Course Management at Earlham

Moodle has had a supremely successful roll out at Earlham in 04-05; over two semesters the system has been used by 60 faculty in 79 courses with over half the student body. This web-based presentation covers the adoption of the Moodle system by faculty, views on usability & pedagogy, how it was actually used in practice by both faculty and students, and conclusions and best practices. 34 'slides' onscreen or 17 pages of print.

We have some new timely user guides with details of how to handle last year's courses. Last year's courses are situated in the 2004-05 category in their divisional sub-category. To populate a current course with content from a previous year's course you'll need to backup the course, download it to your machine, and then restore it into this year's course located in your departmental category. In addition, you will need to conceal the course from last year's students before the beginning of the semester by unenrolling them (a 2 minute task).

Moodle best practices should help you to figure out the whys and wherefores of using Moodle with a course. In the dealing with Resources guide we talk about what consistutes a Moodle “resource”, the different ways that web pages can be referenced with Moodle (pros and cons of each), the importance of describing the resource thoroughly, different ways of displaying a resource and finally, the advantages of having a web URL as a resource rather than a direct link.

In the best practices: scanning guide we talk about the best ways to work with support staff such as secretaries and student workers when asking them to perform scanning tasks.

You should be able to find your way around the web site easily using the pull-down menus and the right hand Link box; the “crumbs” at the top of the page give an indication of where the page is located in the site.

If you have any difficulty finding a page that you think should be here or if you have any other comments about the design and especially the site navigation, please do email me.