eLearning4schools.net

At my school we are introducing Moodle as our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in March.

Now we had already played around with another alternative but it had not really been championed and it was quite hard and not very intuitive to use of and it cost a fair bit every year. Now we are approaching the third month and apart from Moodle being free it has really received some great feedback from teachers who once they push themselves to have a go they can’t believe how easy it is to use!

Now in order to sell this to our staff we had to think what are the benefits and the following list is what me came up with. So if you are in the process of implementing a VLE (Moodle or not) hopefully this list may help:

BENEFITS

No excuses for missed lessons – illness/visits/fixtures.

The VLE allows the teacher to place their lesson on-line. This means that any student who has enrolled on the course can get access to the course either at school or at home *.

What does placing your lesson online mean? Any digital material such as schemes of work and lesson plans can be set out so the student can see the details of what was delivered, worksheets and PowerPoint files onto the server there will no longer be any excuse for the student who misses a lesson, for whatever reason.

Central storage of digital resources.

Every department accumulates huge amount of resources ranging from photocopy sheets to videos to sound bytes to OHP slides. These occupy shelves in an around the classroom and keeping them ordered and accessible takes time and discipline.

As more and more classroom resources become available on the web then the need to collect all the digital resources into one place becomes ever important. It does not help if each teacher has their own notes and web links on their own hard drive. Also the chance to add resources such as a good web site to the data bank whilst at home is now possible with a VLE.

Add continuity within a department.

The head of a year group or department can now produce (more…)

To judge whether VLEs have a role within the new education landscape to enhance teaching and learning it is necessary to examine the available research evidence.  Research literature is only beginning to emerge relating to the benefits of VLEs on teaching and learning in schools in the UK, as the market for VLEs is still developing.  But by drawing on the more extensive evidence from further and higher education, where the use of VLEs is more advanced, it is possible to identify potential benefits for schools.The aim of this section is to summarise both my own observations and research of others (providing references for further reading) in order to highlight potential applicability in the school sector.

General Benefits

• Users could find it easier to use the ICT found within the various components of a VLE as it offers an integrated environment rather than discrete offerings (Dorner et al, 2000).
• The different options to communicate are increased allowing users to choose those appropriate methods for different tasks (e.g. through email, discussion groups and chat rooms).
• The VLE provides a consistent look and feel across the whole school.

Benefits for students

• Access to learning wherever and whenever required (Jacobsen and Kremer, 2000).  This will improve flexibility in learning and allow students to develop independent learning skills which will prove invaluable in the new knowledge economy.

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Since the growth and recognition that virtual collaborative environments can be developed using ICT, developers have produced many products to exploit this potential.  This variety of products and different intended uses has created confusion regarding VLEs as many terms around this subject have often been used interchangeably (Becta, 2003).During my research I have come across this confusion first hand and feel it important in this section to confirm what we mean by a VLE.  As with ‘real’ learning environments (e.g. classrooms, laboratories etc.) a VLE is designed to support and enhance student learning.

The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has a number of working groups one of which looks at the area of VLEs, and in July 2000 recommended the term (more…)