I felt they were correctly organized.
But I found out that Moodle was just too easy. It naturally deals with segmented information. With parts and pieces. With pictures, and files, and links. Next time, I think I’ll just start throwing everything on there and move it around to make sense of it. Of course, you should start with some sort of basic order, but all the fretting I did was probably unnecessary.
Bottom line. I love Moodle. I have been using Tapped In in my classes. It provides a place to post some files, a chat function, and discussion forums. But I also use a wiki for some classes. And Google docs for a class calendar. Too many different things. Too many different places. I love that Moodle puts it all together in such an easy to use environment. I found- and signed up for- a Moodle server, and now I have my own online classes. So far, the students I have introduced it to love it. And so far, I love it. Woo hoo!
