IMG00900-20100114-1153Last month, more than 34 members of the Department of English participated in the January 14th Doodle with Moodle! Demystifying the Newest Online Forum for Classroom Teaching workshop with Professor Arlinda López of the University of Puerto Rico’s Aguadilla Campus. On that day, Prof. López presented to a full house in Chardón 325, and provided essential guidelines for helping us to get started with Moodle in our classrooms and to whet our appetites for future Moodle workshop offerings at our own institution. While responses from this workshop included: “I hope to be a successful Moodler” and “This is a wonderful resource. Very nice introduction to Moodle”, they also noted that there should be a Part II or review follow-up activity and that there were more people in the workshop than working computers in Chardon 325! Prof. Lopez subsequently sent us the link to her PowerPoint presentation, which includes an internal link to a rather lengthy, but user-friendly Moodle guidebook. It can be accessed here: http://www.slideshare.net/prof.a.lopez/doodle-with-moodle-final.

In addition, since the time of the workshop, a new Moodle point person at our institution has been designated, Ms. Jamilette Acevedo, who can be contacted at ext. 3608, and a number of Moodle workshop offerings have been announced. These include:

February 9, 2010- Moodle Parte I

February 11, 2010 – Moodle Parte II

March 11, 2010 – Moodle Parte I

March 16th, 2010 – Moodle Parte II

These workshops will be offered by Dr. Marko Schutz, from the Department of Mathematics, in Monzón 107, from 10:30 a.m-12:00 p.m.

In addition, two in-depth full day workshops on the Creation and Management of Courses in Moodle and Creation of Exams in Moodle will be offered on the following Saturdays under the auspices of the Institute for the Development of Online Learning and Teaching (IDEAL):

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Saturday, February 27, 2010

These workshops will be offered by Dr. Cristina Pomales in Monzón 107 from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

(8:00-12:00 – Creation and Management of Courses in Moodle and 1:30-3:00 Creation of Exams in Moodle)

Interested parties should register by calling Jamilette Acevedo at ext. 3608, since the space in the room is limited (20 computers).

These are all excellent opportunities to brush-up your skills on this dynamic new resource for online teaching and learning, and to receive a number of professional development hours for your participation. Consider signing up and harnessing the potential of Moodle to meet the needs of your own students!