Moodle for Teachers and Moodle's Dynamic Dimensions

As I have reflected, and more succinctly, incubated with my reflections these past few weeks, I have come to more fully realize and appreciate what an amazing and rare opportunity this has been. Those of us in the Moodle for Teachers Workshops have had the opportunity to accumulate and articulate a wealth of tips, techniques and tintinnabulations of blended learning methodologies.

From my personal perspective, I have accumulated unrivaled riches in the collaborations and connections that evolved throughout the three month learning journey. Social constructivism is alive and thriving in this community of learning facilitators and learners ... beyond the Moodle constructivist learning platform.

A wealth of research and application resources are contained in one compendium (glossary) that also includes explicit how-to videos, discussions and hands-on explorations ... at no cost to the curious and creative consumer. The list is growing daily as Alumni continue their collaborations and research journeys and contribute their findings for all to add to their own compendiums.

A team of amazingly patient and supportive facilitators have made the often frustrating learning journey a joyful and fun challenge. Their encouraging applause as we reached our goals helped us to reach ever further in our quests for learning new techniques and technologies.

My heartfelt thanks to all of the facilitators and colleagues who joined the journey ... while we have reached most of our immediate and current goals, journey has only just begun and the creative collaborations and contributions continue into the future ...

ToolTime Testing

Google Docs rocks!  and Authorstream makes it potently portable

Having created my record of my SL Journey in Google Docs,  it has now been published in a more portable package.  I now have another notch on my Web 2.0 Toolbelt

This is my Swan Dive on this collaborative project.
Thanks to all for their support and patience.

Couki Carol's SL Journeys

Journey to Second Life

Mark Twain said that travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrowmindedness ~ and I love to travel !!

 This is a portion of my M4T-A adventures in travel to Second Life. Take a wee bit of time and travel to Virtual Reality for some not-so-virtual learning opportunities ~

and here but one of the travell images for a visual preview ... I will follow a tad later with a film version ... moving pictures so you do not have to do the work ~

Glen Gatn invited us to build our presentation in the sandbox outside of Conviviality Corners.

Regression for Progress as a Learning Endeavor

Progress in Play: Glen made the beautiful colored cubes; Sam made the comfortable chair to sit in; we engaged in SL Sandbox  play and found so much more than we anticipated.  We laughed and learned ~ Ludmila, Carol, Silvia

See Sam's Chair; listen to and watch Carol and Silvia's book review in  Second Life

Have I mentioned that learning can be, yea, should be fun? Have I mentioned that as children we learned so much while having fun at play? Have I ... well, yes ... and rather than repeat the joy of learning in mere words, I have pictures ... from a few fun days of play in Second Life.  Thanks to Glen Gatin's masterful guided tours  in SL we have been able to present some Moodle Moments in the SL Sandbox associated with Glen's education enterprise through Conviviality Corners (love the moniker)

Glen, Ludmila, Carol, Magda, Sam and Silvia of M4T-A via IT4ALL in Second Life

Life is our Learning Laboratory

During our formative years, it is our guardians (usually parents) and siblings that are our "models". Our surroundings and experiences are all parts of the learning process . It is during these times that our willingness to explore , to discover connections with the worlds around us and foster our risk taking and creative abilities flourish.

And then ... the academic institution generally takes over and the process of "conformity" and reduction to more extensive elimination of creative exploration starts. By the time we are in our teens, and beyond, most of us have lost the enthusiasm and willingness to follow creative paths; have lost the abilities to find joy in new discoveries of the familiar; to have fun learning. We have been driven to conform ; to be controlled by social, academic and business structures.

Second Life is an opportunity to return to a more carefree, joyful, and less conformity driven life experience (although many choose to drag all the baggage with them anyway). We are free to explore, discover, create new personnas and businesses and redefine how we become knowledgeable and "educated". Second Life offers us a brand new laboratory for life.

Can Moodle support learners acquiring an "institution free" education? That depends upon the Moodlers and whether they use the tools and philosophies as an outgrowth of prior learning about teaching and learning, or, if we are willing to take risks and go where most others have not dared to go before. Moodlers have the opportunity to open education to creative exploration and discovery. Will we accept that challenge ? Or, will we return to those paths that many have come to know and be accepted by the rules and expectations of prior institutions of education.

My hope is that enough Moodlers will continue to explore, make new discoveries and add to the sense of learning as fun while we all play in the sandbox of Second Life

Thank you Glen for opening the doors and sending us out to play

Now, what might be all the ways that we can contribute to making learning fun again ?

Moodle, Life and Learning ...

