Session #2 of FOSSED 2008

As always, lunch was delicious - the food at Gould Academy is simply amazing! Vegan, Vegetarian, and Omnivore's alike are fed well here.

Well, I decided to attend Moodles Beyond the Classroom presented by Maya Crosby, science teacher, and Thomas Steele-Maley, social studies teacher, from Lincoln Academy are the session leaders.

First they got us all registered at Global Classrooms. That was easy for most people. But, I have to be difficult. Since I had already registered, I couldn't follow the presenters instructions. It would have also been easier if I had remembered my password. :0! Fortunately, I had it saved on my desktop so I pulled out my laptop and logged on.

Global Classrooms Moodle is very similar to other Moodle templates that I've looked at or used. (Thanks Tim Hart!)

The question came up about registering students for courses. Sharon Betts spoke up and said that in her district, the teacher picks out the students for his/her courses from a list when they set up the course. Lincoln has their kids self-register.

Maya and Thomas showed us how Lincoln Academy is using Moodle for both student course development and for professional development. One example from a PD forum was the issue of consistently applying rules for students. One teacher was frustrated by a student's response to "Don't eat in my classroom." The discussion that ensued was detailed, expressive, and varied with many staff participants. Another example was a Moodle class that SpecEd teachers and Ed Techs used to keep track of students' completion of work. They used the wiki mode so they could easily tell each other who had accomplished what when. Very Effective Uses for Moodle.

Next Maya and Thomas let us experiment. That is REAL fun!



And talk about small world and 6 degrees of separation - Thomas told me that he had met me when I was doing a program for the Orono Public Library in Webster Park a couple of years ago - judging real and stuffed animals. He also worked briefly with my son, Carl at Orono High School, when he (Thomas) was a student teacher.

Time for the Keynote Speaker . . .