Much of the criticism levelled at virtual learning environments / learning management systems relates to the control of the environment by the institution rather than the learner. The individual student has minimal ability to upload their own content or to set up collaborative tools unless this has been pre-ordained by the institution. The [...]
Categories: Announcements, Architecture, Collaboration, Moodle, OU VLE, Web 2.0 |
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A group of us met earlier in the year from my office and from Learning and Teaching Solutions at the Open University to discuss some of our ideas around the future development of our Moodle-based VLE/LMS. Out of this discussion emerge, I think, some principles which could be taken into account when looking at new [...]
Categories: Architecture, Moodle, OU VLE, Policies |
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I’ve just been at a workshop with my colleagues Tony Hirst, Ross Mackenzie, Martin Weller and others looking at how the OU’s virtual learning environment could be enhanced by closer integration with other systems elsewhere. This could work both ways so that:
Live data from other systems is integrated within OU course content, and
OU learning [...]
Categories: Architecture, OU VLE |
2 Comments »
Being able to teach and learn maths, science, engineering and even social science over the internet has been hampered by the difficulty of inputting and displaying mathematical notation. Things are set to improve though due to enhancements in our latest release of Moodle at the OU, demonstrated at a meeting today by Tim [...]
Categories: Content, OU VLE |
1 Comment »
Our latest incarnation of Moodle was released this morning. New functionality includes:
Audio resources pages – enabling audio files traditionally distributed on CD/DVDs to be made available as mp3 files for download
New blog module – we found the existing Moodle blog too restrictive so have had a new system developed – this allows the setting [...]
Categories: Announcements, Moodle, OU VLE |
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A press release yesterday announces the selection of Elluminate for our synchronous desktop collaboration and communication requirements. This comes after a lengthy procurement process in which 14 vendors submitted tenders. Elluminate scored the highest on our educational and technical criteria. Our evaluation team think the product is particularly well-suited for distance education and [...]
Categories: Announcements, Collaboration, Moodle, OU VLE |
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Sally Jordan gave a workshop today on how to use the Intelligent Assessment Technologies system we’ve got plugged into our VLE to develop short text response questions. One example she gave (I’ve reworded it slightly):
A raindrop falls vertically with constant speed. What can you tell from this about the forces acting on the [...]
Categories: OU VLE, eAssessment |
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The second edition of Horizons (PDF – 375k) is now out and about to hit every staff desk in the OU.
It includes an interview with OU VLE Programme sponsor, Pro Vice-Chancellor Prof. Denise Kirkpatrick, articles on the eassessment work, library search tools, the new audio recording tool, podcasting, and a course in the [...]
Categories: Announcements, OU VLE |
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Initial feedback on the new Moodle gradebook is promising. Tutors on the Open University course SDK125 “Introducing health sciences: a case study approach” reported:
Gradebook seems very useful, as I now get to view a list of all of my students results, without having to go into each of their StudentHome pages. It was [...]
Categories: Moodle, OU VLE, eAssessment |
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This is a major issue for universities. Back-end integration work is carried out so that details of which courses students are signed up to and which lecturers/teachers/tutors are assigned to them are generally passed from the central systems to the VLE. There are other types of integration too such as passing assessment results [...]
Categories: Architecture, Moodle, OU VLE |
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