What+are+the+pedagogical+implications+of+Moodle?



According to Moodle.org, 'The design and development of Moodle is guided by a social constructionist pedagogy. [This approach] can help to focus on the experiences that would be best for learning from the learner’s point of view, rather than just publishing and assessing the information you think they need to know. It can also help you realize how each participant in a course can be a teacher as well as a learner. Your job as a ‘teacher’ can change from being ‘the source of knowledge’ to being an influencer and role model of class culture, connecting with students in a personal way that addresses their own learning needs, and moderating discussions and activities in a way that collectively leads students towards the learning goals of the class. Moodle doesn’t FORCE this style of behavior, but this is what the designers believe that it is best at supporting. In future, as the technical infrastructure of Moodle stabilizes, further improvements in pedagogical support will be a major direction for Moodle development.
 * What are the pedagogical implications of Moodle ** ←Home

Principles of Construction Table 
 * **Principle ** ||  || **Definition ** ||


 * Readiness ||  || Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and contexts that make the student willing and able to learn ||


 * Spiral organisation ||  || Structure. ||   || The content must be structured so that it can be grasped by the learner. ||


 * Sequence. ||  || Material must be presented in the most effective sequences. ||


 * Generation ||  || “Going beyond the information given” – Instruction should be designed to facilitate extrapolation and or fill in the gaps ||

Top↑ Moodle is an aid to instruction, and complements the art of teaching. It doesn't replace good teaching, and should be seen as a tool to interact with, and motivate learners. Whilst a number of assessment tools are available through Moodle, the determination of learning should not be solely reliant on Moodle tools, as repeatability and independance are difficult to guage. Wikipedia describes Moodle's pedagogical approach as 'a constructivist (pedagogical) and social constructionist approach to education, emphasizing that learners (and not just teachers) can contribute to the educational experience. Moodle's design optionally allows students to comment on content (or to contribute content themselves), or to work collaboratively in a wiki. NZEI Te Riu Roa and Lester Flockton (2009) state a successful approach to curriculum comes form teachers seeing and showing themselves as learners among their students. Moodle can facilitate this is a number of ways. A wiki, for example, allows teachers and students to contribute and ocmment. Blogs and discussion boards are also effective tools for this. They also state that teaching and learning are inseparable. Moodle allows a range of strategies the provide ample opportunity for interaction between teachers and learners.

Moodle does not necessitate a constructivist teaching approach. Constructivism is sometimes seen as at odds with accountability-focused ideas about education, such as the No Child Left Behind Act NCLB in the United States. Accountability stresses tested outcomes, not teaching techniques, or pedagogy. Moodle supports an outcomes-oriented learning environment.​ Top↑ Chavan and Pavri (2009) state the concepts behind the social constructionist philosophy of learning are that learners actively construct new knowledge by tinkering, and they learn more by explaining what they have learned to others and by adopting a more subjective stance to the knowledge being created. These ideas run parallel to the way open-source development works, in which the developers also often are users, everyone is free to tinker with the software and code is constructed, peer-reviewed and refined by the means of an open discussion. This philosophy is the basis for the unusual name of this project. The Moodle Web site explains the origin of the name:

//"The word Moodle was originally an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment....It's also a verb that describes the process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity" //

The social construction pedagogy is reflected in the design and choice of Moodle features. For example, one of Moodle's features is every course can have a glossary of terms. The glossary can be set up to allow course participants to add their own terms and definitions. Taking it a step further, Moodle allows comments to be attached to each term, enabling participants to refine and clarify these definitions. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; text-align: center;">

media type="youtube" key="Z9XfwBzt1mY" height="344" width="425" Top↑ **Moodle Course** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Moodle's main screen is essentially a "classroom information portal" with customizable blocks such as calendar, login, and news. The centerpiece of this screen is a list of courses (classes) that have been created and are available, arranged into categories. An individual "course" is an organized collection of lessons, resources, and activities. A course "author" or “authors” assemble the course material and format. The course can be organized on a time line with specific enrollment dates and fixed deadlines for assignments or it can be organized as a series of topics that can be covered in any order according to the student's chosen pace. For the online course "facilitator" (who may or may not be the course author), there are administrative functions including student enrollment, assignments, <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">grading, and quizzes. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">However, the advantage of Moodle (once it's installed) is that you have a lot of freedom to structure it as you want. Courses can be structured in a number of ways, for example, by week, month or topic.

Csikszentmihalyi (1990) states "<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The chief impediments to learning are not cognitive. It is not that students cannot learn; it is that they do not wish to. If educators invested a fraction of the energy they now spend on trying to transmit information in trying to stimulate the students’ enjoyment in learning, we could achieve much better results". Moodle is a solid, proven tool to engage students, and elicit their 'buy-in' into their own learning. They receive tangible results and feedback immediately, and a range of teaching tool and methods can stimulate learning for a range of learning styles.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">**Moodle, quite simply is an easy to use, flexible tool for teaching that allows a range of activity types and strategies including forums, messaging, quizzes, assignments, wikis, blogs, and databases. Engaging both student and teacher in a learner centred pedagogical approach. And it's best feature? its FREE.**

Top↑ <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">**References** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1990). //Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience//. New York: Harper and Row. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">