Moodle Stories from Moodle.org

I found this link on the great Moodlerific.org blog, which posts helpful Moodle tips, links, tricks and how-to's on a regular basis. The link is to a discussion forum at Moodle.org that highlights Moodle stories, or requests for specific stories that help to illustrate the means to various ends and how Moodle can be used effectively to accomplish it.

Their are a bunch of great stories (and it grows daily) but one of my favorites is a topic titled "MOODLE CREATES SUCCESS!" (note that you need a username and password to access the site, but it's free and the resources available at Moodle.org are well worth the cost of an additional username and password to remember, especially since they do no email solicitations or campaigns). The post comes from Mary Kaplan who is a Moodle user in SC. She used it to created a blended learning experience for her students in foreign languages and it brought the number of failing students to zero in just a short time.

I teach French in a secondary school in Aiken, South Carolina. This year I have taught courses in 2nd and 4th year French. Every year, I have had at least a couple of students fail to meet the standards, usually in first or second year.

This year, I have NO, repeat NO students failing. NONE AT ALL! And I have a couple who would have failed in previous years, who came to me with very low marks from French 1. On the French National Exam, written by the American Association of Teachers of French, I had extraordinary results as well, with my top students.

For the greater part of the second semester, I have been using moodle to provide additional practice opportunities for my students, and it has paid off incredibly. I only realized this yesterday when I received a printout of my grades from guidance. I had already checked for unsuccessful graduating seniors, but not all my students.

I have not changed how I teach. As a matter of fact I have covered more material that I ever have. I have not been grading less stringently. Nothing has changed except that I have provided an opportunity for students to practice and review on moodle.

I cannot imagine a class where this resource would not be beneficial. If you have doubts, come talk to me about it.

Martin, you cannot imagine how grateful I am!

--Mary

I think it's a great story about the possibilities of Moodle, especially in high school. Sign into Moodle.org and ask questions of Mary or the other contributors to learn more about Moodle. We'll continue posting illustrations here, but in the meantime you can get a lot of great information from perusing the 1000s of pages of Moodle.org.