Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development
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Product Description
This unique book gives you more than just a guide to the Moodle software; it uses Moodle as a route to better teaching, more motivated students, and more successful courses. Moodle is the leading Open Source learning management system. Using Moodle, teachers can easily construct richly textured web based courses. A course can consist of a number of lessons, with each lesson including reading materials; activities such as quizzes, tests, surveys, and projects; and social elements that encourage interaction and group work between students.Moodle E-Learning Course Development shows you how to use Moodle as a tool to enhance your teaching. It will help you analyse your students' requirements, and come to an understanding of what Moodle can do for them. After that you'll see how to use every feature of Moodle to meet your course goals.
The social constructionist learning philosophy is at the heart of Moodle: we all "construct" knowledge through interation with one another and with learning materials in a social way. Moodle E-Learning Course Develelopment will show you how to add static learning material, interactive activities, and social features to your courses so that students reach their learning potential. Whether you want to support traditional class teaching or lecturing, or provide complete online and distance learning courses, this book will prove a powerful resource throughout your use of Moodle.
The social constructionist learning philosophy is at the heart of Moodle: we all "construct" knowledge through interation with one another and with learning materials in a social way. Moodle E-Learning Course Develelopment will show you how to add static learning material, interactive activities, and social features to your courses so that students reach their learning potential. Whether you want to support traditional class teaching or lecturing, or provide complete online and distance learning courses, this book will prove a powerful resource throughout your use of Moodle.
About the Author
William Rice is a software training professional who lives, works, and plays in New York City. His indoor hobbies include writing books and spending way too much time reading sites like slashdot and 43folders. His outdoor hobbies include orienteering, rock climbing, and edible wild plants (a book on that is coming someday). William is fascinated by the relationship between technology and society: how we create our tools, and how our tools in turn shape us. He is married to an incredible woman who encourages his writing pursuits, and has two amazing sons. For more updates on him and his work, you could visit his online blog: http://williamriceinc.blogspot.com
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The strapline for this book is "A complete guide to successful learning using Moodle 1.9"
I'm uncomfortable with anything that is referred to as being 'complete' because I suspect few things truly warrant this description. I would also prefer to see it referred to as a guide to *teaching* using Moodle 1.9, because the book is firmly aimed at those who will use it in this capacity.
That said, this is a very accessible book. Logically laid out, with lots of visuals in the form of screen dumps, and chunks of reusable code for the 'have a go' Henries among us.
Whatever your level of expertise, you will be able to find support. If you want to upskill, you will be able to do that, but if you simply want a reference book to use on a JIT basis on the odd occasion that you want to carry out some or other task in a Moodle, you will be able to do that, too.
From the outset, Rice touches on valid point, when he says that Moodle's help files, while explaining 'how', do not explain "when and why to use each feature". This had long been one my soapbox issues: 'what and how' without 'why and when' have all the stickability of Teflon. He sets out to address that and, on the whole, my view is that he succeeds.
There is a checklist for the book that can be downloaded - sadly I was not able to do this, or to discover why this was the case. A more technically proficient user might not have experienced this problem, but it did constitute a barrier in my case.
Throughout the book, Rice refers to his own demo site, which provides a sense of consistency and cohesion (as a by-product, one develops an interest in botany and wilderness skills along the way). Of course, the nature of the learning material means that we are looking through the lens of formal education, so corporate users might feel somewhat marginalised. Then again, Moodle was primarily designed for the formal education sector, so corporate users should expect to have to be creative with words like 'student', 'teacher' and 'grades'.
On a related subject, Rice's opening paragraph states:
"I use the phrase 'online learning experiences' instead of 'online course' deliberately. The phrase 'online course' often connotes a sequential series of web pages, some images.... online learning can be much more than that."
He's right, of course, as many of us have been saying for a long time, but sadly the taxonomy of Moodle itself does not serve him well here, since words like 'course' and 'lesson' are among its fundaments. This is not to say that it does not live up to his claim that it can be used to support non-linear learning. On the contrary. Rice amply demonstrates how Moodle can be used to support social constructivism (although I would dispute his reference to this as a 'learning style').
Pedants might knit their brows over the occasional error that has slipped past the proofreaders but, as far as I was able to determine, none of these have a derailing effect on the practical application of what the book has to offer. And it does offer exactly that.
My recommendation is that this is not a book to read on a plane/train (I tried that). It is a book to hold in one hand as you put into practice the features it unpacks with the other.
I'm uncomfortable with anything that is referred to as being 'complete' because I suspect few things truly warrant this description. I would also prefer to see it referred to as a guide to *teaching* using Moodle 1.9, because the book is firmly aimed at those who will use it in this capacity.
That said, this is a very accessible book. Logically laid out, with lots of visuals in the form of screen dumps, and chunks of reusable code for the 'have a go' Henries among us.
Whatever your level of expertise, you will be able to find support. If you want to upskill, you will be able to do that, but if you simply want a reference book to use on a JIT basis on the odd occasion that you want to carry out some or other task in a Moodle, you will be able to do that, too.
From the outset, Rice touches on valid point, when he says that Moodle's help files, while explaining 'how', do not explain "when and why to use each feature". This had long been one my soapbox issues: 'what and how' without 'why and when' have all the stickability of Teflon. He sets out to address that and, on the whole, my view is that he succeeds.
