Creating training material for teachers

[beeswax]

As part of teacher induction at our school I'm aiming to provide some online training material aimed at getting new staff used to using our Moodle VLE. It may well be that this skill can be transferred to other brands of VLE, but for the moment I need to concentrate on ours.

Has anyone here attempted this? Does anyone have any suggestions on where they would start if they were doing it?

I should add that this work will also form the basis of my final year degree course, which runs from now until the November/December, though I want to have the training material in place before the summer holidays so that incoming staff can attempt it at their leisure. As I may use quotes in my final submission can I assume that I have you permissions to do this unless you specifically opt out. Any quotes used will be treated anonymously, but I may identify them by initials such as, A said "xxx" whilst B replied, "xxx" in order to differentiate threads.

Naturally I will share this work with the community if you desire. It may be an idea to put this on the wiki. Thanks in advance.

[Sylv3r]

Still early days, but we are starting to create online videos for our staff and students will get access to different videos on how to use the VLE.

 

I created the videos using Adobe Captivate. See below as an example on our Sharepoint install.

 

Adding Annoucements

[beeswax]

V. nice. Thanks. In the past I've found that staff prefer a walkthrough/video.

[alan-d]

Is this any use as a starting point Teaching with Moodle for total beginners - MoodleDocs

[Guest Guest]

I use Wink for howtos

 

Wink - [Homepage]

[beeswax]

I use Wink for howtos

 

Wink - [Homepage]

 

I've used this in the past, very straightforward.

[dhicks]

As part of teacher induction at our school I'm aiming to provide some online training material aimed at getting new staff used to using our Moodle VLE. Naturally I will share this work with the community if you desire.

 

Be much appreciated if you did, either here or over at Open Source Schools (Open Source Schools), or both.

 

--

David Hicks

[andykemp]

I use Wink for howtos

 

Wink - [Homepage]

 

Jing is also worth a look:

Jing | Add visuals to your online conversations

[secretlife]

I've done a lot of this sort of stuff too for Moodle, some of which I've put on youtube but most of which (because it's part of our external training programme) I'm not allowed to share -but I can make some suggestions from experience of using it with people: screencasts are very good and welcome but they need to be very short and to the point - with labels pointing where the mouse is (Captivate's good for that or Wink) However there is a group of teachers (myself included actually!) who prefer a sheet of paper in front of them with step by step instructions -with screenshots. If you're doing it for staff aside of your degree, you need to offer them both possiblities. And you need to start from the absolute beginning, assuming nothing

And you don't need to show every single possibility - a lot of the stuff in the settings can initially safely be ignored and would put off a beginner

(Oh and a personal bugbear of mine - show them to create folders within the courses before you show them how to upload!)

I think you should consider dhick's suggestion to put them on Open Source Schools

[beeswax]

Oh and a personal bugbear of mine - show them to create folders within the courses before you show them how to upload!

 

I did this in a one to one session with a teacher and she ended up creating separate folders for each individual piece of work she was uploading, and within those folders was another folder named 114 with the actual item to be uploaded. So it ended up with around 10 folders each with the name of the folder it contained, which in turn contained a folder called 114 which eventually contained the Word document for the assignment.

What has (pleasantly) surprised me is the teachers who have taken to the VLE; some unexpected faces in there

 

The Open Source Schools is an idea which sounds promising, but I don't want to give the impression that I'm advocating a particular OS here, that battle is for another day, the important point, or one of the important points, is that I'm trying to give/teach them transferable skills. When we are eventually taken over by a managed service (circa 2013), or if a teacher moves on to another school, then they should have something in place which will ease the transition from one VLE to another (if that's possible).

There are basic skills, such as you say, creating folders and uploading files which I imagine are common to most if not all VLE's. I haven't come across a teacher yet who can't browse to a file and attach it to an email, but ask them to browse for a file to upload it and some of them are completely flummoxed. Only connect as E. M. Forster said.

Edited February 21, 2009 by beeswax

[judyB]

You should include a good glossary. I always find it helpful to spend a bit of time at the beginning of any training defining terms and jargon - like you say they're usually happy with attaching files by clicking on a paperclip because "attach" is a familiar word, but "upload" is a scary computery word that causes panic.

 

A good understanding of terms like upload/download, profile, VLE, forum etc is half the battle - and is transferable.

[beeswax]

You should include a good glossary. I always find it helpful to spend a bit of time at the beginning of any training defining terms and jargon - like you say they're usually happy with attaching files by clicking on a paperclip because "attach" is a familiar word, but "upload" is a scary computery word that causes panic.

 

A good understanding of terms like upload/download, profile, VLE, forum etc is half the battle - and is transferable.

 

That's a very good suggestion. Thank you very much.

[apoth0r]

Anyone have a glossary of terms for teacher training that they could share with me? It's for our VLE at Unity College

[beeswax]

Back in February I asked about creating training materials for teachers as this was to be my final year project at university. As I’m about half way through now I thought I’d post this for comment and advice. I’ve tried to keep it short and jargon free, so if you have the time I’d be grateful for any feedback you can offer.

Interim Report.doc