2010 Otago Polytechnic teaching staff are enmasse facing the prospect migrating their online teaching from a proprietry Blackboard to an open learning management system Moodle.
As there could be at least 3 possible optional pathways this which throws up a number of technical and communication issues and an opportunity to explore these 3 options:
1. The first option would be simply to obey the directive and to bulk transfer existing educational course content from Blackboard to Moodle. This may be the only option for teachers with privacy issues i.e. Otago Polytechnic Intellectual Property policy is to copyright with a creative commons licence (attribution 3.0 which is the @ Otago Polytechnic by default)
2. Alternatively a 2nd option would be to upload content suitable for publication on the websites such as tekotago. Blip.tv, Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiversity or Wikieducator, Survey Monkey, Blogger, Google Docs, GoogleMaps, etc. Then provide links to theirs and others Open Educational Resources in their Moodle by simple links and embed codes. This would however require restricting course materials and licencing these as creative commons CCBy.
3. A 3rd option would be to upload the content to the web (as in 2 above) but run the course on the web (bypassing Blackboard and Moodle Learning Management Systems). Already this is the case for staff using social networking platforms to facilitate and collaborate across social networks; who understand creative commons copyright licencing CCBY; can author, edit and publish educational content. Teachers and general staff need to consult and debate all these options with those who have taken up these practices. Those staff who have the departmental resourcing and support will also take this opportunity to review content; the way teach or facilitate online courses and find more up to date materials.
In the following posts, taking one scenario at a time I will review and analyse the skill set and begin by breaking up the tasks into steps. Directing staff to a bunch of (agreed upon?!) tools and services that suit the needs of their programme with ongoing technical support to teaching and administration staff to make migration from Blackboard to Moodle presents a labrynth of possibilities for a small college.
February 16, 2009 at 7:05 pm
you could try out LSU’s (in the USA) course conversion site as well. Zip of a Bb course to Moodle. I haven’t tried it myself as I don’t have a Bb account to access, but it came across my PLN and I thought I would share. Could make the migration a bit easier. http://moodleconverter.lsu.edu/index.html
February 16, 2009 at 7:51 pm
There are more possibilities than that. I’ll probably just go back to storing course material on a network drive. With moodle not supporting the quizzes and other material I use from publishers there’s not much reason for me to use it.
It’s got a good discussion forum … and I might use that. In my technical courses that’s a rare thing to need though. Otherwise there’s no real value in moodle for my courses. I’ve been a heavy BB user, but the things in BB which I find useful aren’t in moodle.
February 25, 2009 at 1:49 am
I would expect there will be more possibilities than I have outlined … my post was focusing on staff digital literacy.
I agree dynamic discussion forums could be used both as teacher/student 1-1 interactivity of the F2F classroom…. and for collaboration i.e. students talking the talk in an online network with a context as an alternative to their social networks.