1. What does "Education" mean nowadays? What are challenges and perspectives for the future of education?
SUNY Empire State College’s dedicated faculty and staff use innovative, alternative and flexible approaches to higher education that transform people and communities by providing rigorous programs that connect individuals’ unique and diverse lives to their personal learning goals.
2. What does "a learning environment" mean to you? How is a Learning Environment in Moodle different from other educational settings?
3. What is your experience with creating a Learning environment for Moodle users? Outside Moodle?
4. Suggest your ideas for creating a framework for the course design that reflect the benefits of Moodle pedagogy.
5. Create a podcast using one of your answers.

What is Education podcast ...

Podcast

Never to late to learn ... more moodle musings

1. What does "Education" mean nowadays? What are challenges and perspectives for the future of education?

In today’s society, education appears to mean being able to pass tests and/or get grades to show that you know something. It does not necessarily mean that you understand what you know, or that you know what you need to know. Nor does it mean that you can appropriately apply what you know in a useful way that benefits your self and society

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As the world of technology and commerce, global enterprises and climate changes speed up the number of changes in an ever increasingly vast pool of innovations, societies are ill equipped to adjust and progress with the changes.

In order to survive and thrive with change we need to change our understanding of education and the adaptive, collaborative and innovative skills that we will continue to need.

Memorization and regurgitation will no longer serve our needs as they may have in the past. Although, truth be told from my perspective, this was never an “education”; it was merely a control mechanism and a way to “rank” people in a society. It may even have bordered on an educational “caste” system that benefitted a minority.

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2. What does "a learning environment" mean to you? How is a Learning Environment in Moodle different from other educational settings?

My answer to this is brief: a learning environment is life itself and all that life entails. Mooodle has the capacity to tap into a more organic method of learning that resembles the investif=gations and discoveries we encounter as we live our lives. Success is measured by more interesting questions and more involved adventures, not by a raw test score … at least this is my hope.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness" ... Mark Twain

and this means all sorts of travel for me ... physical and mental

3. What is your experience with creating a Learning environment for Moodle users? Outside Moodle?

My experience creating a learning environment within Moodle has been limited to the course assignments. I am a rank newbie.

My experience outside of Moodle encompasses several formal LMS within which I have attempted to “break the barriers” of the traditional learning models with more social constructive learning techniques. Blogs, wikis, puzzles, You Tube, Facebook, LinkedIn and forums have been staples in my “toolkit”.

4. Suggest your ideas for creating a framework for the course design that reflect the benefits of Moodle pedagogy.

I have no specific ideas at the moment, and a lot of potentials explorations and discoveries to follow as I move forward. As a newbie, and as an older educational facilitator/mentor, I am aware of the value and necessity of incubation time. For now, I am immersing myself, as much as time allows, in the process of learning the LMS and additional web 2.0 tools with mini-presentations that resemble some course development.

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" ... is my personal motto of the moment!

PS PODCAST

Creativity and Moodle

"Creativity is the type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual" ... Arthur Koestler

What do I mean by creativity in the case of this course?  In the case of my goals for Moodle Management  in the advanced sessions M4T I would like to apply my background of course development in a new, and different LMS,  as well as to learn and apply some additional new education methodologies.  In order to effect the Moodle constructivist learning model,  I am sorting through what I have needed to unlearn, learn and relearn.  Alvin Toffler wrote in the 70's that these would be the skills for literacy in the 21st century.  As a  lifelong learner (of already many years ~ read that as many, many years), new learning has been a serious and fun quest, and sharing the new learning has been a continuous and enjoyable endeavor.  As an educational entrepreneur,  I am always in a state of flow with creative learning approaches and facilitating endeavors.

 

With this final  Moodle course ~ in the  M4T series my initial goal is to design several modules illustrating a variety of adoption/adaption potentials for a variety of end users: not for profit, business, education, global collaboration (to mention a few) using multiple learning style modes for the enjoyment of having fun learning.  Building and then applying skills of new learning seems to me to be one of the most rewarding and memorable life endeavors. Collaborating and sharing the learning is a constant flow of changing and growing.  

I look forward to learning with and from the cohort in M4T now, as well as into the future.  I hope to be able to develop more "new learning"  and collaborate and share on a global stage, within and beyond  my multiple academic community associations.

As a post script:   the unit of SUNY (State University of New York) with which I have been  associated is ESC (Empire State College).  

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Team Logo and Business Card 2.0

We collaborated using gmail, Skype and mental musings re: design and copy.  The final products were created via Wordle and CS5.

Global Communication: Moodle with Carol and Silvia