Moodle/Scoodle

While attending NECC in San Antonio in 2008, I attended a Moodle session led by Remote Learner. The district was just beginning to implement Moodle (Scoodle) so I was hungry to learn whatever I could. The presenter, Michelle Moore, was perfect for our needs. She is a former middle school math teacher with a great understanding of the needs of teachers and how Moodle can meet those needs. After this first session, Jane and I made a point to seek out Remote Learner at conferences and later they became the support vendor for our district Moodle implementation. Michelle Moore came to SCASD to do training for our instructional technologists and for some of our advanced Moodle using teachers.

Not only does Remote Learner do Moodle support and hosting, they also do training - both online and site training. Due to our relationship with Remote Learner, Jane and I were invited to pilot their online courses and later asked to facilitate them. Through taking and teaching these courses I developed a lot of skill in using Moodle and also learned a great deal about effective course design - all very useful in my role in the district.

The district is in the process of migrating from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.2 for the beginning of the 2012-13 school year. Due to Computer Services staff being spread too thin we have had difficulty creating expertise in our organization in the administrating of Moodle so Jane and I took the Admin class from Remote Learner to learn more about settings that would be relevant to our new install. In early February we brought a 2.2 sandbox online and Jane and I got together for a work day to work on the settings for our new server. 

I appreciate the fact that I can have flexibility in my sabbatical work and devote time to our Moodle migration. We are going to have a good deal of work to do preparing teachers for the transition. I've decided that I'm going to devote time to developing an online course for teachers teaching them the differences in the new Moodle version and giving them assignments to practice using the new tools. I welcome the opportunity to put into practice the many skills I've learned through my work with Moodle. I look forward to our upgrade and the new features the teachers are going to really appreciate in their courses.

Professional Reading

I always have a pile of journals, books, articles, etc. on my desk so I can pick up and read during down time. Whenever I clean my desk I shuffle the pile but rarely do I have time to do uninterrupted professional reading. If I try to do it at home before bed I get through about one paragraph before falling asleep. I really welcome the time on sabbatical to do professional reading and I have  quite a list of books, articles, blog entries, etc. that I want to read.

I'm starting with a book that I was excited to hear about before it was even published - What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media, Edited by Scott McLeod and Chris Lehmann. I've heard Chris Lehmann speak at conferences more than once and really respect his vision and leadership in many areas of education. I reserved the book when it was first possible and finally received it in the fall. I started reading it today on the exercise bike (no chance of falling asleep there!) and as I read I will post blogs about what I'm thinking. Since it is composed of discrete articles, I'm going to interweave reading this with other activities on my list.

The book is a compilation of articles by various leaders in the field of instructional technology and appears to be a combination of tools and ideas for teachers as well as for administrators. The first two chapters are about Blogs and Wikis. Reading these chapters got my wheels turning regarding some possibilities for teacher training. Many of our teachers want to use Blogs with their students just to get them writing but the article in this book reminded me of the importance of purpose and audience. I think reading these articles would be a great launch to a professional development session on Blogs and Wikis where the outcome of the training would be not so much how to use the tools but instead designing a meaningful in-depth project to do with students where Blogs and Wikis may be tools which allow for relevant audience, collaboration, feedback and building meaning.