Free eBooks for your Classroom

I'm a big fan of ebooks for a couple of reasons: they cut on paper, there are lots of FREE ones available and you can easily build them into classrooms.

I remember a few courses in high school where the copies of the books we were reading were worn, written in, garbage. That doesn't need to be the case anymore. A pdf or word document with the same information is just as good (if not better) than a hard copy. Not to mention that you can have infinite copies, store 100s on a flash drive or even read them on new ebook readers like the Kindle (I do not have one).

Here's the most recent resource brought to my attention by FreeTech4Teachers.com (an invaluable resource for teachers).

http://www.e-booksdirectory.com

This site has over 1600 ebooks covering all sorts of subjects. Most of the books seem to be geared towards high school level or higher, but there are some that might fit for lower grades.

Here's a screen shot of the vast array of content areas available:

Note that some books are PDF while others are Word documents (this info is clearly labeled on the download page).

I found some great books I've downloaded to look at later, including Cory Doctorow's Content which looks/sounds pretty cool and interesting.

Here are some other posts with links to free ebooks and text books on the web:

• 200+ free math books
• 701 elearning tips
• free moodle text book
• Flat World Knowledge - note that this site recently released their first open text books. Check the site for more info.
• Wikibooks

What can Moodle do for you?

From the Moodleblog.org: a quick instructional video showcasing (in real terms) what Moodle really can do for you and your school/organization.

Enjoy the video which runs under 5 minutes and is VERY well put together.

Whether or not you're using Moodle, this is a great resource to show people that might not know or understand the capabilities it provides.

701 eLearning Tips (free ebook)

Found this on Scribd as part of the Moodlers group (originally this group was brought to my attention through Moodle Man's blog). All of the resources are worth a visit, but this ebook was especially interesting for anyone using a computer and the internet to facilitate learning.

The tips were compiled by Elliot Masie (www.masie.com) and originally started as just a call for a few quick tips that he was going to post to his website. Over 700 tips later and the book is several iterations older (but all the more helpful).

Check out the book in it's entirety here.

Or flip through the embedded version below:

Publish at Scribd or explore others: School Work Education-Teaching eLearning

The book covers tips to get started on the right foot, creating content, quality assurance, and integration and roll out of services. There's something for everyone!

Here are a few of my favorites (though, I admit I have not had the time to read all 701...yet).

• Be assured that e-Learning is not a silver bullet. Refrains yourself from using e-Learning for every training/learning opportunity. There is a place for e-Learning, but it is not appropriate in every circumstance.
• develop an e-Learning strategy that addresses the needs, culture, objectives, etc., of your [school] ... then implement based on your strategy
• putting existing material onto the web is not e-Learning, but e-Reading. The most successful interventions are those that include a fair amount of planning, innovation and active user involvement.
• match the tools you use to the audience.
• the more interactive a page, the more technology you use, the more likely someone, somewhere, will not be able to access it.
• try to learn in the same way you ask your students to learn.
• after posting a module or course to the web, and BEFORE announcing its availability to students, make sure that all sections of the module or course are accessible to the students and that all the links, etc. work like they were designed to.

Check out the other 694 when you have a chance!

The importance of course quality

The following information is from an interesting Educause article about a college that migrated from an in-house learning management system (LMS) to Moodle over the course of 12+ months.

Like the other great articles about Moodle integration, they stressed the planning the adoption process in order to make is as smooth as possible for the teachers (400 staff) and students (4,400) at Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC.

The article is more of a case study about each step of the RRU process, evaluating their needs, evaluating their choices, building a well represented coalition to lead the selection process and then the actual migration. There are several helpful figures too that illustrate the differences in content creation processes when the LMS was custom and when it was Moodle (when they were using their own LMS, web designers actually created the courses).

I think some of the most important tidbits from the article highlight the differences between the old web (web1.0) and new web (web2.0 and beyond) which allow authors, teachers, faculty to take control of the development, creation and updating of their own content. Another point important for all schools looking at building online content is the section about quality assurance.

