Thursday, April 28, 2011

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

My Moodle course is designed to serve as an instructional archive for my live class. Given this perspective, the content is mainly limited to the 'Remembering' and 'Understanding' areas. The archives of my lesson plans would serve to provide refresher topics for student study.
Using the 'Assignments' option provides a smooth submission path for my students as well.

If I was to utilize this as a true online tool, I would use screen recordings to branch into the 'Applying' and 'Analyzing' areas. The amount of interaction and review that could occur at this point makes it a truly solid educative platform.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

How to Steal Like an Artist

The things I agreed with the most in this article were a few of the subsidiary statements.

2. Don't wait until you know who you are to make things

I don't think this can be stressed enough. I have a writer's group where the main requirement for entry is that you create as much work as possible. The critiques can be absurdly brutal at times, but the 'pick-yourself-up' skills you learn are immensely valuable. And a big part of that is to just keep churning as you grow.

3. Write the book you want to read

Far too often when it comes to creation, people get hung up on what others want or expect your work to be. Does that mean that you shouldn't care about audience? Of course not. If you want your audience to like your work (and they often won't), it is vitally important that you like it first. Otherwise, you have almost no chance.


I'm not a fan of the embrace of lack of originality. While it may be true that most ideas/themes have been explored ad nauseum, a fresh perspective is not only possible but often a requirement. I've created things that had already been done a thousand times before, but in my act of creation I was certainly blazing new personal territory. Maybe it's a question of perspective. But I'll always want to look at it my way. ;)

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Faculty Perspectives - Response

I am planning on using the Moodle I designed for this class to encourage the community college to explore making the switch from Blackboard. Right now, they are switching to Blackboard Learn, the newest version, and it has made quite a few improvements. It is still overly complex and confusing for non-technical users.
Moodle is far more intuitive from what we've seen, but the Blackboard setup has some significant advantages.
  • Blackboard course shells are automatically created for each course section
  • Each student registered to a course section is auto-enrolled in that shell
  • Sign-in to Blackboard is automated as an option from the integrated college login area
  • Template shells can be created and assigned to courses per department
Without being able to put a Moodle trial on an equal footing, I would be unlikely to make much headway. The questions I would ask would relate to resolving these issues, and if they experienced any similar difficulties.