LEO user guide
Here are three general tips that will help you get started. 1. Don't be afraid to experiment: feel free to poke around and change things. It's hard to break anything in a Moodle course, and even if you do it's usually easy to fix it. 2. Notice and use these little icons: - the edit icon lets you edit whatever it is next to. - the help icon will provide you with a popup help window - the open-eye icon will let you hide something from students - the closed-eye icon will make a hidden item available 3. Use the navigation bar at the top of each page this should help remind you where you are and prevent getting lost. The first thing you should do is look under the "Administration" on your course home page and click on "Settings..." (Note that this link, and in fact the whole Administration section is only available to you (and the site administrator). Students will not even see these links). On the Settings page you can change a number of settings about your course, ranging from its name to what day it starts. I won't talk here about all these, as they all have a help icon next to them which explains them all in detail. However, I will talk about the most important of these - the course format.
Uploading files You may have existing content that you want to add to your course, such as web pages, audio files, video files, word documents, or flash animations. Any type of file that exists can be uploaded into your course and stored on the 1
server. While your files are on the server you can move, rename, edit or delete them. All of this is achieved through the Files link in your Administration menu. The Files section looks like this: This interface is only available to teachers - it is not accessible by students. Individual files are made available to students later on (as "Resources" - see the next section). As you can see in the screenshot, files are listed alongside subdirectories. You can create any number of subdirectories to organise your files and move your files from one to the other. Uploading files via the web is currently restricted to one file at a time. If you want to upload a lot of files at once (for example a whole web site), it can be a lot easier to use a zip program to compress them into a single file, upload the zip file and then unzip them again on the server (you will see an "unzip" link next to zip archives). To preview any file you have uploaded just click on its name. Your web browser will take care of either displaying it or downloading it to your computer. HTML and text files can be edited in-place online. Other files will need to be edited on your local computer and uploaded again. if you upload a file with the same name as an existing file it will automatically be overwritten. A final note: if your content resides out on the web then you don't need to upload the files at all - you can link directly to them from inside the course (see the Resources module and the next section). Setting up activities Building a course involves adding course activity modules to the main page in the order that students will be using them. You can shuffle the order any time you like. To turn on editing, click "Turn on editing" under Administration. This toggle switch shows or hides the extra controls that allow you to manipulate your main course page. Note in the first screenshot above (of the Weekly format course) that the editing controls are turned on. To add a new activity, simply go to the week or topic or section of the screen where you want to add it, and select the type of activity from the popup menu. Here is a 2
summary of all the standard activities in Moodle 1.0:
Assignment An assignment is where you set a task with a due date and a maximum grade. Students will be able to upload one file to satisify the requirements. The date they upload their file is recorded. Afterwards, you will have a single page on which you can view each file (and how late or early it is), and then record a grade and a comment. Half an hour after you grade any particular student, Moodle will automatically email that student a notification. Choice A choice activity is very simple - you ask a question and specify a choice of responses. Students can make their choice, and you have a report screen where you can see the results. I use it to gather research consent from my students, but you could use it for quick polls or class votes. Forum This module is by far the most important - it is here that discussion takes place. When you add a new forum, yu will presented with a choice of different types - a simple single-topic discussion, a free-for-all general forum, or a one-discussion-thread-per-user. Journal Each journal activity is an entry in the whole course journal. For each one you can specify an open-ended question that guides what students write, as well as a window of time in which the journal is open (weekly course format only). A general rule of thumb is to create one journal per week. Encourage students to write reflectively and critically in these journals, as they are only available to them and you. Afterwards, you will be able to grade and comment all the entries for that week or topic, and students will receive an automatic email informing them of your feedback. Journals are not designed to be continually added to - if you need to do that then add more journal activities. Resource Resources are the content of your course. Each resource can be any file you have uploaded or can point to using a URL. You can also maintain simple textbased pages by typing them directly into a form. Quiz This module allows you to design and set quiz tests, consisting of multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions. These questions are kept in a categorised database, and can be re-used within courses and even between courses. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts. Each attempt is automatically marked, and the teacher can choose whether to give feedback or to show correct answers. This module includes grading facilities. Survey The survey module provides a number of predefined survey instruments that are useful in evaluating and understanding your class. Currently they include the COLLES and the ATTLS instruments. They can be given to students early in 3
the course as a diagnostic tool and at the end of the course as an evaluation tool (I use one every week in my courses).