Some key lessons learned about course quality, according to the article were:

1. Put course quality front and center.
2. Ensure that there are quality guidelines and ways to implement them during and after the transition.
3. Communicate, communicate, and communicate! (Educause.edu 2008)

As you may be evaluating Moodle for your own educational institutions, those three points are very important. Here's how we're putting those same philosophies to work at GlobalClassroom in our professional development courses.

QA for our courses is front and center. Every course includes the relevant information to guide students to tutorials, every course is evaluated, every teacher is evaluated and this information is reviewed by our staff, our teachers and our higher ed partners regularly to ensure the highest quality.

As new course come on board, they are evaluated and "combed over" by an instructional designer. We provide feedback to our facilitators, monitor courses, check and recheck resources and activities against our approved rubrics and course objectives.

Finally, we provide easy ways for our facilitators and students to contact us, and for our facilitators and students to connect and communicate with each other. At GlobalClassroom we're very much about community and network building. Issues are resolved in real time, with real contact (my cell phone is listed!).

So as you consider Moodle, be sure to really evaluate what you have, what you need, and what's available. The process can be time consuming and difficult, but in the end it's well worth it as Moodle is flexible and the community is superb.

Moodle's Choice Activity

There is a great article by Mary Cooch, author of Packt Publishing's Moodle 1.9 for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds: Beginner's Guide, available now on Packt's website.

The book covers much more than the article, but if you're looking for specific ideas on how to use Moodle's Choice activity then this short article has some great information. The article also covers Wikis, which are more complex, but equally as useful as the choice.

Here's a link directly to the article. Enjoy the read.

In Mary's words, here is why she likes the Choice activity:

>It is a fast and simple method of gathering data for a class research project. I used this with a class of 13 year olds who had just returned from the summer break. I asked them to choose where they had been on vacation, giving them choices of our own country, several nearby countries in Europe, the United States of America, and a few more. I set up the choice, so that they could all see the answers when the time was up. I also set it up in such a way that the results were anonymous, to avoid any kind of uneasiness felt by those students who had stayed at home. The class then compared and contrasted the class results with Tourist Office statistics on the most popular tourist destinations.

>It offers a private way for students to evaluate and inform the teacher about their progress. Students might be too shy to tell you in person if they are struggling; they might be wary of being honest in the open voting methods that some teachers use (such as red, amber, or green traffic lights). However, if the students are aware of the fact that their classmates will not see their response, they are more likely to be honest with you.

>It acts as a way to involve the class in deciding the path that their learning will take. I first introduced my class of 11 year olds to rivers in Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia. Then, I offered the class, the chance to vote for the river that they wanted study in greater depth as part of their project. The majority opted for the Amazon—so the Amazon it was!

And if you're looking for part 1: follow this link to learn about forums, chatrooms, glossaries and the database.

Lessons in Moodle Implementation - NCSD

This one comes from "Changing the Face of Education In Iowa" a new blog I found through Google's blog search (which I scour daily for Moodle tidbits and info.).

The topic: Moodle Implementation.

The setting: A presentation at a curriculum meeting.

The info: Great.

I especially like the synopsis of highlights that Evan provided:

• It was mentioned several times they have already seen student achievement gains. Some of that is better grades, which can result from better organization for students via Moodle. However, the sense from the Norwalk team was that their standardized test data are beginning to reflect the benefits Moodle brings to their curriculum.
• The plan for year one of implementation was to have teachers use Moodle as a repository. Year two's plan is to use Moodle to deliver content, using the lesson and workshop modules.
• Norwalk has been very deliberate about the roll-out process. They initially supported teachers with a tech cadre to get the early adopters started on it the previous year, and then have continued the support with "Moodle Mondays", where those lead teachers serve as support for other teachers in Moodle development. Each member of the team mentioned "Moodle Mondays" was critical to their success.

There are a great number of good points in the original post. But most of all I like these three parts:

1. First, that tracking student achievement gains/losses is very important. Afterall, education technology is supposed to support education (it's not technology for the sake of technology)
2. Next, having a phased plan helps not to overload those responsible for the system. Whether it's a train the training model, 1st adopters roll out or modeling a very specific use of Moodle: starting small and growing is the best way to get momentum without getting burned out.
3. Finally, setting up Moodle Mondays is a great way to tie it all together. I'm sure attendance at these fluctuates, but it gives teachers a venue that they can rely on to go learn, when they have time, when they need to or just when they are ready.

