Ning

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Permalink Reply by Florence Dujardin on July 6, 2009 at 6:02am

Hello Pilar
I used Ning a few weeks ago for an small online focus group with my MA students (mature students who are professional communicators). Obviously this wasn't as complex as a teaching module but the informality of Ning worked just fine. I wanted to capture student views on a new module I am setting up. The students liked Ning as an alternative to the more formal environment of Blackboard, and liked the icons that showed who was part of the focus group. We shared some videos as springboard to discussion and this worked very well. In your situation, if students could download Audacity to create podcasts they would then share 'in class', I could see real benefits to using Ning. It's simple, direct and very flexible.

On balance I think Ning would work well for formal teaching. As with any environment, some notes on what is available and how it should be used are probably necessary - just to be sure that everyone can contribute (ie don't assume knowledge of the platform), and does so appropriately (ie even on Ning, it's still serious stuff!).

Good luck with your teaching

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Permalink Reply by Keith Thomas on August 10, 2009 at 10:57pm

Hi Pilar

I know a small team teaching French (in Hong Kong) using Moodle; it seems to be a success in creating community that has extended beyond the classroom. If your aim as you say is authentic communication and you want to incorporate other media strategies and not just NING, they may be a useful contact.

Email me (keith.thomas@cuhk.edu.hk) and I'll put you in touch.

Best

Keith

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Permalink Reply by Pilar Hernández on August 10, 2009 at 11:13pm

Hi Keith,
Thanks. You're right. I took a class this summer on Moodle and was wowed by the features and design possibilities that lend themselves better to building a more clean, welcoming and interactive environment for students. I've begun the process of developing one of my online courses on Moodle, but have a lot to learn. Hopefully our college will continue to allow us the option of choosing Moodle as our CMS. Thanks.
Pilar

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Permalink Reply by Christele JOLY on August 11, 2009 at 8:36am

Hi Pilar,

I am one of the members of the French team Keith speaks about in his previous message. I would be happy to share with you what we have done so far with the support of the Moodle platform. I am not sure it would suit your needs but discussing about our respective projects could certainly inspire us and give each other new ideas.

Here are a few basic details about the context:
- we use ONE single platform for different parallel classes of different levels (about 400 Chinese students access to the same platform)
- we try to make it more attractive by using gif animated, music and video players + games updated every 2-3 weeks and announced by the news forum (message sent directly to students' webmails) which encourage students to come and check the platform (in order to get the details about the riddle/game and win the French VCD!)
- we make information about online users available for students to get to engaged in instant messages
- we develop different projects for students to reach the outside world through the platform (exchange with Austrian students in Vienna also learning French as a foreign language OR discussion with French teacher in Paris) and to be engaged in authentic communication
- we extend the classroom time with online debates in the French culture class
- we try to stimulate critical thinking and self reflection with blog exercises on their learning

That's what comes to my mind right now but it may look messy. If you want to have further details, please just email me at c-joly@cuhk.edu.hk

Best,
Christele

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Permalink Reply by Ma lee on August 13, 2009 at 1:47am

Hi Christele
I'm Ma Lee from MMU. Remember CMLC ? Tell me more about your use of moodle platform. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Christele JOLY on August 13, 2009 at 3:25am

Hi Ma Lee,
It is so nice to see you here!! The world is very small... :-)
Are you also using Moodle? I remember that you were using forums for students debating in English, right?
My colleague and I wrote a paper about a project made in the French culture course conducted in English but it is not online yet (it will be in the proceedings of ICEL 2009), so I prefer to attach it to an email... I could also send you a document with the description of our platform and some snapshots. Do you mind to send me an email at the above e-mail address?
See you!

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Permalink Reply by Gladys V. Hernandez on August 11, 2009 at 3:59pm

Hi dear fellows,

My name is Gladys, I moved back to the US four months ago after spending four years in the UK.

Whilst living in the British Isles I had the opportunity to teach modern languages (Spanish and French) at one of the universities over there. I taught beginning, intermediate and advanced courses.