After adding your activities you can move them up and down in your course layout by clicking on the little arrow icons ( ) next to each one. You can also delete them using the cross icon , and re-edit them using the edit icon . Running the course There are some big plans to extend this document into a more comprehensive tutorial. Until then here are a few ideas: 1. Subscribe yourself to all the forums so you keep in touch with your class activity. 2. Encourage all the students fill out their user profile (including photos) and read them all - this will help provide some context to their later writings and help you to respond in ways that are tailored to their own needs. 3. Keep notes to yourself in the private "Teacher's Forum" (under Administration). This is especially useful when team teaching. 4. Use the "Logs" link (under Administration) to get access to complete, raw logs. In there you'll see a link to a popup window that updates every sixty seconds and shows the last hour of activity. This is useful to keep open on your desktop all day so you can feel in touch with what's going on in the course. 5. Use the "Activity Reports" (next to each name in the list of all people, or from any user profile page). These provide a great way to see what any particular person has been up to in the course. 6. Respond quickly to students. Don't leave it for later - do it right away. Not only is it easy to become overwhelmed with the volume that can be generated, but it's a crucial part of building and maintaining a community feel in your course.
Activity Modules Moodle contains a wide range of activity modules that can be used to build up any type of course. Assignments Assignments allow the teacher to specify a task that requires students to prepare digital content (any format) and submit it by uploading it to the server. Typical assignments include essays, projects, reports and so on. This module includes grading facilities. 4
Chats The Chat module allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion via the web. This is a useful way to get a different understanding of each other and the topic being discussed - the mode of using a chat room is quite different from the asynchronous forums. The Chat module contains a number of features for managing and reviewing chat discussions. Choices A choice activity is very simple - the teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses. It can be useful as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent. Exercise An Exercise is a simple but powerful assignment. In an exercise the teacher asks the students to do a piece of practical work. It could be writing an essay or a report, preparing a presentation, etc. When the student has done the task they must first self-assess their work before submitting it to the teacher. Once submitted the teacher assesses the piece of work itself. The teacher can give feedback to the student and ask the student to improve the work and re-submit it or not. The final grade is based on how well the student assessed their own work and the work itself. Forums This activity can be the most important - it is here that most discussion takes place. Forums can be structured in different ways, and can include peer rating of each posting. The postings can be viewed in a variety for formats, and can include attachments. By subscribing to a forum, participants will receive copies of each new posting in their email. A teacher can impose subscription on everyone if they want to. Glossary This activity allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary. The entries can be searched or browsed in many different formats. The glossary also allows teachers to export entries from one glossary to another (the main one) within the same course. Finally, it is possible to automatically create links to these entries from throughout the course. Hot Potatoes This module, the "HotPot" module, allows teachers to administer Hot Potatoes quizzes via Moodle. The quizzes are created on the teacher's computer and then uploaded to the Moodle course.