So if you're serious about implementing Moodle to your classroom, school or district I challenge you to plan it out, or even start your own Moodle Monday.

Great Presentation on Moodle

This presentation comes from one of our newest eSchool network administrators, Sister Debbie Timmis. The presentation was made using Google Docs and incorporates a lot of great Youtube videos focused on the use of educational technology (Moodle, wikis, Delicious and social bookmarking and educational videos). It even features the use of GlobalClassroom (yay!).

As we bring more and more networks online through the GlobalClassroom it'll be great to share the great content that our partners are creating online and using to advocate the use of Moodle and other education technology tools.

Enjoy the show and thanks to Sister Debbie.

Edufire Moodle Course: 4/13/09 @ 8:30PM EST

On April 13th, at 8:30pm EST, Allisun O'Connell, is once again 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.

Right now there are about 70 seats left (last time she presented to a packed 'house'). Please note that your attendance will require registration with Edufire.

If you're wondering how her first session went (which was back in March) here are some comments and feedback that she received:

Thanks, Allisun. Great resources. :-)

Lesli on Monday Mar 16

I thought Allisun did a wonderful job of introducing Moodle to the class. She kept the class engaged with questions and answered them as the arose but stayed on track with the presentation. I will say, there were times when I was experiencing lags in the video and audio but overall a good experience. The lags may have been due to the fact that I am in Japan and she was in the US. I will look into other class/course by Allisun and other instructors as well. Good job to Allisun and EduFire.

Bill on Tuesday Mar 17

With all the documentation that is currently available on the web, it could be assumed that anyone interested in taking this class has already found much of the content in the books. Why take the class then? Because the instructor builds a logical mental model of how the system works, and presents it in a logical step by step fashion. Course used combination of PPTs and Moodle walk thru's, covering many of the questions I had formed while reading the various docs. The instructor was well versed in using Moodle and was able to communicate this knowledge well. If there is a problem with the course it was minor and consisted of the presentation system not displaying the content of drop down boxes correctly (at least for me). I would recommend this course for those seeking an introductory overview of the Moodle system.

Richard on Tuesday Mar 17

Allisun ran a huge class really well and shared lots of interesting information. I humbly suggest some student activities might be good for future sessions - possibly a short time 'playing' with some live Moodles via own browser outside eduFire. A great class though, and definitely recommended.

Mair on Tuesday Mar 17

Awesome class! Very informative stuff explained in plain english... Thanks a lot!

Tim on Thursday Mar 19

The content was wonderful and the class participation was very informative as well! I had trouble with the feed, but I was on a public wireless. I have already recommended the next one to a linkedin group.

Kate on Thursday Mar 19

Very nicely run class. I was more interested in an overall view of how one might use Moodle and felt this was definitely delivered. Also appreciated reading several of the informative chat q&a on the sidebar including from some who clearly weren't seeing Moodle for the first time. Learners helping learners - nice!

Mark on Thursday Mar 19

Click here for more information and the registration page.

Hope I'll see you there!

Webinar with Joe Thibault - 4/2/09 @ 4pm: New GC Features

I'm re-igniting the webinar fire and hosting one on Thursday, April 2nd at 4pm EST. During the webinar I'll be discussing the new features on GlobalClassroom as many of you might have found at http://new.globalclassroom.us.

New features include:

• one click system registration and course enrollment
• custom eschool banners
• custom eschool catalog/login urls
• redesigned personal profile layout
• course archiving

I'll spend a little time on each and field questions about the upgrade to GlobalClassroom services.

If you're interested and not yet a registered user at GlobalClassroom, go to the free course network home page and click register. Use the course code when registering to enroll automatically (zwlwz1676).

If you're already registered, just login at http://new.globalclassroom.us/free and search "webinar" or the course code (zwlwz1676) for find and enroll in the webinar course. Once enrolled, access the course for a link to the webinar.

I hope to see you then!