How to drive moodle like a cadillac and not a chevy...

Good post title huh?

I was observing a course the other day and noticing how it was put together, looked at what it was *doing.  My observation was like this:

"This course is kinda lame.  It has good content, but its lame.  It doesn't engage the student much.    Courses were like read this, read that, post in the forum read more and more and post again to a forum."

How could this course be better?

If the course engaged the students more.  Period.

Putting your course content into pdf files with instruction to read this or do that and then post a reflection in a forum is ok, at best.  That is old school.  That is like using your smart phone to only call someone.  Or like driving your Mustang to church, only.   This is not a very engaging format.  Its ok, it creates little learning opportunity from other students.  Forum reflections or posts are ok, but they are passive.  You can read them, comment back to them, sometimes.

Moodle can do so much more than that.

Moodle is full of activities that a lot of people do not understand or are not willing to step out of their comfort zone to try.  Perhaps the teachers are afraid of certain activities because they don't know them well and fear the students would know them better.  Understandable.  Still, you cant be afraid of the students.  You have to take a little chance.  Step out there a little and try something new.

Moodle likes to toot the "co-constructionist" horn.  Big word, simple meaning.  The students learn from each other in addition to the teacher.    Students too often think of themselves as little silos.  Alone, off in the corner.  By itself.  Students are like little silos.  Instead, think of a single large silo, with all the little silos inside of it, looking, talking and working together.  That can be intimidating, I'm sure.  You have to trust the students and empower them with things they can do in the course, together.

Teachers - Make your moodle course better by creating engaging activities in your course.

Use forums, assignments, quizzes, lessons, books.  Promote that single silo model by using a database, glossary or a wiki activity.  These activities create a climate of participation, teamwork and collaboration. 

Database, glossary and wiki activities place the students in the same room.  Face to face, so to speak.

In the professionally developed courses that I see, there are lots of forums, assignments, quizzes, media, video, lessons, wikis, glossaries and, files.

In the amateur developed courses that I see, they look like this: file, forum, file, file, forum etc etc...

Moral of the story?  Drive moodle like a sports car, not a moped.  Students learn from each other.  co-constructionist means students contribute to the learning.  Students contribute to the learning by being engaged and working together, side by side.