E-learning team - The University of Glasgow
Three years of Moodling: Meandering or Mountain Climbing?
Abstract
The E-Learning Team at the University of Glasgow comprises technologists and educationalists who work in tandem to ensure the use of Moodle for e-learning is driven by education and facilitated by technology. Responsible for the roll-out of Moodle as part of its remit to embed e-learning across the institution, the team uses and encourages the use of Moodle to meet pedagogic and learning management challenges in a traditional university. In our presentation we will focus on the challenges and successes we have encountered since, as a team, we began to Moodle early in 2003 to support learning and teaching. The very adoption of Moodle as the institutions centrally supported VLE in July 2004 was regarded by some as an unusual, if not a foolhardy, choice. However, Open Source learning software has, since 2003, gained considerable momentum. Certainly, the UK Open Universitys adoption of Moodle in 2005 (and notable other adoptions) has caused more than a few HEIs to re-consider well-rehearsed, if frequently ill-founded, beliefs that Moodle was neither scaleable nor of a high enough quality to compete with proprietary VLEs in UK universities. Against this background, and faithful to our pedago-technological approach, we will offer a summary presentation focussed on the road travelled thus far and the meanderings we aim to continue as we use Moodle and contribute its development. Thus the teams presentation will include attention to the strategic, political, economic and, critically, pedagogic and technological obstacles and springboards, successes and problems of using Moodle in a traditional, research-intensive UK university. We will note the variety of ways in which Moodle is supporting both learning and teaching and research and pay particular attention to the challenges of pushing its use from that of file store to e-learning. We will welcome discussion and debate following our presentation and, in the spirit of Open Source and constructivist Moodling, will invite colleagues to share their experiences, similar and different, with us.
Biographies of E-Learning team
Dr. Nicki Hedge is the head of the E-learning Team with overall responsibility for the strategic and day-to-day leadership of the team. She is active in research focussed on the relationships between practice, policy and research in change and innovation contexts, as well as in globalization, inclusion and emotion in e-learning.Craig Brown is a web developer and designer whose main interests focus on the use of Virtual Learning Environments (Moodle in particular) and how ICT is used in teaching and learning in education.
Dr. Deneka MacDonald is an e-learning consultant with a key role in supporting and driving transformational change to embed e-learning across the University with particular reference to the support of e-learning initiatives via programme and materials development; staff development, support and advice; the roll-out and development of Moodle as a platform for e-learning, and the dissemination of good practice, research and scholarship in e-learning.
Howard Miller is the senior e-learning technologist and software programmer and has a wide range of development experience across a myriad of different platforms and languages. He is also a Moodle Developer.
David Scotson is a software developer and web designer who works closely with Howard Miller to provide the technological solutions needed to support and run Glasgows distance and e-learning courses. His interests are predominately in software design and development with a focus on agile methodologies and Open Source software. David is also a Moodle Developer.