Agenda+September+10

September 10th Oodles of Moodles tag with 'show_5', please


 * Intro:** (1min) [Durff talks] Welcome to It's Elementary Show Five -- Oodles of Moodles We are streaming live on the EdTechTalk Channel of the Worldbridges network. This is Lisa Durff, a K12 teacher in Maryland, AND Jose Rodriguez, third grade teacher in Los Angeles CA, AND Alice Mercer, a Computer Lab teacher in Sacramento, CA, AND Maria Knee a Kindergarten teacher from Deerfield, NH with our guest James Gates

[Alice interviews guest] Why should you use moodle in the classroom? Why should one create a virtual learning community?
 * Reasons to use that technology in the elementary classroom**

Our Guest James Gates gives us introduction and background work. Then goes into slideshare.

Guest: James Gates - [|http://www.slideshare.net/jgates513/moodle-for-elementary-grades/1] talks about
 * obviously extends the classroom, but it also...
 * provides a space where the KIDS can contribute
 * will discuss my favorite features like:
 * the glossary and random glossary entry block and various examples of its use
 * the wikis and various uses
 * the automatic linking of glossary and wiki words throughout the class and what that does to motivate kids
 * the various assignment types (online text assignment has lots of potential for writing prompts, etc)
 * discussion forums
 * FAR more than the old frontpage-made teacher pages
 * podcasting module
 * ability to embed objects from various web 2.0 sites like slideshare and splashcast, etc
 * ability to include rss feeds in a block
 * a blog (still not very good for real blogging but good for note-taking, etc) has variety of visibility levels
 * Not keen on gradebook or quizzes
 * they promote true/false and m/c questions, for one
 * not a very friendly gradebook, for two
 * kids WANT to have something to do!!
 * Moodle is a **playground** for YOUR content!
 * Some teachers give kids fake names in moodle so they feel freer to contribute
 * traditional features such as ability to post links, give assignments where students must submit a file, etc
 * VERY easy to use!


 * Opportunities and barriers** to effective implementation or sustainability (roundtable discussion; Jim Gates, Alice, Maria, Jose)
 * you need someone who isn't afraid of open source to install it on a server
 * globalclassroomusa offers free moodle classes
 * it runs BEST on linux, though it's fine on windows
 * it's tough to get teachers out of the "frontpage" mode to allow for student input
 * ex. teachers afraid of wikis since it's possible that a student could trash another's page - in SPITE of the history...
 * EASY to sustain. the only cost is in manhours for installing upgrades, etc, although they are EASY to do.
 * Right now we're having issues with IE7.
 * http://learningandlaptops.blogspot.com/
 * http://globalclassroom.us - get a FREE Moodle
 * Review and wrap up

Outtro** (Maria Talks) This has been It's Elementary. Show **Five** -- Oodles of Moodles thank you for coming. Special thanks to our special guest James Gates. Thanks to Jeff Lebow and Dave Cormier and all the edtechtalk community for your support. This has been Maria Knee, Lisa Durff, Jose Rodriguez, Alice Mercer webcasting live on the edtechtalk channel of the worldbridges network discussing Moodle. Our next show will be September 24. Our guest will be John Pederson and we'll be talking about Social Networking. You can check out episodes, leave comments, and find out what's going on at our blog: itselementary [dot] edublogs [dot] org. Thank you for being here. Good Night!