Looking backwards..... and forwards

It's coming to the end of 2010, so it's time to look back over the old year and look forward to the new.

Moodling was a life-changing experience for me in 2010 with the M4T course that just ended. Looking back, what did I learn?

Industrialized, institutionalized learning which I grew up with worked for me at the time but the Internet offers a whole raft of new learming possibilities which allow massive collaboration. See Sir Ken's video posted earlier.

Collaborative or team-based learning is engaging, fun, challenging, rewarding and ultimately how human beings learn best. We are born into teams called "families' and do our most significant learning as team members.

When we collaborate we co-construct learning artifacts. We did this many times on our course. We grouped ourselves in different teams, we put ourselves in situations where we were forced to learn, we bridged from our existing knowledge base, we constructed artifacts of learning and then we evaluated those artifacts. We did all those things.
Constructivist learning design: key questions for teaching to standards By George W. Gagnon, Michelle Collay

We learned a whole bunch of new technologies: Google Docs, Skype, VoiceThread, Vimeo, Jing, Join-Me to mention a few. These all allowed us to share learning. We developed our Moodle Sandboxes with devices like WebQuests, which I still want to learn more about - they are not so straightforward.

We even went into Second Life. I had to eat the words I uttered in my last post. Second Life is indeed a valuable, powerful and flexible tool for online learning. However it might take some time before my contemporaries, even the under 30s, start using it.


Is Moodle the way forward?
For people who already use LinkedIn an Facebook, Moodle could be the way to get them learning online. People need to get used to having an online identity. They need to feel safe online. This must always be central in all our efforts to promote online learning. Wikis are an alternative to Moodle which to some might seem a little institutionalised.

And what is the way forward for me?
I am convinced that Moodle is worth a considerable investment of time and effort on my part.

To this end I have put together a project plan to develop a Moodle course for Building Career Development Teams.

I believe Moodle to be a great way to bond people in learning. People find intrinsic purpose in working both individually and as a team when using this online learning system.

If you wish to find out more, please respond to this post.

Happy New Yeart!

Ian