Module 5

New Technologies

Our school has adopted/purchased the Moodle open source learning platform and is asking all teachers to use it…requiring it even though a website is not part of our contract it is part of our evaluation.  I enjoy learning, and programming new platforms so knowing this my principal decided that I can assist others in creating their online classrooms and lesson plans.  I have worked with many teachers, young and old, and the students as well as attempting at making them fluent users on Moodle.

Both teachers and students have resisted the Moodle platform.  Teachers are slammed with work and don’t have time to put effort into the options available on the Moodle that can assist their students in completing work and assignments efficiently.  Students often find it is easier to turn to their proficient shoulder partner to find the answer.

Teacher who don’t appreciate or care to apply themselves to Moodle..

1. “I will be retiring soon so why bother.”

2.  “I don’t have time and I can continue hosting on another domain.”

3.  Teachers often asked me to do things for them.

4. Teachers had district web support come out and do it for them.

5.  Some just did not have a class webpage.

Keller’s motivational model includes four components; A-Attention, R-Relevance, C-Confidence and S-Satisfaction (Driscoll, 2005).  One way that the attention of the teachers could have been gained was by allowing them to take control and brainstorm what they would want to use the Moodle platform rather then administration giving orders.  Relevance could have been achieved through showing more examples.  Once a test or quiz is created it can be reused year to year.  An idea for confidence would be allowing them to participate in each other’s lessons or activities online with the Moodle platform.  The teachers can also build confidence by receiving the feedback from the teachers and the students.  They will have a gradebook established automatically when the students complete the activities.  It is giving the teachers immediate feedback.

The importance of a faculty member’s course design and interaction with students is demonstrated repeatedly in course evaluations and informal student surveys (DeArment, C.).  Motivating learners of all sizes can be a difficult task.  As a teacher, I find intrinsic motivation to be the hardest to teach or find in students.

References

 DeArment, Carol (n.d.). The key to motivating learners. Retrieved from http://www2.cidde.pitt.edu/blog/key-motivating-learners

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.).Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Wow

Great document

http://ome.ksu.edu/webcast/test/superman/SIDLIT/ARCS-Resource-Handout.pdf

I posted on Sue Beer http://sue-educ7102.blogspot.com/ and http://akajay93.blogspot.com/ Jannotta.