Moodle
I have blogged before about quizzes in Moodle but discourse around assessment techniques and Moodle would not be complete without a visit to this module. If you are using Moodle 2 you will be experiencing great benefits of the new module. Consider training students to flag questions they would like you to address in class. Also look at how you can tie a quiz at the end of a set of lessons or other resources so that they become a conditional activity based on completion of these earlier tasks. My best tip around using Moodle quizzes is to start off with a small question base and to build it up over time – remember you can add questions the next time you do the topic also. I always tend to stick with “self-marking” quizzes as I find they are hugely time saving. I also allow students to retake quizzes as the learning from a retake can often be very beneficial – assessment as learning! Let’s not fool ourselves though this is very low on Blooms taxonomy, but as the knowledge component can be very important for students in exams, this is a very useful tool. Finally remember you can request that the Moodle administrator sets up a role whereby students can add questions to quizzes – great for adding to your quiz bank and great learning for your students.
I-pad/i-phone/i-touch App
The new ibook author tool (available on your regular mac!) is fabulous – use it to create ibooks in a jiffy!! I blogged previously about creating an e-pub but this is so much easier. Check out more information on this at http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/ – use the books with your students on their devices……
Educational Application
I have recently installed and trained a few teachers on how to use Dragon dictate and they are “loving it”! The ability to just speak notes into word and for the programme to do all the hard work is very appealing for teachers who are not able to touch type. Check it out! Teachers remember to use http://www.software4students.ie/Dragon_Naturally_Speaking-list.aspx to avail of an educational discount.
Website of the month
I recently stumbled on this really informative site http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,2987,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html – I would highly recommend that teachers take a look as it frames lots of the recent pisa results in bite size chunks.
PLN corner
Check out http://elearningisland.ie/ and follow Donal on twitter at @domaho
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