moodle early early use by teachers in higher education: an exploratory study
TRANSCRIPT
Moodle early Early Use by Teachers in Higher Education: An Exploratory Study
Patrícia Fidalgo, João Paz and Fernando Luís SantosInstituto Piaget
IntroductionStudies about Moodle usage in Portugal in secondary schools (Lisbôa et al., 2007) and HE Institutions (Magano, Castro & Carvalho, 2008; Lencastre, Vieira & Ribeiro, 2007) stressed that Moodle is mainly used as a content distributing platform and the importance of further teachers training to change practice and to encourage higher quality use. In the course of our research we expect to contribute with useful information for users andeducational institutions in the process of using and implementing this kind of platforms.
ReferencesLencastre, J. A. & Monteiro, A. M. (2008). An on-line project in a higher education institution. In EADTU Conference 2008 - online proceedings. Lifelong learning in higher education: Networked teaching and learning in a knowledge society. Poitiers France.Lencastre, J. G., Vieira, L. F., & Ribeiro, R. (2007). Estudo das Plataformas de eLearning em Portugal. Lisboa. Retrieved 25 March 2010 fromhttp://www.elearning-pt.com/lms2Lisbôa, E. S., Jesus, A. G., Varela, A. M., Teixeira, G. H., & Coutinho, C. P. (2007). LMS em Contexto Escolar: estudo sobre o uso da Moodle pelos docentes de duas escolas do Norte de Portugal. Educação, Formação &Tecnologias, 2(1), 44-57.Magano, J., Castro, A. V., & Carvalho, C. V. (2008). O e-Learning no Ensino Superior: um caso de estudo. Educação, formação & Tecnologia, 1(1), 14.
The authorsPatrícia Fidalgo ([email protected]); Twitter: pfidalgo1 ; João Paz ([email protected]); Twitter: joaopaztwtr ; Fernando Luís Santos ([email protected]); Twitter: flsantos
Avaliable for download in http://slidesha.re/mNEzl4
ContextSince 2007, Piaget Institute has made an effort to modernize its technological infrastructure and implement a training model able to answer XXI century learning challenges, where the presence of Moodle is a constant, as support to face-to-face teaching, or in blended courses where teaching has a strong on-line presence. (Lencastre & MonteiroThe Piaget Online Education and Training Unit is formally responsible for assuring access and availability to Moodle LMS and the training of students and teachers in each Campus. This study was conducted by the Almada Team of that Unit.
This poster is a report on the findings of an exploratory study conducted in a Higher Education Institution about type of use, effects on teachingpractice and perceptions of teachers about Moodle as an instructional tool in both on-line and face to face courses.
FindingsAll figures are presented as percentage of stacked allowing the comparison of the proportional contributions of all groups.
DiscussionOur results show that although different, all groups use similar resources and activities and the perceptions of teachers are mostly positive, againcutting across all groups and considering factors such as communication, repository and educational use. Considering that teachers of groups A and Bhad only basic training about the use of Moodle and group C had a more advanced training it is somewhat surprising that there were no statisticallysignificant differences between groups. The early stages of Moodle implementation in the Institution may contribute to explain this result.
As a repository of content
For evaluation of students …
To communicate with students …
To receive students' work
To keep the resources of my course organized …
To (support) activities outside school hours
To (support) activities in the classroom
C – b-learning (80%) B – b-learning (20%) A – face-to-face
Figure 2. Reasons for using Moodle
Figure 1.
Book
Insert a label
Compose a text page
Compose a web page
Link to a file or website
Display a directory
Add an IMS content package
C – b-learning (80%) B – b-learning (20%) A – face-to-face
Figure 3. Resources usage in Moodle
Chat
Journal
Forum
FLV player
Glossary
Survey
Lesson
Questionnaire
Choice
SCORM/AICC
Database
Quiz
Assignments
Wiki
C – b-learning (80%) B – b-learning (20%) A – face-to-face
Figure 4. Activities usage in Moodle
Figure 5. Kruskal-Wallis test results on teachers perceptions about Moodle.
Question
Group AN=24
Median rank
Group BN=7
Median rank
Group CN=4
Median rank
X² p
A. Contact with students is facilitated through the use of synchronous and asynchronous tools 4 4 4.5 .836 .658
B. It is an excellent repository of various types of content 5 4 4.5 1.426 .490
C. Work on Moodle from any location is a plus 5 5 5 .274 .872
D. Work on Moodle at any time that is convenient to me is a plus 5 5 5 .757 .684
E. It's very useful for organizing my classes 2 2 2.5 .724 .696
F. Moodle is very useful to receive assignments from students 4 4 4.5 2.813 .244
G. Help me to save time in the organization of classes 3 3 3 .708 .701
H. Moodle has resources and/or activities to meet the objectives that I propose in my classes 2 2 2 1.630 .442
I. Does not make the relationship between teacher and student impersonal 2 3 2.5 3.047 .217
J. It is flexible in terms of structure 3 3 3 .856 .651
K. It is flexible in terms of content there may arise 2 2 1.5 4.054 .131
L. Working with Moodle is not difficult and/or complicated and doesn’t require specific technical skills 2 2 2.5 1.213 .545
M. The appearance is attractive 2 3 3.5 3.383 .184
N. Moodle has educational use 2 2 1.5 .0453 .977
The Study
Figure 1. The main features of the study