Category Archives: 100 ways

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #31 Providing a schedule

Leave a comment

Often you will need to provide your learners with a schedule. It may be a schedule for a series of presentations, tutorials, or a field trip.

Yes you can provide it to them on paper or send them an e-mail. There are a few advantages in placing the schedule on the VLE.

Firstly, if there is a need to update or change the schedule, then this can be done quickly and easily on the VLE. You may be able to, depending on the tool you use, after updating the schedule, let the learners know that the schedule has been updated. So if learners access the schedule on the VLE, they’re going to know that this is the definitive and most accurate schedule.

Learners may have questions about the schedule and as a result they could post questions about the schedule to the VLE. Staff can reply and other learners who had a similar question will be able to see the responses. This can save time for both staff and learners.

Any activities and resources that are required can be placed on the VLE and linked to from the schedule on the VLE, making it much easier for learners to ensure they have everything they need and have done all the documentation.

If you need to provide a schedule, as well as the usual channels, also ensure it gets placed on the VLE.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #46 Ask the learners

1 Comment

I am still surprised by how many practitioners don’t even consider asking and listening to their learners about how the VLE could support them in their studies.

I remember a conversation from a few years ago with an HE institution and they said that something like 70-80% of the calls to their VLE support line were from learners having problems finding content on their VLE. The reason they couldn’t find the content, was because it wasn’t there. The students were using the VLE with some of their lecturers and made (what they perceived) to be a valid assumption that other lecturers would use the VLE in the same way. They weren’t and as a result, difficulties in finding the content and the calls to the VLE support line. Imagine also how many learners who were having the same problem and didn’t call the support line.

These learners wanted to use the VLE, they had an idea of how they wanted to use the VLE and were not able to use the VLE in the way they wanted as some of the staff had decided not to use the VLE in a consistent way as their colleagues were.

The lesson to learn is that consistency is not only important for learners, but listening to what learners were asking and wanting is also important.

One of our business staff decided that he should ask the learners how they wanted to use the VLE. What came out of the exercise were some really interesting observations from the learners about how they wanted to use the VLE. As a result the business team decided to change the way in which they used the VLE across all their courses.

One of the challenges for learners is understanding the functionality of the VLE, but the question we should be asking them is not what functions they want to use on the VLE, but what their needs are, and using the VLE to meet those needs if appropriate.

So we should never be asking our learners, “do you want to use a wiki on the VLE?” More we should be asking “what do you find difficult, where do you need help?” and then using the VLE to solve those problems.

At the end of the day, learners should inform practitioners about how they want to use the VLE and not lead how it should be used. They however shouldn’t be ignored. Where we can let them inform, but also be aware that the learners are there to learn and using the VLE to enable them to learn to new things and new ways of doing them is also valuable.

So are you asking your learners?

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #18 Reading a journal

Leave a comment

A journal, how on earth can you read a journal or magazine on the VLE?

A printed paper thing!

Well….

Of course we are talking about electronic journals, e-journals.

e-Journals are of course easy to access through publishers platforms, online collections or library catalogues. If you know which article or issue you are looking for then you should be able to find it…

Of course if you are researching a topic or subject than that might be a little more challenging. You might not even know which journal you should start your search at.

So how do you inform learners about where they should be looking or beginning to start searching?

Signposting or linking to specific journals or articles on the VLE is about increasing access to resources for learners.

This is not to say that learners should never start searching from scratch, but is this always necessary? Isn’t the learning process also about the subject sometimes in addition to the process. Reading lists of journals and journal articles are useful support tools for learners, by linking to the electronic versions and placing those links on the VLE, you can save learners time. This is time saved in both getting hold of those links (or typing them in) and the use of e-journals allows the learners to access the articles at a time and place to suit them too. Placing them on the VLE means they can refer back to them at a later date and also saves time for the practitioner or academic as the following year they can use the same list again with a new cohort of learners.

Open Access journals can also make this whole process even simpler in terms of authentication and access.

So with the preponderance of e-journals now available, it is possible to “read” a journal on the VLE.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #101 as a PLE

Leave a comment

There has been a lot of discussion and debate over the years about the use of VLEs by learners in institutions. There are problems and issues in providing a standardised virtual learning environment to learners, who are all different and have a variety of needs.