There is a checklist for the book that can be downloaded - sadly I was not able to do this, or to discover why this was the case. A more technically proficient user might not have experienced this problem, but it did constitute a barrier in my case.
Throughout the book, Rice refers to his own demo site, which provides a sense of consistency and cohesion (as a by-product, one develops an interest in botany and wilderness skills along the way). Of course, the nature of the learning material means that we are looking through the lens of formal education, so corporate users might feel somewhat marginalised. Then again, Moodle was primarily designed for the formal education sector, so corporate users should expect to have to be creative with words like 'student', 'teacher' and 'grades'.
On a related subject, Rice's opening paragraph states:
"I use the phrase 'online learning experiences' instead of 'online course' deliberately. The phrase 'online course' often connotes a sequential series of web pages, some images.... online learning can be much more than that."
He's right, of course, as many of us have been saying for a long time, but sadly the taxonomy of Moodle itself does not serve him well here, since words like 'course' and 'lesson' are among its fundaments. This is not to say that it does not live up to his claim that it can be used to support non-linear learning. On the contrary. Rice amply demonstrates how Moodle can be used to support social constructivism (although I would dispute his reference to this as a 'learning style').
Pedants might knit their brows over the occasional error that has slipped past the proofreaders but, as far as I was able to determine, none of these have a derailing effect on the practical application of what the book has to offer. And it does offer exactly that.
My recommendation is that this is not a book to read on a plane/train (I tried that). It is a book to hold in one hand as you put into practice the features it unpacks with the other.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I opened my copy of 'Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development' by William Rice with a high expectation that it would be an informative and practical reference text. Why? I was about to upgrade to Moodle 1.9. Did it meet my expectations?
Now read on...
Using open source software can be a daunting experience, regardless of your technical or business experience, and this text's purpose is to shorten users' path to competency in the application. Broadly speaking, the text covers four Moodle-related activities:
* Installing and configuring Moodle 1.9
* E-Learning course development and delivery
* E-Learning course management
* Moodle administration and maintenance
The author assumes zero previous knowledge of the application, and begins by describing Moodle's Social-Constructivist approach to learning, before bringing the reader on a whistle-stop tour of Moodle 1.9's features and functionality - a very good idea indeed, as this goes some way to providing an understanding of why Moodle 1.9 looks and works the way it does for newcomers, acts as a pertinent reminder for experienced Moodlers, and sets the context for the course creation sections later in the book.
The book is structured in a logical and linear fashion: the author aims to guide you through the full application implementation and course development process. The text seems to be aimed primarily at teachers and trainers and the author spends the majority of the manual discussing - in detail and very effectively - the processes, "how-to's" and "gotchas" of using Moodle from a teaching and training perspective. I must point out that something strange must have happened during the editing process of the book, as there's some glaring typos (and even a whole word omitted from the back cover of the text) which are a distraction, but do not deter from the usability of the manual.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, this book was my companion through a recent upgrade from Moodle 1.6 to 1.9, and it did not let me down. As an experienced Moodle user, I used the book very much as a "just enough, just in time" resource rather than as an end-to-end guide through the application. My experience was that the text works very well when used in this fashion. Some other positive aspects of my "user experience" of the text included the author's accessible and direct writing style and use of web-based resources like a downloadable Moodle Project Plan. In my view this text is a straightforward and reliable companion for those who seek to find out more about - and use - Moodle 1.9.
--
Now read on...
Using open source software can be a daunting experience, regardless of your technical or business experience, and this text's purpose is to shorten users' path to competency in the application. Broadly speaking, the text covers four Moodle-related activities:
* Installing and configuring Moodle 1.9
* E-Learning course development and delivery
* E-Learning course management
* Moodle administration and maintenance
The author assumes zero previous knowledge of the application, and begins by describing Moodle's Social-Constructivist approach to learning, before bringing the reader on a whistle-stop tour of Moodle 1.9's features and functionality - a very good idea indeed, as this goes some way to providing an understanding of why Moodle 1.9 looks and works the way it does for newcomers, acts as a pertinent reminder for experienced Moodlers, and sets the context for the course creation sections later in the book.
The book is structured in a logical and linear fashion: the author aims to guide you through the full application implementation and course development process. The text seems to be aimed primarily at teachers and trainers and the author spends the majority of the manual discussing - in detail and very effectively - the processes, "how-to's" and "gotchas" of using Moodle from a teaching and training perspective. I must point out that something strange must have happened during the editing process of the book, as there's some glaring typos (and even a whole word omitted from the back cover of the text) which are a distraction, but do not deter from the usability of the manual.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, this book was my companion through a recent upgrade from Moodle 1.6 to 1.9, and it did not let me down. As an experienced Moodle user, I used the book very much as a "just enough, just in time" resource rather than as an end-to-end guide through the application. My experience was that the text works very well when used in this fashion. Some other positive aspects of my "user experience" of the text included the author's accessible and direct writing style and use of web-based resources like a downloadable Moodle Project Plan. In my view this text is a straightforward and reliable companion for those who seek to find out more about - and use - Moodle 1.9.
--
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This should be your go-to book if you are an educator setting up a Moodle training environment and have a little knowledge already about how internets work. Was recommended to me and I can happily recommend it to you.
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