There are around 300 folks here at the Austin Moodle Moot, which, I have come to understand, is a semi-regular gathering of folks experienced or interested in using Moodle. Like me, many folks I've run into are curious, with questions like, "Why do we have to change from Blackboard?"
Based on a session I attended this morning, the answer to that one is economics and user satisfaction. North Carolina's Community College System, with some 54 different locations, has cut costs from between 66-75% and instructors, once they climb the learning curve, are much more satisfied with Moodle.
There seems to be a split regarding the idea of Open Source with much of the positives based on principle and most of the negatives centered on support and upgrading problems following customization.
Heard a very good discussion of a research project on a federally funded, multi-state "Transition to Teaching" effort that uses Moodle to offer an Online Learning community for Career Changers, an eCoaching module in a variety of content areas for new teachers, and an assessment module to evaluate nontraditional TEPs using a variety of researc-based quality indicators. It is an impressive effort, though the online learning section seems overly focused on test-prep (PRAXIS) type instruction.
A Dell VP promised to show us a soon-to-be-introduced iPad competitor that will run on the Android OS and that "will run Flash."
I can't wait for this afternoon's keynote entitled "The failure of constructivism and evidence for the success of fully guided instruction" by Richard Clark of USC. It kills me when constructivism (a theory of learning that has broad support from many branches of science) is confused with any particular form of instruction, be it discovery, lecture, or "fully guided" and I'm looking forward to the evidence presented.
No comments:
Post a Comment