LMS Project Spotlight: Moodle
Contributed by: Lynda S. LaRoche, FITS Specialist / Blackboard Support Coordinator

In accordance with the collaborative efforts of ATAC and FITS to investigate possibilities for upgrading or changing the current course management system, Blackboard, we are in the first pilot of testing Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment). During the FITS Winter Term Workshop, four faculty members developed Moodle course sites to use during spring semester and one developed a Moodle site for collaboration with other liberal arts institutions:

• Hilary Eppley, VIPEr (Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource)
• Jeff Hansen, Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Kevin McKelvey, English
• Sherry Mou, Modern Languages
• Ronnie Pejril, School of Music

A few of the features being tested include:

• Assignments – similar to Blackboard’s Digital Dropbox with the added ability to grade
• Blog
• Calendar
• eReserves
• Forum – similar to Blackboard’s Discussion Board
• Gradebook
• Journal
• Quiz – similar to Blackboard’s Test
• Resource – similar to posting content (Course Documents, Syllabus, etc.) and links in Blackboard
• Wiki
• Workshop – Assignment with the option for peer assessment

In addition to the above features streaming audio, DyKnow, Jmol interactive molecule viewer, PDF and various other multi-media formats have been tested successfully. Plus, Moodle supports more than 60 languages.

Although we have had a few minor “hiccups” that occur when setting up a new server and software, Moodle has been well received not only by the faculty members testing it, but also by most of the students in their classes. A couple of the student comments I’ve heard include “Moodle is better than Blackboard” and “Moodle is more fun for us than Blackboard”. Faculty members have also had a positive experience using Moodle once they became familiar with the interface for setting up a course site.

On Tuesday, March 13th, ATAC and FITS will host a demonstration of Moodle at noon in the Media Classroom of the Roy O. West Library. Both Jeff Hansen and Sherry Mou will be showcasing various features of Moodle, as well as sharing their experiences of using Moodle in their classrooms this semester. Keep an eye open for an email with additional information about this event.

If you have any questions or concerns about the course / learning management system project, please feel free to contact Carol Smith (clsmith@depauw.edu), Lynda LaRoche (llaroche@depauw.edu), or a member of ATAC (Jeff Hansen, chair, jhansen@depauw.edu).

News From The Field: 2007 Educause Learning Initiative Annual Meeting
Contributed by Ronnie Pejril, Instructional Technologist/Coordinator of Music Instructional Technology Center (mitc)

The Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) (http://www.educause.edu/eli/), is a community of higher education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through information technology innovation. One way ELI achieves this goal is by bringing administrators, faculty and instructional technologists together to share ideas at the Annual Meeting.

The theme of this year’s ELI Annual Meeting, held in Atlanta in January, was “Creating a Successful Learning Culture: Connecting Learners, Communities and Information.” We explored a variety of technologies and practices that can connect learning communities together, enhancing the success of learning at our institutions.

One of the prevailing themes of the conference was the ways in which “Web 2.0” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2) technologies, such as wikis, blogs, social networking, mashups, etc., can aid in learning. To that end, many of the meeting’s presentations were made available as podcasts, and notes were made available as wiki pages, online. You can hear some of the podcasts from the conference by browsing to http://connect.educause.edu/term_view/ELI2007.

Another theme, “Ubiquitous Computing,” refers to the ways that mobile technologies and gaming can make learning more immersive (for more information, browse to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing). Chris Dede, Harvard Professor of Learning Technologies, made an engaging presentation on how portable GPS devices can be used in an outdoor learning-quest to create an “augmented reality” for an “Environmental Detective” curricular unit at MIT. Learn more about this project at http://education.mit.edu/ar/ed.html. Bryan Alexander, Director of Research for the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE), gives a compelling description of ubiquitous computing's implications in academe in a podcast found at http://connect.educause.edu/blog/jcummings/bryan_alexander_on_ubiquitous_computing
/16689.

Creating efficient and effective learning environments to support ubiquitous computing through interior layout and design was another prevalent note in the Annual Meeting. Rethinking the notion of “classroom space” to include flexible designs and virtual environments opens new opportunities for faculty to teach in engaging ways. Educause has created an eBook, entitled Learning Spaces, that captures these principles. This book is available at http://www.educause.edu/LearningSpaces/10569.

Winter Term FITS Workshops: The Pragmatics and the Utilitarians
Contributed by Sherry J. Mou, Faculty Coordinator, Faculty Instructional Technology Support (FITS), Associate Professor, Department of Modern Languages (Chinese) & Asian Studies

This year’s FITS Winter Term Workshop saw a diverse group of participants and projects, and most projects were related to the participants’ spring courses.  Here’s the list:

• Roger Dortch-Doan (Kinesiology) created a website for students to access information and schedules about strength and conditioning (www.depauw.edu/ath/strength).
• Linda Elman (Spanish) worked on using podcasting, among other things, to provide background information for her advanced Spanish cultural class.
• Hilary Eppley (Chemistry) streamlined her personal website and investigated social computing for the Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource (VIPEr), a Mellon-funded project she is engaged in with colleagues in several other institutions.
• Jeff Hansen (Chemistry) developed a new course he is teaching in spring on Moodle, one of the alternatives to Blackboard the university is looking into.
• Pascal Lafontant (Biology) designed a unit on blood circulation using DyKnow for his Organismal Biology (Bio 135) and Animal Physiology (Bio 335).
• Linda Martin (International Education) explored several possibilities for her ESL students, including podcasting, streaming audio, and Skype.
• Ronnie Pejril (School of Music) and Sherry Mou (Chinese) joined Jeff Hansen in experimenting with Moodle.  Ronnie’s class would make frequent use of blogs and podcasting, and Sherry’s class tested out Moodle’s capacity in handling functions that are widely used among faculty members, such as the Discussion Board, E-reserve, and Gradebook.

