Moodle 2.2 changes the game

 

 Last week I attended a course creator and administration course for Moodle 2.2, the latest release to be deployed within the Department of Education here in the Northern Territory.

I won't try to repeat the three days of excellent training provideded by Julian of Pukunui but I will note the things that resonated with me as a person who manages the backend of our moodle system.

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Online Orientation Package nominated for Chief Minister's award

 Our Human Resource team and Information Services team developed an online orientation package which was nominated for a category in this year's Chief Ministers awards. We didn't win, but we were a finalist which means we came second or third as they don't distinguish between the two. Maybe the saying that nobody remembers who came second could be rolled out, but personally it was wonderful that the program was nominated and then made into the final three.

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So what tools would a Government agency consider in the eLearning space?

We are currently holding discussions across various agencies about learning management systems and delivery of training. I will be providing a list of solutions here that are probably a best bet. Before I do that, let's look again at the problem we are trying to solve or the efficiencies we are trying to achieve.

Common forms of training like orientation, financial procedures, health and safety are delivered face to face, sometimes involving travel and often repeated. These forms of training are good candidates for conversion to eLearning.

Additionally, many of these courses are very similar in nature and content across agencies is also very similar which means that if we can gather a common set of technologies and skills, agencies will be in a situation to share courses and content for repurposing without having to build from the ground up.

We can divide the learning requirements into training and support.

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Articulate or Captivate

Articulate Studio 09 and Adobe Captivate 5 are two eLearning authoring tools in our stable. Both have their good points and in this post I just want to highlight some things that have worked for us in education. First of all our environment. We have a diverse and largely remote spread of more than 170 schools. All are connected by internet and many are connected by a reasonably fast internet connection given the remoteness of the location.

Classrooms use electronic whiteboards and children have access to a variety of devices from the small XO laptop to personal computers, laptops and yes, the iPad.

Channelling learning objects to students via teachers over the internet is done in a number of ways. Moodle is our Learning Management System of choice and Adobe Connect and REACT are two of the video conferencing or webinar solutions we have. We do have others - webex, OCS, Polycom and even Skype but for the purpose of discussing Articulate and Captivate, I will focus on Adobe Connect.

I am not going to provide a head to head comparison of the two products... here are a couple of threads for you to visit http://www.articulate.com/forums/general-discussion/6681-articulate-vs-adobe-captivate.html and this great mashup at http://www.elearninglearning.com/articulate/captivate/

I want to talk about two projects, one where I used Articulate and another where I used Captivate. Ironically, I started both projects intending to use the other product.

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