I’m a week into my online Moodle course now. I’ve actually learned some things, and had a highly productive session involving the built-in chat and a wiki. It worked out really well–three of us worked together in the chat room, and plugged in content in a wiki-based rubric. It’s great because it gives me a real-world example of how Web 2.0 technologies can be used to solve a problem.
I just have one issue with the course: I’m pretty sure everyone else in the course has a K-12 focus, and being designed in a constructivist nature, I worry that this focus will drive what we learn over the remaining two weeks. Where are all the corporate training* people? I kind of figure it’s because K-12 people have more time to kill in June than the corporate-types, but it’d still be nice to not be the only one thinking about adult ed.
But it got me thinking about whether Moodle is really ready for professional development, or at least ready for professional development as I think of it. I don’t care about grades, or a top-down, instructor-oriented approach–I want to foster community and mentorship. My research at school is going to focus on this, probably using Ning, but I’m going to give Elgg a closer look shortly. Hell, I may even consider Facebook; everyone’s got an account there nowadays anyway.
* I consider myself closer to this group than the K-12 people in my program, primarily because I’m more interested in working with grownups than kids.
My band has been in a perpetual Sgt. Pepper’s phase since day one, which was well over ten years ago. Too bad we never had Sir George Martin at the helm. Anyway, we finally got around to making a website and posting a few MP3s. Not ones with lyrics, though, because the lead singer is terrible and his words are even worse. Bitchin’ rhythm section, though.
My Moodle course began yesterday. I’ve been using the software for a few years now, but it’s always been very seat-of-my-pants. My goal in taking this class was to get a better sense of the pedagogy behind it, but already I’ve picked up on a couple of modules I didn’t know about. They will be immediately useful in my own work.
I wish someone would write a slick, Web 2.0-style learning management system. Moodle’s nice and all, but that interface is horrid. I cleaned up what I could in my implementation, but there’s still much room for improvement. I also don’t like the fact that it’s in PHP, but I can get over that. The weirdest thing, though, is the development community. Moodle is the first open source project I’ve ever kept an eye on in which there was open flirting between members. This is probably an artifact of it being a touchy-feely constructivist application. All kidding aside, the downside of this educator-first approach to software development is, from my perspective, the occassional-yet-still-annoying dismissal-without-real-cause of interesting ideas–say, implementing OpenID instead of an archaic LDAP-based login system.
Oh well–at least it’s not Blackboard.
I’ve been a little cranky for the past couple of days about Palm. Love, hate. Love, hate. Hate.
The latest? This company called GoKnow Learning publishes a few apps I’m supposed to use for class–specifically, Sketchy and FlingIt!–but there are issues, wouldn’t you know.
Sketchy, prior to like version 1.9.5, doesn’t work on the T|X. The Mac installer includes version 1.9.3. And FlingIt! doesn’t fling anything, at least not on my computer.
I sent a support request on Friday. No response yet.
Seriously, GoKnow–I know Palm’s support for the Mac is minimal, but we do have a third party synching app (The Missing Sync) that blows anything Palm ever offered us out of the water. Well worth the 40 bucks.
I’m taking a course on handhelds in education this summer. It’s Palm-specific, for better or worse. I’ve learned so far that schools actually are using these things, mainly for economic reasons (a $200 Palm is much easier on the pocketbook than a computer costing five times that much).
The good news for me is the class has given me a reason to dust off the Palm T|X I bought last summer and never really put to good use. My favorite discovery so far is the implementation of Google Maps for the Palm OS. The maps are rendered beautifully, and all the core functions of the web-based version are right there. The only downside is you need connectivity to use it, and while I have no problems when on a local wi-fi network, the obvious place to use this tool is when stuck in construction or a general traffic jam.
So, that said, I’m probably going to go with a Palm-based Treo when I finally make the move to a smart phone. I can’t justify an iPhone (specifically, I can’t justify switching carriers for it) and everyone I know using a Windows Mobile-based device says it’s horrible. So I guess I’ll be sticking with Palm a little while longer.
The Foleo still seems kind of pointless, though.
Tell me again why I shouldn’t ditch Sprint, shell out a ton of cash, and get myself an iPhone:
iPhone ads on Gizmodo