5
After students have attempted the quizzes, a number of reports are available which show how individual questions were answered and some statistical trends in the scores. Journals This module is a very important reflective activity. The teacher asks the student to reflect on a particular topic, and the student can edit and refine their answer over time. This answer is private and can only be seen by the teacher, who can offer feedback and a grade on each journal entry. It's usually a good idea to have about one Journal activity per week. Labels This is a not a true activity - it is a "dummy" activity that allows you to insert text and graphics among the other activities on the course page. Lesson A lesson delivers content in an interesting and flexible way. It consists of a number of pages. Each page normally ends with a question and a number of possible answers. Depending on the student's choice of answer they either progress to the next page or are taken back to a previous page. Navigation through the lesson can be straight forward or complex, depending largely on the structure of the material being presented. Quizzes This module allows the teacher to design and set quiz tests, consisting of multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions. These questions are kept in a categorised database, and can be re-used within courses and even between courses. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts. Each attempt is automatically marked, and the teacher can choose whether to give feedback or to show correct answers. This module includes grading facilities. Resources Resources are content: information the teacher wants to bring into the course. These can be prepared files uploaded to the course server; pages edited directly in Moodle; or external web pages made to appear part of this course. SCORM packages A SCORM package is a bundle of web content packaged in a way that follows the SCORM standard for learning objects. These packages can include web pages, graphics, Javascript programs, Flash presentations and anything else that works in web browsers. The SCORM module allows you to easily upload any standard SCORM package and make it part of your course. Surveys The Survey module provides a number of verified survey instruments that have been found useful in assessing and stimulating learning in online environments. Teachers can use these to gather data from their students that will help them learn about their class and reflect on their own teaching. 6
Wikis A Wiki enables documents to be authored collectively in a simple markup language using a web browser. "Wiki wiki" means "super fast" in the Hawaiian language, and it is the speed of creating and updating pages that is one of the defining aspects of wiki technology. Generally, there is no prior review before modifications are accepted, and most wikis are open to the general public or at least to all persons who also have access to the wiki server. The Moodle Wiki module enables participants to work together on web pages to add, expand and change the content. Old versions are never deleted and can be restored. This module is based on Erfurt Wiki. Workshop A Workshop is a peer assessment activity with a huge array of options. It allows participants to assess each other's projects, as well as exemplar projects, in a number of ways. It also coordinates the collection and distribution of these assessments in a variety of ways. The Workshop module is contributed by Ray Kingdon. Activity Reports Activity reports are available for each participant that show their activity in the current course. As well as listings of their contributions, these reports include detailed access logs. Teachers always have access to these reports, using the button visible on each persons's profile page. Student access to their own reports is controlled by the teacher via a course setting. For some courses these reports can be a useful tool for a student to reflect on their involvement and appearance within the online environment, but for some courses this may not be necessary. Another reason for turning it off is that the report can place a bit of load on the server while being generated. For large or long classes it may be more efficient to keep it off. Course availability This option allows you to "hide" your course completely. It will not appear on any course listings, except to teachers of the course and administrators. Even if students try to access the course URL directly, they will not be allowed to enter. Your Moodle administrator may have set up several course categories. For example, "Science", "Humanities", "Public Health" etc 7
Choose the one most applicable for your course. This choice will affect where your course is displayed on the course listing and may make it easier for students to find your course.
Course ID Number The ID number of a course is only used when matching this course against external systems - it is never displayed within Moodle. If you have an official code name for this course then use it here ... otherwise you can leave it blank. Course News Items A special forum called "News" appears in the "weekly" and "topics" course formats. It's a good place to post notices for all students to see. (By default, all students are subscribed to this forum, and will receive your notices by email.) This setting determines how many recent items appear on your course home page, in a news box down the right-hand side. If you set it to "0 news items" then the news box won't even appear. Course Number of Weeks/Topics This setting is only used by the 'weekly' and 'topics' course formats. In the 'weekly' format, it specifies the number of weeks that the course will run for, starting from the course starting date. In the 'topics' format, it specifies the number of topics in the course. Both of these translate to the number of "boxes" down the middle of the course page. Course short name Many institutions have a shorthand way of referring to a course, such as BP102 or COMMS. Even you don't already have such a name for your course, make one up here. It will be used in several places where the long name isn't appropriate (such us in the subject line of email). Course Start Date This is where you specify the starting time of the course (in your own timezone). If you are using a 'weekly' course format, this will affect the display of the weeks. The first week will start on the date you set here. This setting will not affect courses using the 'social' or 'topics' formats. However, one place this setting will be affect is the display of logs, which use this date as the earliest possible date you can display. In general, if your course does have a real starting date then it makes sense to set this date to that, no matter what course formats you are using. Course upload size This setting defines the largest size of file that can be uploaded by students in this course, limited by the site wide setting created by the administrator. It is possible to further restrict this size through settings within each activity module. Course Enrolment Key
