John went through his International School of Prague Moodle pages. It started there as a grassroots movement with a small group of teachers. They are in Year 5 of implementation and obviously far ahead from us. He said we are in good shape and can avoid the mistakes his school made in implementation. Things I learned:
All faculty at his school need to do the skills below (Moodlic Literate)
- log in to Moodle
- upload a file
- participate in a forum
- participate in a wiki
A Minimal Requirement for teachers on their pages is to post all homework assignments, and have resources (worksheets – word docs – web links.)
No requirements for teachers to post their grades. They are moving to a Admin Software that will do this for them.
ESL kids love forums on Moodle and they can write at their own pace and they don’t stand out in a classroom environment. Want the forums to be a safe environment.
New teachers when they are hired, they go through an orientation on Moodle. They get all the orientation information, and participate in forums. It would be a good mentoring method.
Administration team, committees, PTA, Board of Trustees put all of their minutes, etc. on Moodle.
All that is produced at the school through Moodlic, it is the property of the school and it gets archived. The teacher can take the course with them, although it is not compatible with Blackboard.
At ISP, Moodlic is only for teachers and students, not parents. Students can share password with the parent. The idea is that parents can’t walk into a classroom.
ISP has turned off the chat and the messenging, because too much of temptation for students.
Recommend everyone to 320 gig portable hard drive to back up their work. All students have a USB flash drive to take with them.
Teachers responsible for backing up their moodle pages.
Google docs can be integrated into Moodle. ISP is gmail. No email accounts for students.
Faculty Meetings minutes, etc. on Moodle Course. The forum occurs before the meeting.
Faculty Forum – Before the faculty meeting, Prinicpal sends it out.
Trainings – Beginning of the year 3 hours, 1 and 1/2 for veterans. The Moodle trainers (two teachers) and then ICT trainer. Give a stipend to those mentors.
Cyber Cafe – One time per week, not required for teachers to go to. This is a PD for tech stuff.
One problem is too many things going on and too many portals for people to access.
Upper School Calendar for Homework – Portal for parents (Principal and Counselor) – Talk to teachers –
One portal – email/calendars/
One portal – Moodlic
One portal – WebEIM (or alternative Admin Software)
Teachers self police and no administrator moving through the pages to see who is doing them.
Leadership Team Course Excellent!
When a student enrolls, they fill out a form allow their children to be photographed on put on the website.
Teachers need to de-clutter their documents on their moodle pages as the years go by.
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