CR2.0 Live: Tomaz Lasic - 3/28/09 @ Noon EST

By now you probably know I'm a big fan of Tomaz Lasic (creator of 2 Minute Moodle and the Human blog). Well now is your chance to join the fan club.

This Saturday (3/28) at noon Tomaz will present "Using Moodle in the Classroom". It's sure to be a great presentation and will give a lot of examples of ACTUAL classroom use of Moodle. Check it out, here's more information from CR2.0 Live:

The topic this Saturday is: "Using Moodle in the Classroom". Our special guest will be Tomaz Lasic, author of the "Human for fellow teachers " blog. Our Newbie Question of the Week will be: "What are ways I can use Moodle in the classroom with students?" We hope you'll join us to share your ideas and questions. Links for more information can be found at http://live.classroom20.com. We strive to make our shows beginner-friendly and if you've never participated in a live web meeting don't be afraid to come and take a peek at the show's format. We love newbies to join us and 'dip their toes in’ the conversations until you feel comfortable enough to "jump in the conversations with both feet"! We want to encourage "experienced Web 2.0 users" to join us by contributing and extending the conversation by sharing real-life examples and tips/suggestions.

Important Information:

• Date: Sat., Mar. 28, 2009
• Time: 9:00am PST/10:00am MST/11:00am CST/12:00pm EST
• Other time zones link and a link to the actual meeting room can be found at http://live.classroom20.com/.
• Location: Elluminate

Help Us Choose a New Motto

New at Global Classroom

We're excited to invite all of our users to check out our new profile layout and network capabilities.  We've been working hard to formalize our business model and we believe we're there!  Go to http://new.globalclassroom.us to login with your regular username/password information to get a more concise view of your personal learning network.  More information about this upgrade.  

Why the change?

This change is all for the better.  We're still offering the easiest to use FREE Moodle network in the world and all teachers wanting a course can easily create a classroom space online in the GlobalClassroom network.  Now students will be able to search for their teacher's course much easier using a course ID or the course title.  

Additionally, we've activated our automated network payment and creation process which will let schools, organizations, businesses and individuals interested in a more customizable solution purchase a network starting at the low price of $29.99 a month.  Over 400 educational organizations are already enjoying their own piece of the Global Classroom network.  

Here's a brief outline of what else has changed:

• Login/Registration from a Network
• New Personal Profile Layout
• Easier Search for Networks and Courses
• Course registration and search using Course IDs
• Create Free Courses on the Global Classroom network
• Join a network for collaboration
• Archive a course
• Change default network
• Automated Network Purchase and Customization
• Network URL Customization
  
• Post Courses in your Network Catalog
  
• Upload Custom Network Banners

Over the next few weeks we'll be highlighting the changes on this blog in more detail and will also publish all of the capabilities in a Moodle course available on the free network: http://new.globalclassroom.us/free.  More to come!

5 Steps to Moodle Success

DigMo has a wonderful post about how to successfully integrate Moodle into your classroom, school, or community: "5 steps to Moodle success". I found that our Cohort program and my daily advice to users echoed the simple list that DigMo created and published. In simple terms, these few examples in action could really foster and encourage the use of Moodle.

Here's the basic list again, but please do visit the blog post directly for more great information:

1. Use it as a student - We sell professional development, which we think is the best way to get teachers comfortable with online learning through Moodle.
   
2. Use it to offer downloads - we don't use this one as much, considering there's no telling what programs students and teachers will need. However, I think that Moodle's classroom file system is a really great tool available to students and teachers in the classroom.
   
3. Use it for communications - Discussion forums are one of the most widely used tools on our platform. To date over 3500 discussion forums have been created on the GlobalClassroom.
   
4. Use it for collaboration - what's better than 1 teacher building a great class? how about 2 or more! We allow any editing teacher to add other editing teachers to their course, a feature unique to our Moodle at GlobalClassroom.
   
5. Use it for assessment - The quiz and assignment features are great, and even better are any tools that can eliminate the need for teachers to correct assessments manually. Moodle can help save time!
   

All in all, a great resource, Check out the PDF here.

Real-Life Moodle - Glossary

Here's a post from Tomaz Lasic (creator of 2 minutes Moodle). He discusses the use of the Glossary in Moodle and how students are engaging their material through the module.

I got students into groups of three, one is the official scribe. In groups they discuss and come up with a definition/ explanation of their allocated concept. They must use examples to demonstrate their understanding of the concept (eg. ‘reason’, ‘valid argument’, ‘inference’…). The scribe enters the definition into the course glossary I had set up. Apart from text, students can add pictures, graphics, even embed videos to support their explanation using the Glossary’s HTML editor.

Brilliant work. I bet his students get a kick out of creating their own course resources. Check out the full post here: "Using Moodle Glossary to stop Spoonfeeding Students".

Join the Twitter Moodle Group

Quick and easy if you're a twitter-er, login to twitter, go here and join the club!

Moodle and Classroom 2.0 Live

On March 14th at 12pm EST Miguel Guhlin will lead a presentation for Classroom 2.0 Live, a great resource for teachers looking to learn more about tech-ed through live online sessions through Elluminate. These weekly webinars are organized by the CR2.0 volunteers and Steve Hargadon.

Miguel is the owner of Around the Corner, a great education technology blog that I follow regularly. He's been focusing a lot on Moodle lately and has some great resources for school Moodle administrators about adding new modules, setting up Moodles and lots of tutorial information. Do check it out.

On 3/14 though he'll be highlighting Moodle through CR2.0 which should be a great way to learn about the popular open source Learning Management System from a well known blogger/educator.

• Here's more information about the session.
• Here's a link directly to the CR2.0 Live sessions and schedule.
  

Free Live Moodle course 3/16/09

Edufire is a cool little program you can use to teach and learn synchronously. On March 16th, at 8:30pm EST, Allisun O'Connell, who I found through a discussion on Moodlemeet's Ning is leading a free Moodle training session using Edufire.

Here's a synopsis of the session:

Moodle is an open source e-learning platform – also known as an LMS (Learning Management System) that was built with social constructivist origins.

This course will introduce you to the coolest teaching tools in Moodle while you learn the basics of navigation & adding content.

A question and answer period will be held towards the end of class, and you will have the opportunity to try Moodle out yourself with their demonstration site.

It sounds like a great opportunity to get started using your online classroom in Moodle. Sign up today though, cause there are only about 50 seats left. Please note that your attendance will require registration with Edufire.

Click here for more information and the registration page.

Hope I'll see you there!