The ability to create a personalised and individualised online learning environment is one of the strengths of the concept of the PLE that has been discussed at length at many different conferences (and even on this blog). One of the challenges though, for learners, in using a PLE is that it requires a level of commitment and skill by learners to create their PLE. Though many learners will have the skills and ability to do this, not all do. The institutional VLE is not a replacement for a PLE, and often will be part of a learner’s PLE.

One way that a VLE could be used as a PLE is to provide each learner with their own VLE that could form the basis of their individual PLE. Familiarity will be there if they have used the institutional VLE and the disadvantages of the standardised vanilla VLE can be avoided as each learner will be able to create an individualised, personalised virtual learning environment. The learner would be able to create areas (courses) to meet their needs and invite other learners to collaborate and share in these areas. Common content could be made available to learners to download and install in their own VLE.

Technically with virtualisation it would be very simple to provide learners with an individual VLE to be used as a PLE. In the past each individual VLE would need an individual server, virtualisation allows multiple servers to be hosted on a single server. Even cloud based services could be used removing the need to host the servers on site.

The individual VLE would not be used in isolation and other tools and services could be plugged into the VLE to support the learner concept of the unique PLE.

There are some challenges, administering a VLE, though simple, may not be in the capabilities of all learners. In these instances, learners may want to share a single VLE for their PLE rather than each have individual VLE. Groups of learners in a single cohort might also want to share. Even all learners in a single institution may decide that a single VLE meets their needs for a PLE rather than having a VLE or PLE each. This then allows the learners to focus on their learning rather than managing a learning environment.

Providing individual VLEs for learners to use as their PLEs can be a challenging process, from a technical, administrative and learning process; but may be the answer in meeting the needs of learners.

100 ways, assessment, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #30 Field Trip Task

2 Comments

Across many curriculum areas, learners will go on field trips. Sometimes they will be to inhospitable environments such as forests, mountains, fjords or Croydon. Generally though they will be to places a little more local and urban.

Travel and Tourism students for example, may visit London to see the tourist attractions. Sports Studies could visit the site of the Olympics in 2012. Business Studies may visit a factory or a retail outlet. When I was teaching Business we visited such diverse places as an aircraft factory, a dockside undergoing urban regeneration, the Clothes Show Live, Amsterdam and Bruges, Museums and Croydon.

There were many reasons for going on field trips, a core one was to base an assignment or assessment task around the field trip. Looking at my own examples, we went to the Clothes Show Live to look at marketing and advertising. The visit to Europe was to look at the impact of cultural differences on business in the European Union. The aircraft factory was looking at how technology and changes in technology impacted on businesses processes, job roles and manufacturing.

So where does the VLE come into all this?

Well the VLE can be the place from which the task is centered and alongside the assignment brief you could place all the other information and links that learners could use for the field trip.

You do need to consider if you are expecting learners to access the VLE whilst actually on the field trip. In this case you will need to consider what your expectations are for learners in relation to the use of the VLE, and to ensure that the learner are aware of those expectations.

You will need to consider connectivity for those that will be accessing the VLE. You will need to be aware of the sort of devices that the learners will be using.

So if your learners are using the iPod touch to access the VLE, is there free wifi somewhere in the vicinity of the field trip? If they are using the iPhone or iPad, make sure you don’t have any links to Flash video or activities. If they are going to be using laptops or netbooks, where can they use them sitting down? Are there cafés or other places where they could go?

Once the logisitics of remote access to the VLE is sorted, you can then make decisions about how you are going to support the task from the VLE in the field.

Mobile connections are much slower than connections in college, so it’s vital that any resources are made to be downloaded as quickly as possible.

Simple things can be done to enable that, such as rather than using Word files (which can be quite large) ensure that you post text to the VLE (copy and paste it in) to a “label”, “discussion forum” or “web page”. That way learners can immediately access the text without needing to download a large file first. Often mobile devices are better at rendering text on webpages for smalller screens than trying to render A4 Word documents. Avoid using Powerpoint for similar reasons and as already stated unless you know that the devices are capable of using Flash, avoid Flash based content and video.

Video is possible over the mobile web, but unless you have a good connection, it is to be avoided. Audio however will download fine on even a poor 3G or GPRS connection and can be a viable alternative to video. Make sure the audio files are not too big, as some mobile phone providers have file size limits on what can be downloaded.

