Merewether Moodle
What is a moodle? 
'Moodle' stands for 'Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment' but the name is really now used as a verb. For exmaple, 'I try and moodle every day'.
Moodle offers a range of functionality designed around a core structure with learning activities organised into “courses”. Pupils are given login access to the Moodle and then enrolled on “courses” relevant to them. Each course can be designed to include resources and activities. Typical activities include: assignment, quizzes, hot potato questionnaire, forum, chat, messages, RSS feeds, Wiki or SCORM content. Typical resources include: files, links or html pages. Teachers can mark and review assignments, view and download answers and results, control timing of events, block and monitor access.
Moodle functions
Moodles have various potential functions in the school environment. Here are a few of those fuctions:
Forums
Forums are like online message boards. You can post a message and others can respond over the following hours, days or even months. There is also the option of including attachments with your post. Members can subscribe to forums - and teachers can force everyone to subscribe when setting up the forum. By subscribing to a forum, participants will receive email copies of each new posting, if they have an enabled email address. Forums are great for discussion both in and out of class. Some of the ways they have been used effectively are for school councils, prediction in literacy and discussion of whole school issues.
Assignments
Assignments allow teachers to put up tasks for pupils to complete. All assignment types have the facility for teachers to mark online and feed back to pupils with comments. There are three types of assignment:
1. Offline tasks where pupils complete a task away from the computer but it is set online and marks are recorded in the online mark book.
2. Online submission where pupils use the built in text editor to submit their work.
3. Upload assignments where pupils complete their work using any other package (Word, Excel, Dazzle, Textease, etc.) and submit it by browsing and uploading on Moodle.
Assignments have been particularly useful for homework tasks and extended activities where more than one session is needed.
Questionnaires and Surveys
These elements of Moodle all allow users to make a choice in one way or another and collate the information gathered.
Questionnaires use certain question types such as tick boxes, drop down menus and text boxes. Schools can then use these to compile information and feedback from both pupils and parents.
Files and Web Pages
This resource allows the user to link to existing files or web pages. Any document types can be posted but your users will need the software to open them. These can provide background information for a topic or could direct pupils towards other online activities. Within a topic on Tudors, for example, there could be a series of suggested web pages about the monarch and the pupils have to use this to find out the names of Henry's wives. Or if you were looking at report writing the teacher could post an example of a good report for pupils to refer to.
Wikis
Wikis are editable web pages. There are several types of wiki available in Moodle, allowing pages to be seen and edited by everyone, some people or just the user and teacher. Using a standard text editor within Moodle you can add words and pictures and even create multiple pages linked together. Wikis are great for collaborative projects spread over time and logging of changes makes it easy for the teacher to see who has added what.
Click on the image below to access the Merewether Public School moodle.