8
A course enrolment key is what keeps unwanted people out of your course. If you leave this blank, then anyone who has created a Moodle username on this site will be able to enrol in your course simply by going in to it. If you put something here, then students who are trying to get in for the FIRST TIME ONLY will be asked to supply this word or phrase. The idea is that you will supply the key to authorised people using another means like private email, snail mail, on the phone or even verbally in a face to face class. If this password "gets out" and you have unwanted people enrolling, you can un-enrol them (see their user profile page) and change this key. Any legitimate students who have already enrolled will not be affected, but the unwanted people won't be able to get back in. Grades Many of the activities allow grades to be set. By default, the results of all grades within the course can be seen in the Grades page, available from the main course page. If a teacher is not interested in using grades in a course, or just wants to hide grades from students, then they can disable the display of grades in the Course Settings. This does not prevent individual activities from using or setting grades, it just disables the results being displayed to students. Group Mode The group mode can be one of three levels:
No groups - there are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community Separate groups - each group can only see their own group, others are invisible Visible groups - each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups
The group mode can be defined at two levels: 1. Course level The group mode defined at the course level is the default mode for all activities defined within that course 2. Activity level Each activity that supports groups can also define its own grouping mode. If the course is set to "force group mode" then the setting for each activity is ignored. Guest Access You have the choice of allowing "guests" into your course. People can log in as guests using the "Login as a guest" button on the login screen. Guests ALWAYS have "read-only" access meaning they can't leave any posts or otherwise mess up the course for real students. This can be handy when you want to let a colleague in to look around at your work, or to let students see a course before they have decided to enrol. Note that you have a choice between two types of guest access: with the enrolment key or without. If you choose to allow guests who have the key, then the guest will need to provide the current enrolment key EVERY TIME they log in (unlike students who only need to do it once). This lets you restrict your guests. If you choose to allow guests without a key, then anyone can get straight into your course.
9
Recent Activity Moodle can display "recent activity" on the course home page. This shows the everything that has happened in the course since the last time the viewer logged in to the course, including new posts, new users, submitted journals etc. It is highly recommended you leave this feature enabled in your courses, as it helps give a sense of activity in the course. Knowing what everyone else is doing also helps to promote a collaborative atmosphere in the class. You might want to disable this feature for extremely large or heavily used courses, as it may slow down the display of the course page. Scales Teachers can create new custom scales to be used in a course for any grading activities. The name of the scale should be a phrase that identifies it clearly: this will appear in scale-selection lists, as well as on context-sensitive help buttons. The scale itself is defined by an ordered list of values, ranging from negative to positive, separated by commas. For example: Disappointing, Not good enough, Average, Good, Very good, Excellent! Scales should also include a good description of what it means and how it is expected to be used. This description will appear in help pages for teachers and students. Finally, there may be one or more "Standard" scales defined on your site by the system administrator. These will be available in all courses. Topic/Week summaries The idea of a topic summary is a very short text to prepare students for the activities within this topic (or week). Each summary should be very short so that the course page doesn't become too long. If you find yourself wanting to say more than a sentence or two then consider adding a resource to this topic instead (for example, the first activity might be a page called About This Topic). Teachers This page shows the list of people who are assigned to be "teachers" in this course (by the system administrator). You can use this form to assign a role (title) to each person such as "Professor", "Tutor", "Assistant" and so on. These will appear on the site's course listing and also on the list of participants for your course. If you leave the role empty then the default word for teacher will be used (the one you set in the Course Settings page). You can also order this list (to put the main teacher at the top, for example). Simply select numbers from the menus in the "Order" column. After pressing "Save changes" you will see the new order. A special case occurs if you use select "Hide" for a teacher. In this case, the teacher will NOT BE SHOWN on the course listings or the list of participants. They will be "hidden" from students (unless they post messages to the forums etc). You can also choose whether a teacher should have editing rights on the course. Non-editing teachers could be thought of as course tutors. They are: 1. not able to change the structure of the course 2. not able to enroll or unenroll students 3. able to grade 10
4. able to facilitate within activities When assigned to a group, they are only able to perform task 3 and 4 with that group.