The Moodle group was also joined occasionally by Kevin McKelvey (English) and David Guinee (Classical Studies) who also tried their hands at Moodle.  Kevin has since developed his English 130 on Moodle; he and his students are using blogs and wikis on Moodle in some fairly creative ways.

The workshop ended on Wednesday, January 24, the last day of the Winter Term.  We shared our projects with each other in a final session at the Emerson Room of the Walden Inn.  Amid delicious hors d'oeuvres and drinks, the two-hour presentation went by faster than we imagined.  It was a very gratifying experience.  We all completed the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the workshop.  As always with the FITS workshops, in addition to what we accomplished ourselves, learning what other colleagues are doing is both interesting and inspiring.

GIS “Quick Hits” During Winter Term
Contributed by M. Beth Wilkerson, FITS GIS Specialist / CGMA Project Programmer

During Winter Term 2007, the DePauw GIS Center offered three different GIS “Quick Hits” workshops.  These workshops veered from the traditional, general overview format of previous GIS Center workshops by targeting very specific topics and GIS techniques:

Generating Topographic Profiles from DEM’s using ArcGIS™
and Adobe Illustrator™
(Wednesday, January 10, 2007)

Exploring Census Data using ArcGIS™
(Wednesday, January 17, 2007)

Incorporating Spatial Thinking into the Classroom using Google Earth™
(Wednesday, January 24, 2007)

The directed nature of these workshops required considerably less time than the full- or multi-day workshops offered in the past, with each workshop lasting only one (albeit packed!) hour.  The focused nature of the workshops allowed class sizes to remain small (seven, six, and six, respectively), which resulted in more informal and more interactive classes.

Workshop participants received hands-on instruction on how to perform each specific task. In addition, each participant received an instruction sheet that provided step-by-step details on how to reproduce the procedures done in class so that they could practice (and experiment) at their leisure at another time.

Based on feedback from this year’s participants, this short “Quick Hits” format was quite popular.  One participant said, “Sometimes multi-day workshops are difficult to make time for…”.  He liked being able to “…block off an hour, learn something specific, and leave with detailed instructions in hand”.

The GIS Center is planning to offer more “Quick Hits” workshops in the future.  A few of the topics submitted by January’s participants to be considered for future workshops are:

• Analyzing DEM’s
• Creating and editing GIS data
• Creating advanced Google Earth™ features
• Generating basic location maps
• Importing GPS data into ArcGIS™ and Google Earth™
• Viewing discipline-specific classroom and/or assignment examples
• Visualizing 3-D landforms

If you have additional ideas for a GIS “Quick Hits” workshop, please send your request to Beth Wilkerson, bwilkerson@depauw.edu.

Library / I.L.S. Open House 2007
Contributed by David Diedriech, Technical Training Coordinator

On Friday, February 16th, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., the DePauw libraries and Instructional and Learning Services (I.L.S.) hosted our third open house event. “The weather outside was frightful”, but Roy O. West Library was nice and warm as we offered several different events for students and library patrons to participate and view. The cold temps and blowing snow were definitely a factor in the lower attendance this year (the event actually had to be re-scheduled from Valentines Day, due to inclement weather); however, those who braved the snow and ice seemed to enjoy the different activities.

One big hit was START hosting a digital photo booth that students could send to their family as a belated electronic Valentine card, showing them studying hard in the library. Also, I.L.S. offered students and faculty members a chance to view new technology, such as Podcasting, Moodle, and the new TigerMail. In addition, the reference librarians demonstrated social bookmarking software, such as http://del.icio.us/ and Flickr (pictures from the Open House were uploaded to a special Flickr account).

Responses to the new software, particularly the new GroupWise (TigerMail) client, were almost entirely favorable. In conclusion, this event was a great way to showcase not only the resources available in the DePauw libraries, but also the projects and technologies supported by I.L.S.

Staff Spotlight: Tara McCoy-Jones,
Graduate Intern for Instructional Technology

Tara has a BA in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy from James Madison College at Michigan State University and a MA in Dispute Resolution from Wayne State University (WSU). While in graduate school at WSU, she interned for Mayor Dennis Archer's office. Upon graduating, she began working as a Project Assistant on various Mayoral technology projects. From government, she transitioned to the private sector working as a Project Analyst. She took on the role of Deputy Director/Project Manager for a small Non-profit Alternative Dispute Resolution Agency for five and a half years. A culmination of her academic and professional experiences led her to Instructional Technology (back at WSU). Currently, she is taking classes at Purdue as she works toward her PhD. Tara enjoys working in the community where she is a youth mentor. She enjoys music, the arts, family, friends, and prospering!

Please join us in welcoming Tara to the I.L.S. team, specifically in her role with the START program. Tara may be reached on x6574 or at taramccoyjones@depauw.edu .