Wendell Kisner, Athabasca University, Canada
Delivering a Self-Directed Graduate Course Through Moodle
Abstract
Athabasca University (AU), Canada's Open University, recently adopted a single learning management system (LMS)Moodle. Prior to the adoption of Moodle, several (proprietary and open source) LMSs were in use at AU. The transition to the Institution-wide implementation of Moodle is a challenge, and a number of Moodle pilots are currently underway to help smooth that transition. One of those pilots, MAIS 601, Making Sense of Theory in the Arts and Social Sciences, a graduate-level course in AU's MAIntegrated Studies Program, serves as the basis for this presentation.
The presenter, having taught MAIS 601 at-a-distance with the open source LMS that preceded Moodle (Bazaar), will not only draw comparisons between Bazaar and Moodle, but also between Moodle and WebCT, having used the WebCT for several years to support face-to-face teaching at another institution. The presentation will focus on the advantages and drawbacks of using Moodle to facilitate self-directed study at-a-distance, how Moodle's conferencing features can be employed to maximize learning, and how lessons learned during the piloting of MAIS 601 will contribute the Institution-wide implementation of Moodle at AU.
Brief bio:
Wendell Kisner has been teaching for over fifteen years. He got his PhD in philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, and his research and instructional interests include Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Levinas, Plato, Deleuze, Rousseau, Political Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, Globalism and Technology. Wendell has published work on Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida in The Owl of Minerva (the Journal for the Hegel Society of America), and has presented papers at the Conference of Radical Scholars and Activists at Loyola University in Chicago and at the University of Alberta Philosophical Colloquium. He has written, developed and delivered an online graduate-level course on political philosophy and democratic participation in the context of global capitalism, and has been teaching online graduate courses now for several years.