Uploading a picture You can upload a picture from your computer to this server, and this picture will be used in various places to represent you. For this reason, the best images to use are a close-up of your face, but you can use any image you like. The picture must be in JPG or PNG format (ie the names will usually end in .jpg or .png). You can get a picture file using one of four methods: 1. Using a digital camera, your photos will most likely already be on your computer in the right format. 2. You can use a scanner to scan a printed photograph. Make sure you save it as JPG or PNG format. 3. If you're artistic, you might draw a picture using a paint program. 4. Lastly, you can "steal" images from the web. http://images.google.com is a superb place to search for images. Once you find one, you can "right-click" on them with the mouse and choose "Save this image..." from the menu (different computers may vary slightly). To upload the image, click the "Browse" button on this editing page, and select the image from your hard disk. NOTE: Make sure that the file is not larger than the maximum size listed, or it will not be uploaded. Then click "Update my Profile" at the bottom - the image file will be cropped to a square and resized down to 100x100 pixels. When you are taken back to your profile page, the image might not appear to have changed. If this is so, just use the "Reload" button in your browser. Assignment Types There are a growing number of assignment types available: Offline activity This is useful when the assignment is performed outside of Moodle. It could be something elsewhere on the web or face-to-face. Students can see a description of the assignment, but can't upload files or anything. Grading works normally, and students will get notifications of their grades. Online text This assignment type asks users to edit a text, using the normal editing tools. Teachers can grade them online, and even add inline comments or changes. (If you are familiar with older versions of Moodle, this Assignment type does the same thing as the old Journal module used to do.) 11
Upload a single file This type of assignment allows each participant to upload a single file, of any type. This might be a Word processor document, or an image, a zipped web site, or anything you ask them to submit.
Comment inline If this option is selected, then the original submission will be copied into the feedback comment field during grading, making it easier to comment inline (using a different color, perhaps) or to edit the original text. Email alerts to teachers If enabled, then teachers are alerted with a short email whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Only teachers who are able to grade the particular submission are notified. So, for example, if the course uses separate groups, then teachers restricted to particular groups won't receive any notices about students in other groups. For offline activities, of course, mail is never sent since students never submit anything. Resubmitting assignments By default, students cannot resubmit assignments once the teacher has graded them If you turn this option on, then students will be allowed to resubmit assignments after they have been graded (for you to re-grade). This may be useful if the teacher wants to encourage students to do better work in an iterative process. Obviously, this option is not relevant for offline assignments. Using Chat The chat module contains some features to make chatting a little nicer. Smilies Any smiley faces (emoticons) that you can type elsewhere in Moodle can also be typed in here and they will be displayed correctly. For example, :-) = Links Internet addresses will be turned into links automatically. Emoting You can start a line with "/me" or ":" to emote. For example, if your name is Kim and you type ":laughs!" or "/me laughs!" then everyone will see "Kim laughs!" Beeps You can send a sound to other people by hitting the "beep" link next to their name. A useful shortcut to beep all the people in the chat at once is to type "beep all". HTML If you know some HTML code, you can use it in your text to do things like insert images, play sounds or create different coloured and sized text. Administration Page 12
This page allows the teacher to see the one or more descriptions for the Exercise, the student assessments and the student submissions. These items can be retitled, viewed or deleted by using the various links on the page. The page also shows which piece of works have been submitted after the deadline, that is those submitted late. The first table on this screen shows the teacher's submission(s). Normally there is only one. This is the description of the exercise, it will normally contain instructions on what work should be done. If the teacher has submitted more then one description they are listed here. Note that once the Exercise is underway these submissions should NOT be deleted. It is, however, safe to delete the teacher submissions while the Exercise is still in the Set Up phase. The second table shows the student's (initial) assessment of their own work. It shows the grade the student has given their work. If the teacher has assessed the work, this table will also contain the "grading grade" awarded to his assessment. This grade reflects how well the student's assessment agrees with the teacher's assessment. The