Scientifically Thinking…

Originally posted 5-23-06 in my first blog 

As I went looking for more resources on using wiki’s for student research, I found out about moodle. “Moodle” seems to be a freeware (open source, general use lisense…whatever) version of BlackBoard or First Class…and it supports classroom wiki’s. 

Powerful tool then…but I’ve learned to stop finding tools & then looking for reasons to use them — teaching needs to be the other way around…have a need then find a tool to address it.

I already have all my lesson resources & calendar posted online, and editing class web pages is SIMPLE. I don’t have to upload any resources — I just link to the actual files. I don’t have a real need for chat software, because I see my kids everyday & am not interested in making afterschool appointments to meet them virtually…

Having an online gradebook, especially if I could enter offline assignments too, would be a very useful feature… However, I have to upload grades to WinSchool, so every teacher in the school is supposed to use their eclassgrades software.

I DO want the wiki support, and support for blogs, but I read a good blog post about seeking established, quality software for such applications (here). I wonder how well Moodle’s wiki & blog modules work?

The only thing I want that I don’t have now & don’t seem to have a better way to get is the online poll/quizzes…
So am I getting in over my head, thinking I’ll use all these extra features & coordinate my classes in Moodle? I guess it comes down to how well Moodle does wiki’s & blogs since I’d need to install software for a good wiki anyway….

A thought on calendars — My LIFE is in Outlook — I’m not interested in having to enter the same information in multiple calendars. How could I get my Outlook calendar information to automatically synchronize with a Moodle classroom calendar? Can I create an Outlook calendar for AbsentFromClass days, so that the Moodle calendar would show that the teacher wouldn’t be there that day (but not show details of conference/workshop that I enter in Outlook?)…It’d need to be more detailed than just free/busy info, because I could be “busy” with a class activity — busy doesn’t mean I’m not in class…Maybe connected to the “out of office” notation?