I'm a big fan of technology and I'm of the opinion that the teaching of modern languages has to include a great number of activities that require the use of technology. About Moodle, I agree with your statements.

In Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America Moodle is the platform used by education institutions.

When I first started working with this platform I was amazed of its versatility. I did attended training in order to get used to Moodle applications. Once I mastered all this, I found myself creating interactive quizzes, creating surveys, having live chats with my students when participating in our regular virtual learning forums, I also developed online tutorials so my students could get ready for their mid-term and final exams. I discovered that with Moodle one can make wonders.

Overall, I found Moodle to be very user-friendly, I think it's a tremendous and valuable tool from which both parties (students and teachers) could benefit.

As a professor, I found Moodle was my time-saver, no more time wasted in photocopying class materials, as all my students needed for my sessions I posted on my Moodle site, and my students loved that. Additional to this, Moodle was (still is) the RHUL's money-saver, as it was made explicit once that the university's resources were not to be wasted in photocopying material when the faculty members at RHUL were supposed to be using Moodle for teaching purposes.

Prior to my moving to the UK, I worked with Blackboard and I found it to be boring and very limited in terms of applications/tools. I know that some universities have moved from Blackboard to Moodle; however and for the most, many higher education institutions still favour Blackboard although it seems to be a costly choice in terms of maintenance.

Have a great day,

With kind regards,

Gladys






I found it was super convenient having all classmaterials posted on the site and I hardly ever made photocopies of the class materials as they knew they will find verythinfor my students studentsr-freindlygreat tool for and for them it was super easy to access n educator can make wonders with it.

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Permalink Reply by Christele JOLY on August 12, 2009 at 4:49am

Hi Gladys,
Yes, I agree with you that with such a platform teachers save time (and paper for sure!) as they don't have to answer the same questions through email and students could also reply to each other. On the other hand, I think teachers can spend some time for the maintenance of the platform (in our case, the whole interface get changed every 2-3 weeks), especially at the beginning when they are not so familiar with the tools, for explaining linguistic items through forum messages... and eventually, teachers tend to get online outside office hours as the concept of time is different with technology. So, my feeling is that yes, we improved communication but the tool makes us communicate more (which is good) and thus we may spend some/more time in the end. Anyway, to tell you the truth, I prefer to spend more time if it makes my teaching more efficient (which is the case, I think).
Have a good... night?
Best,
Christele

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan S. List on August 11, 2009 at 8:27am

A colleague and I did a short essay on this.

http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/winter2009/List/index.htm

We used Moodle, Twitter and Ning in combination. It was not very quantitative, but I think the whole setup worked well in my classroom.

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Permalink Reply by Christele JOLY on August 11, 2009 at 9:22am

Thanks for sharing, Jonathan, it is very interesting! I am not familiar at all with Twitter and Ning but it gave me an idea of what could be done with social online media. The social aspect that students can find in academic use of such tools and that you described very well in your paper reminds me of our experience with moodle: we had the feeling that students had a grasp on the platform only once they had started to make it theirs by posting pictures, making more personal statements, sharing information about their profiles, peer tutoring, etc. What you experienced with Ning and Twitter, we experienced with Moodle. Is it because it was the only tool offered to students? Is it because they could have access to the site off campus? Or because some projects were course required and they didn't have the choice to do in class? I am not so sure.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan S. List on August 11, 2009 at 9:25pm

We noticed the students responded most to things within the first few days (7-10) then slowed their responses as time passed. Is this because I did not properly utilize these technologies in my classroom? I'm not sure, but it is something we observed...

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Permalink Reply by Christele JOLY on August 12, 2009 at 4:58am

I understand. It is always difficult to find out the reasons behind behaviours. There may be different factors, I guess. Maybe students found it fun (because new) at the beginning but then they found no incentive to go on. If I can remember well your paper, you said that students' behaviour with moodle and with twitter/ning was quite different. For the latter, their social life was mixed with their academic life. Do you think students missed the social contact in moodle? I didn't quite understand why students could not have access to moodle outside the campus?

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