student's assessment can be viewed. There is link on that page to change the grading grade should the teacher wish to do so. The third table lists the submissions and their grades if the teacher has assessed them. Submissions can be regraded or safely deleted. An asterisk (*) against a submission means that the student is allow to submit another piece of work. For a particular student, this option can be easily changed by simply re-assessing their submission and clicking on the appropriate button at the foot of the assessment page, the assessment itself need not be changed. Late work is shown with the date submitted in red. The late flag can be cleared by clicking on the link. Assessment Elements For ease of grading, a Exercise Assessment should have a reasonable number of "Assessment Elements". Each element should cover a particular aspect of the assessment. Typically an assessment will have something between 5 to 15 elements for comments and grading, the actual number depending on the size and complexity of the assignment. A peer assignment with only one element is allowed and has a similar assessment strategy to the standard Moodle Assignment. The type of elements dependent on the assignment's grading strategy. Not Graded. The elements are descriptions of aspects of the assignment. The assessor is asked to comment on each of these aspects. As with all the grading strategies, there is also an area for general comments. Accumulative Grading. The elements have the following three features: 1. The DESCRIPTION of the assessment element. This should clearly state what aspect of the assignment is being assessed. If the assessment is qualitative it is helpful to give details of what is considered excellent, average and poor. 2. The SCALE of the assessment element. There are a number of predefined scales. These range from simple Yes/No scales, through multipoint scales to a full percentage scale. Each element has its own scale which should be chosen to fit the number of possible variations for that element. Note that the scale does NOT determine the element's importance when calculating the overall grade, a two point 13
scale has the same "influence" as a 100 point scale if the respective elements have the same weight... If custom scales are set up in the course, these can be used. Note, however, that this type of scale is used as a multi-point scale and that only the first and last items of the scale are shown. For example, if the custom scale "Very Wet, Wet, Damp, Dry" is created in the course, this can be used and it will be shown as a four point scale labeled "Very Wet" at one end of the scale and "Dry" at the other. 3. The WEIGHT of the assessment element. By default the elements are given the same importance when calculating the overall grade of the assignment. Weights can be assigned negative values, this is an experimental feature. Error Banded Grading. The elements will normally describe certain items or aspects which must be present in the assignment. The assessment is made on the present or absence of these items or aspects. The teacher must all set of grade table which give the suggested grades when all the items are present, when one is absent, when two are absent, etc. If certain items are more important than others then those items can be given a weighting greater than one. Minor items can be given a weighting less than one. The overall "error count" is a weighted sum of the missing items. The assessor can always make a minor adjustment to these suggested grades. Criterion Grading. The elements will give a set of "level" statements which can be used to rank the assignment. The statements may be cumulative or they may each be self contained. The assessor must decide which statement best fits each piece of work. The teacher must also relate each criterion statement with a suggested grade. These should normally be in order. The assessor can make a minor adjustment to these suggested grades. Rubric Grading. This is similar to Criterion Grading but there is more than one criteria. The number of criteria is given in the assignment parameters. Within each criterion there can be up to five "level" statements. In a given assignment the number of levels can vary from criterion to criterion. When setting up a criterion a blank level statement signals the end of the level statements. Thus some criteria may have two levels, others have three, up to five levels. The criteria can be weighted. The levels are scored 0, 1, 2, up to 4. The grade for the assessment is a weighted sum of these scores. Comparison of Assessments In an exercise it is usual for a piece of work to be assessed twice. A student assesses their work before submitting it and the teacher then (re)assesses the work. The teacher's assessment uses the student's assessment as the starting point. An exercise allows the teacher to award a proportion of the grade to the student's assessment, the remainder of the grade is allocated to the teacher's assessment of the work. (The maximum grades for these are called "Grade for Student Assessments" and "Grade for Submissions" respectively.) Note that the grade from the student's assessment is not used. The student's assessment is given a grade based on how well it matches the teacher's assessment. The degree of agreement between the student's and teacher's assessment is based on the differences between the scores in individual elements (actually the squared differences are used). The mean of these differences must to converted into a meaningful grade. The "Comparison of Assessments" option allows the teacher a degree of control on how these comparisons are converted into grades. 14
