Lies, damn lies, and Moodle Stats!

ULCC Moodle Blogger was busying away at a number of conferences over the last week - I'm afraid very little to report back on. However, one bright spot on what was a rather dull and uninteresting week was a discussion sparked by a presentation I gave at a recent LMN event. Chaired by John Stone, CEO of LSN, and held at the University of Westminster, it was entitled E-Learning Strategies: Assessing the Challenges. I spoke about how RSC London saw the key issues, under the following headings:

1. Developing e-Learning evenly across the organisation
2. Maximising benefits of existing investment
   
3. Integrated systems
4. Staff development
5. Quality Assuring e-Learning

As an experiment, I requested the assembled audience to SMS text my mobile phone what they considered to be their priority for achieving e-Maturity (Mobile Learning!?). For example, perhaps you have established e-Learning in all departments, but now need to focus on how to 'Quality Assure' what is going on, or identify how to integrate the VLE with your CIS and have fully interoperable e-ILP's, etc. Interestingly the results were evenly spread across 1-4, with most not feeling quite ready to take on the 'transformational' No. 5.

(ULCC Moodle Blogger requests that you fill out the Straw Poll so we can widen this example and tell me what you consider to be your next priority - opposite)

There was some interesting discussions that followed, with one in particular - how do we measure quality, or value for money, in our Moodle. I often hear of learning providers who boast of 300 plus courses, and hundred of thousands of registered users and, indeed, that is one way of measuring, but what about activity, or indeed, learning?

Training for Moodle

Last week ULCC Moodle Blogger was at the LSN delivering a newly designed Moodle Training session. It was a very successful day with universally good feedback (LSN mentioned that they will recommend ULCC as their primary Moodle training provider!). However, when reflecting on my own notes and that of the delegates in their evaluation form, it occurred to me that they support the concerns we have and still take lessons from:

1. Training shouldn't be in Isolation
To be effective, training has to be structured and fit within a development framework. For example, Moodle 'Drop-In' sessions may have some impact, but to be truly effective, e-Learning and Moodle has to be seen to be important and part of the Quality framework for teaching and learning.

2. Staff Development Strategy

Training should have a clear purpose to raise standards in teaching and learning. Why not think about providing some training on Effective PowerPoint USING Moodle. This means that you can have a series of training that engages teachers with e-Learning and using the learning platform.

3. Be 'fit for purpose'.

My experience is that, for most people, especially if they're new to Moodle, a whole day's training is too long. Try to organise that training is delivered in short manageable chunks, just as we would expect to deliver to students.

4. ‘Follow-up’ training should be clearly sign-posted

When undergoing Moodle training, delegates are motivated if they are shown where they will be going next, rather than just hanging in limbo where everything learned can be forgotten within a week or two.
5. Be ready to go

Using technology can be really frustrating for users, and especially those who aren't familiar with it. Be sure that everything you can do beforehand is done and ready to go, as creating accounts, fiddling with logins, and network issues will turn people off unless they are managed as part of the training.

6. Try to engage the teacher

Make the effort to design Moodle training for teachers - anyone can read what features are included from an online manual, but teachers are inspired by examples of what they can actually use them for. Ensure that everyone is clear about what the training is for (course design, course management, administration, etc.) and it’s what they want.

Another thing that really motivated our delegates was that they were enrolled as learners onto a course beforehand. This enabled them to bring their own real experiences to the training session which had an impact on how they approached the training.