Mount Orange School part 2

So, I am finally heading over to  ‘Society & Environment Office.’ I do not profess to be knowledgeable about the topic, so it should be fun.

The first impressive option is to dock blocks. Peronally, I would move all the blocks to the dock, to provide a full page, but more important is the flexibility to chose what you dock and what you don’t! Next, the events block and calendar are clear and search options provided are a quick exits to new knowledge. Nice touch.

The look of this course is fine, but a course page can be quickly improved by the use of image labels. I might offer this suggestion to Moodle HQ or Mount Orange Moodle Admin Tomaz Lasic.

I really like the progress ‘tick,’ option. These instantly communicate to students what they have / have yet to complete, I am sure this will eventually tie in with the conditional activities rather well. As an aside, I have been using the Certificate option in Moodle 1.99 and students are completing additional course quizzes in an effort to collect their certificate.

So here is the litmus test. I have tried to use the Workshop activity last year and there is no doubt it has huge learning potential, however it was a real challenge to set up. I used it to successful set, peer review and grade a Multi-Media Powerpoint but the time invested to learning ratio was a little disappointed. I have high hopes for the Workshop in Moodle 2.

Having just spent 20 minutes setting up a Workshop activity, it is clear the creation process has been much improved, whilst the teaching process is now streamlined and structured. With the component parts of the Workshop ‘unfolding’ in a logically order. All that is left to uncover is the learner experience. IMHO very encouraging.

Sadly, I created my Workshop activity in ‘Society and Environment Office,’ an error on my part! I later realised that this was in fact a staff area. As a result, I am not going to be able to access the activity from a students viewpoint. Again would labels or icons help direct users? For example, backpacks for students and briefcases for teachers?

What I learnt / evaluated in the creation process was the new editor, the upload options (although I couldn’t upload an image file) I did manage to embed an environmental disaster image via Flickr and I did review the media options. Quick and easy. Second, I am looking forward to accessing locally stored files.

The final feature I really liked was that by hovering over the settings tab on the dockable area, your page or activity options appear. A simple but very useful option, just one of many simple navigation improvements.

One feature I intend to learn more about is the portfolio option. According to Moodle.org

Modules can now export their data to external systems, particularly useful for portfolios where snapshots of forums, assignments and other things in Moodle are useful to record in a journal or a portfolio of evidence.

Definitely one to watch. The (e)-portfolio is a much dicussed / confused topic and if we intend to offer any type of portfolio to our staff and students at our school, I want to make sure we make an informed decision.

This is only my view of the Mount Orange School Test Site, but all the Moodle 2 notes are available here.