To get some idea on what effect this option has, take the (fairly simple) case of an assessment which has ten Yes/No questions. For example the assessment might use questions like "Is the chart correctly formatted?", "Is the calculated profit $100.66?", etc. Assume there are ten such questions. When the "Very Lax" setting is chosen, prefect agreement between the student's and teacher's assessment gives a grade of 100%, if there is only one question which does not match the grade is 90%, two disagreements give a grade of 80%, three disagreements 70%, etc.. That might seem very reasonable and you might be thinking why is this option called a "Very Lax" comparison. Well, consider the case of a student doing a completely random assessment where the answers of the ten questions are simply guessed. On average this would result in five of the ten questions being matched. So the "monkey's" assessment would get a grade of around 50%. The situation gets a little more sensible with the "Lax" option, then the random assessment gets around 20%. When the "Fair" option is chosen, random guessing will result in a zero grade most of the time. At this level, a grade of 50% is given when the two assessments agree on eight questions of the ten. If three questions are in disagreement then the grade given is 25%. When the option is set to "Strict" having two questions out of sync gives a grade of 40%. Moving into the "Very Strict" territory a disagreement in just two questions drops the grade to 35% and having a single question in disagreement gives a grade of 65%. This example is sightly artificial as most assessments usually have elements which have a range of values rather than just Yes or No. In those cases the comparison is likely to result in somewhat higher grades then the values indicated above. The various levels (Very Lax, Lax, Fair...) are given so that the teacher can fine tune the comparisons. If they feel that the grades being given for assessments are too low then this option should be moved towards the "Lax" or even "Very Lax" choices. And alternatively, if the grades for the student's assessments are, in general, felt to be too high this option should be moved to either the "Strict" or "Very Strict" choices. It is really a matter of trial and error with the best starting point being the "Fair" option. During the course of the exercise the teacher may feel that the grades given to the student assessments are either too high or too low. These grades are shown on the exercise's Administration Page. In this case, the teacher can change the setting of this option and recalculate the student assessment grades (the "Grading Grades"). The re-calculation is done by clicking the "Re-grade Student Assessments" link found on the administration page of the exercise. This can be safely performed at any time in the exercise. The Final Grades The table on this screen lists the overall grades and their breakdown. The first grade is the grade for the (initial) assessment. This is added to the grades given to each submission. The final grade given for this assignment will either be the average of these overall grades or the overall grade of the best submission. The League table optionally lists the best submissions. The number of entries in the table is set as one of the Exercise parameters. If that number is set to zero then the League Table is not displayed. The table is in grade order with the best submission first. Only a student's best submission is shown in the table. The Grade of the Submissions This value determines the maximum grade which can be awarded to a submission. 15
The overall grade for the exercise is the sum of the grade of the student's assessment and the grade from their submissions. Thus if the (maximum) grade for the student's assessment is set to 30 and the (maximum) grade for submissions is 70 the (maximum) grade for the exercise is 100. This value can be changed at any time and the effect on the grades seen by the students (and the teacher) is immediate. Grading of Assignments In this Exercise the same Assessment Form is used by Students and Teachers to assess the work produced. The form is used at different stages of the exercise by the two groups, thus the explanation given here is divided into two parts. For Students The assessment form is used mainly to show you how your work will be assessed by the teacher. You are required to complete this form before you can submit your work. You can use it as a checklist. The form is not sent to the teacher when you save it. You can return to this form and amend it (and your piece of work) as many times as you like provided you have not submitted the work. Note that although you are allowed to, there is no need to submit your work immediately after you have completely this form. However, the contents of your assessment are frozen and made available to the teacher when you submit your work. If the teacher requests that you make changes to your work and to re-submit it, you will not be asked to re-assess your "new" piece of work. You