ARE YOUR CHILDREN MOODLERS?

Moodle is an acronym* for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. The term Moodle can also be used as a verb to describe the process of lazily meandering through something, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity (www.moodle.com).

Some of our Middle and Upper School teachers are incorporating Moodle into their curricula and encouraging their students to create wikis, which are collaboratively-authored web documents or blogs, a contraction of the words, web and log, in which they post information and content about subjects discussed in class.

Last year, Didu Simas, US biology teacher, asked students to produce a radio show, "Ask Dr. Smith" using Moodle for script writing and creating of audio files. The General Biology students prepared interviews in which "Dr. Smith," a geneticist explained Mendelian and non-Mendelian genetics. They used the Moodle wiki component to develop scripts with their partners. Ms. Didu evaluated students’ contributions to the project by following the development of the script in the wiki history. The project helped students develop an understanding of genetic disorders, how they pass on to the next generation, their main symptoms and possible treatments, not to mention technology!

Teachers are planning their Moodle-based activities for this year. For more information please contact Florence.Duarte@earj.com.br or Steve.Esselink@earj.com.br.

(*) Acronym - a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words.