It\u2019s real!\u00a0 My course has been approved by the faculty, it\u2019s listed in the catalog, and even has a number!\u00a0 The instructor is named “To Be Announced,” but we can work on that.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spent time working attentively on my Moodle site.\u00a0\u00a0 Years of teaching online-only courses has helped me think about how the LMS can support classroom learning.\u00a0 When teaching online, the LMS has to do some very heavy lifting and be many different things to the students.\u00a0 Getting the site to where it is sufficient to give students a start and guidance requires careful organization.\u00a0 I was always concerned about anxious, non-traditional students getting lost.\u00a0 Even as I prepare to re-enter the classroom, I still come from the “more-is-more” school of thought.\u00a0 I want my Moodle site to look like a resource someone (the instructor) spent time on.\u00a0 Some of this is very practical organizational stuff – creating Labels to differentiate class days,\u00a0 using the “Show One Section Per Page” setting to avoid the scroll-of-death, and deleting unnecessary blocks.<\/p>\n
However, I\u2019ve thought a lot about design and style too.\u00a0 I think appearance matters in communicating that the material contained inside is something worth paying attention to.\u00a0 I understand the impulse but I think my pet peeve is a Moodle site that is nothing but a string of isolated PDF files.\u00a0 Maybe the course is so powerful that this approach suffices but I suspect Moodle could be doing more.\u00a0 I\u2019ve added a few little things on my page: I have a graphic course header in my General section, most of my links\/PDFs\/Files contain a small icon (with description for accessibility,\u00a0 of course), and I preface many sections with relevant quotes from the artists we\u2019re discussing. These are individually minor tokens that together make the course feel more cared for and lived in.\u00a0 If a course is an experience then the LMS should be part of that experience for the better.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still thinking about how to communicate this message to Moodle users around Kalamazoo College.\u00a0 Many faculty already utilize select elements of what I\u2019m doing, but a number of them do not yet and could be a receptive audience.\u00a0 That\u2019s a summer project!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s real!\u00a0 My course has been approved by the faculty, it\u2019s listed in the catalog, and even has a number!\u00a0 The instructor is named “To Be Announced,” but we can work on that. I\u2019ve spent time working attentively on my Moodle site.\u00a0\u00a0 Years of teaching online-only courses has helped me think about how the LMS … Continue reading My class is for real and so is Moodle<\/span>