only make this assessment "first time round". This (initial) assessment of your work is compared to the teacher's assessment of your work. The closer the two assessments match the higher will be your "grading grade". This grade is usually a smaller grade than the grade you are given for your work. The final grade for the exercise is these two grades added together. Once you have submitted your own work the teacher will grade it using the same assessment form. You will be able to see their scores for your work and their comments. Their grade will normally form the main part of the final grade you receive from this Exercise. For the Teacher The assessment form is used to grade the submissions of the students. These grades normally form the major component of the students' final grade for the exercise. The assessment, it's grade and any comments you make can be viewed by the student who submitted the work. Once you have made the assessment you should decide whether to allow the student to change and re-submit their work, hopefully with improvements, or not. When you save an assessment you given a short period of time in which to make any amendments before the assessment to "released" to the student. Discussion 16
Allowing new posts This option allows you to restrict students from posting new content in this forum. For most forums you will want to leave students unrestricted and choose the first option to allow them to start new discussion topics (threads), and also to post replies within those threads. Sometimes, however, you will want to disable this ability. For example, this is useful for the News forum when you only want teachers to post new items that appear on the course main page. In this case you might choose the third option "No discussions, no replies". Sometimes you might want to only allow teachers to start new discussions, but still allow students to reply within those threads (for example within the news forum on the site home page). In this case you would choose the second option, "No discussions, but replies are allowed". Available surveys Currently, Moodle only offers specific types of surveys (future versions will enable you to create your own). The available surveys have been chosen as being particularly useful for evaluating online learning environments that use a constructivist pedagogy. They are useful to identify certain trends that may be happening among your participants. (To see a paper where these are used in a detailed analysis, see: http://dougiamas.com/writing/herdsa2002)
COLLES - Constructivist On-Line Learning Environment Survey The COLLES comprises an economical 24 statements grouped into six scales, each of which helps us address a key question about the quality of the on-line learning environment: Relevance Reflection Interactivity Tutor Support Peer Support Interpretation How relevant is on-line learning to students' professional practices? Does on-line learning stimulate students' critical reflective thinking? To what extent do students engage on-line in rich educative dialogue? How well do tutors enable students to participate in on-line learning? Is sensitive and encouraging support provided on-line by fellow students? Do students and tutors make good sense of each other's on-line communications? 17
Underpinning the dynamic view of learning is a new theory of knowing: social constructivism, which portrays the learner as an active conceptualiser within a socially interactive learning environment. Social constructivism is an epistemology, or way of knowing, in which learners collaborate reflectively to co-construct new understandings, especially in the context of mutual inquiry grounded in their personal experience. Central to this collaboration is the development of students' communicative competence, that is, the ability to engage in open and critical discourse with both the teacher and peers. This discourse is characterised by an empathic orientation to constructing reciprocal understanding, and a critical attitude towards examining underlying assumptions. The COLLES has been designed to enable you to monitor the extent to which you are able to exploit the interactive capacity of the World Wide Web for engaging students in dynamic learning practices. (This information has been adapted from the COLLES page. You can find out more about COLLES and the authors of it at: http://surveylearning.com/colles/)
ATTLS - Attitudes to Thinking and Learning Survey The theory of 'ways of knowing', originally from the field of gender research (Belenky et al., 1986) provides us with a survey tool to examine the quality of discourse within a collaborative environment. The Attitudes Towards Thinking and Learning Survey (ATTLS) is an instrument developed by Galotti et al. (1999) to measure the extent to which a person is a 'connected knower' (CK) or a 'separate knower' (SK). People with higher CK scores tend to find learning more enjoyable, and are often more cooperative, congenial and more willing to build on the ideas of others, while those with higher SK scores tend to take a more critical and argumentative stance to learning. Studies have shown that these two learning styles are independent of each other (Galotti et al., 1999; Galotti et al., 2001). Additionally, they are only a reflection of learning attitudes, not learning capacities or intellectual power.
18