So what if remote access is not available, say you’re up a mountain or in Croydon?

Well the VLE could be the focus of the field trip after the event. A place to collate the thoughts, blog entries, images, video, audio from the field trip. A way of sharing resources and media easily and effectively. This will then enable any task that was started off on the field trip to be finished and finalised with all the resources that the group collected.

Field trips are a great way of making learning real for many students, the VLE can be used to support any field trip tasks and for post-trip activities too.

100 ways, assessment, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #43 Group Task

Leave a comment

Group assignments or tasks are a valuable part of any learning experience. They do so much more than just allow students to learn about a topic. They have to use a range of other skills too, including diplomacy, planning, monitoring, negotiation, tracking and many others.

The VLE is an ideal place to act as a portal for a group task. With a little effort it would be possible, using a VLE such as Moodle, to create a “course” for each group, duplicating the bare bones of an assignment course. This course would contain the assignment brief, notes, links, copies of handouts. It could contain tools such as discussion forums, wikis, a calendar and planning tools.

Before the advent of social networking and ubiquitous SMS students would often find it difficult to communicate and collaborate on an assignment. Today with the wealth of tools available, why would the learner use the VLE?

Well two reasons. Firstly, using the VLE does not preclude or stop the use of other online tools and services. Learners also need to recognise the time to use external tools and when to use internal tools. We do the same with internal spaces and external spaces. Usually for example seminars are held on campus, whilst informal chats in the pub are held, well in the pub… It would be expected that as well as using the VLE for the group task, learners would meet face to face and use informal communication tools such as SMS and Facebook. The VLE would be used for discussions about the assignment, sharing, collaborating and working together.

Secondly, as well as supporting learners to complete the group task, the use of the VLE could act as evidence towards the assignment itself. This is useful where the process is important part of the assignment as well as the final outcome.

As well as providing a focus for individual tasks, the VLE can also be used as a portal for group tasks or assignments.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #41 Field Trip Planning

Leave a comment

Well there is often a lot of preparation and paperwork involved in a field trip for both learners and practitioners. No matter how much paperwork you give the learners, often they forget what they need to do, what they need to bring, or even when the trip is and where they need to be…

Having run a fair few field trips in my time, we have had to wait while a student ran home as she had forgotten her passport. Students who missed the bus as they thought the trip was the following week. Students who didn’t bring their assignments and handouts, as they assumed I would!

The VLE is an ideal location to place all that paraphernalia, paperwork and information for any field trip. So all the pre-trip stuff that needs to be done, from risk assessment, completition of forms, equipment lists, the paperwork, etc… place it on the VLE to allow easy access to it by the learners at a time and place to suit them.

As well as pre-trip planning, it can be used on the field trip itself. You do need to consider if you are expecting learners to access the VLE whilst actually on the field trip. In this case you will need to consider what your expectations are for learners in relation to the use of the VLE, and to ensure that the learner are aware of those expectations.

You will need to consider connectivity for those that will be accessing the VLE. You will need to be aware of the sort of devices that the learners will be using.

So if your learners are using the iPod touch to access the VLE, is there free wifi somewhere in the vicinity of the field trip? If they are using the iPhone or iPad, make sure you don’t have any links to Flash video or activities. If they are going to be using laptops or netbooks, where can they use them sitting down? Are there cafés or other places where they could go?

Once the logisitics of remote access to the VLE is sorted, you can then make decisions about how you are going to support the task from the VLE in the field.

Mobile connections are much slower than connections in college, so it’s vital that any resources are made to be downloaded as quickly as possible.

The VLE could also be used for post-trip evaluation and reflection. Students could post their thoughts on the field trip, photographs and links to videos on YouTube etc….

One other key benefit for practitioners is that after using the VLE for the first time for a field trip, when it comes to doing the trip next year with a new group, you will already have all the stuff ready on the VLE.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #44 Collaboration

1 Comment

When I hear the word collaboration I am reminded of the 1970s BBC series Secret Army. Collaboration during the war was something nasty and not to be done. And if you were caught there were repercussions.

Okay so that’s me…

Collaborating together is something we should be encouraging learners to do. Once they enter the workplace they will (as we do) work together in teams, across departments as part of their job.

Collaboration is not only a way of learning, it is an essential skill for the modern workplace.

