Going Moodle
The VLE team
The first wave of the University’s transition to the new Virtual Learning Environment has begun with more than 200 staff and 4000 students across all faculties and campuses moving to Moodle 2, an open-sourced learning management system that has been adapted to meet the University’s vision for the future of education.
The transition is supported by the VLE Team, who bring skills in educational approaches and technologies to help staff design activities that support the University’s goal of achieving educational excellence.
Moodle was developed in Australia and is a user-friendly, interactive and supportive learning environment that has the potential to help staff and students think about how education might be delivered. Its lighter demand on bandwidth also means that it is accessible to staff and students on all of the University’s campuses, and can be used to enhance learning collaboration across local and international communities.
For engineering lecturer, Dr Kris Ryan, the move to Moodle 2.0 is one he’s looking forward to.
“I'm very excited with the prospect of the Moodle platform. Educators will have far more flexibility in how they deliver their course materials,” Dr Ryan said.
“While being far more intuitive to use than the current online teaching systems, the Moodle platform comes with a huge number of inbuilt tools available to engage student learning.”
Moodle is not just about file uploads, text images and links. It also supports the educational view that learning is more meaningful and effective when you have the chance to construct ideas and activities for other people to try and evaluate. For Associate Professor Robert Nelson, this sees creativity become the core of education.
“The Moodle 2.0 interface is presented as if it’s a canvas on which we can produce stimulating paintings,” Associate Professor Nelson said.
“It isn’t a dump depot for pdfs but encourages us to see the interface as a series of activities. I’m very keen to rise to the occasion and devise lessons with new methods that probe ideas and ask students to respond.
“I want to think of options for them which are meaningful and reflective; and the process is enhancing my own view of the syllabus because thinking about anything as a conversation broadens perception and understanding.”
The rollout of the Virtual Learning Environment continues in 2012, with highlights including eportfolios and Turnitin, software that allows students to check their work against the University’s standards for the ethical treatment of materials.
To find out more about Moodle 2, the VLE and how to get involved please visit the VLE website.