Collaboration for a learning objective can take many forms. Working together on an assignment, a presentation, a seminar. Learners can collaborate to gather resources and links for the whole group. Leaners can collaborate across different curriculum area for a common goal that benefits them all.

Collaboration for a group task or assignment is something that happens a lot on many FE courses. Students need to form groups, or be assigned into groups, plan, research, analyse and write a group assignment. The end result may be a written piece of work, or could be a presentation, a radio programme (podcast) or a video.

Getting learners within a group to collaborate on sharing links and resources is an effective way of getting learners to work together, but also use a wider range of resources than if they worked individually.

Making learners from different curriculum areas collaborate on joint projects, can be challenging, but very rewarding. We have had make-up students work on performing arts students who then working with motor vehicle engineering students undertook a piece of performance art.

In each of these scenarios, learners will need to collaborate. Though there are many tools out there that learners could use, and I am sure many would use Facebook, there is an implication that all learners want to and can use external third party tools. The VLE though not an ideal solution, has many functions that allow groups to collaborate together, share resources, discuss and also importantly feed into and out to those other tools and services (such as Facebook) that learners will use in addition to the VLE. It also allows for cross curriculum collaboration as learners from different areas will be able to use a common tool.

Using the VLE will allow the gathering of evidence for collaboration which is often a requirement for some assignments.

Collaboration is not always easy, using the VLE can be the oil that allows learners to engage with a collaborative activity.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #17 Keeping on top of the subject

Leave a comment

If you want your learners to do well and get the best grades possible they need to do a little (or a lot) more than what they do in lessons and homework. There is only so much time in a teaching week, and only so much non-class based work that we can expect the majority of learners to do (and have the time to assess effectively). Competent learners will realise early on, more so on HE courses, that they have a responsibility to do more than what is “given” to them. They need to read around the subject as well as the provided reading lists, they need to look at extra original sources in addition to those they receive in class. They should also be reflecting on what they have studied and assessing where they are.

This is often expected to happen in HE, and in FE should happen progressively to support the transition from FE to HE.

There are various ways of providing systems and mechanisms to allow learners to keep on top of the subject, the VLE is just one of many ways that will support and enable learners to stay on top of their subject.

By embedding RSS feeds, extra links to additional resources, links to e-books, etc… those learners who want to take their studying to the next level will have easy access to what they need. Adding in blogs and discussion forums will allow learners to reflect and discuss relevant areas of the subject at a higher level.

Of course this will only really work if both the practitioner and the learners buy into the concept. One practical way of supporting the process is to bring in your learning resources team (library staff) and get them to start the process and creating the relevant area on the VLE. Initially they could create more generic areas for subjects rather than ones that focus on specific qualifications.

If quality of achievement is an issue for an area then using the VLE as one mechanism for enabling learners to keep on top of a subject is a quick win. It may also have an impact on retention as learners who are behind on a subject could use any such area on a VLE to catch up.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #11 Integrating Turnitin

3 Comments

A decent VLE will allow you to integrate different tools and services into it.

Turnitin is a service that allows both learners and staff to check the originality of their work and then some…

Turnitin is far more than just a plagiarism prevention and originality checking tool. Turnitin is an integrated set of tools that helps educators manage the process of delivering meaningful feedback during the entire writing process – from drafts through reviews, revisions and even reflections.

Now you could simply link to Turnitin from your VLE, however what you can do with a VLE such as Moodle, is to integrate it into the assignment submission process.

What this means is that both practitioners and learners don’t need to create new accounts to use Turnitin, the process is automated. The feedback, grading and originality reports follow the same kind of format that Moodle uses for its own built-in assignments. That familiarity makes it relatively easy for both practitioners and learners to start using Turnitin if they are use to the assignment module already.

The process for a Turnitin assignment is pretty much a similar experience to adding a “normal” assignment to Moodle. You can either write up the brief or you can upload a document (you know write up the brief, better for the learners).

You can choose whether your learners cut and paste in their assignments or upload their assignment as a file. The originality process can then be adjusted according to your needs.

The key really with Turnitin is to use it as a learning tool with learners. Integrating it with the VLE allows this for many to be an easier route into using it effectively.

Of course you do need a subscription to Turnitin and it’s not a free (or what I would call a cheap) service. However experience from my own and other institutions in using Turnitin to support learners on what originality actually means and avoid palgarisim, Turnitin is a very good tool and effective.