Project Evaluation

In my attempt to get Moodle off the ground as a Professional Learning Community, there is one major step I would do differently. This time, when creating the Professional Learning Communities, I asked the administration what they would like to see in this area. Next time, I will ask the teachers as well. I expect all experiences with the building of my professional learning communities to be different from here on out. This summer, when attempting to implement Moodle in this format, I did not know the staff. As the year progresses, we will all be getting to know each other. I think this will be a huge benefit to establishing expectations for the use of Moodle. Through my research, I learned that teachers give more of their effort to professional learning communities they have helped to establish. The benefit at my school is that we have the opportunity to develop EVERYTHING from the ground up since we are a brand new school. I realize that this comes with many challenges, but I foresee our teachers having more buy in because of this.

One lesson that I have learned is that setting up a Moodle course takes more than just technical ability. You also have to have pedagogical reasons for the course. As I began to set up the courses, I struggled to put more than just the "title" of the course. This was due to the fact that I was not sure what the focus or goal of the course should be. For example, in the Positive Behavior System course, I went back and forth between having areas for teachers to discuss different systems. I also thought it might be beneficial to post the behavior forms and expectations. Then I thought "why not all?. However, a good Professional Learning Community is formed to focus on an area where teachers need to improve. In the end, there were too many possibilities for the focus of the course. I decided to wait until school began and we could establish that focus as a group. This went on and on for each section. So, the moral of the story is: Establish your focus before attempting to layout your Moodle course.

This year, I will be keeping this lesson in mind as we begin to form committees and dive deeper into our professional learning communities. My plan is to assign a co-teacher for each PLC. This person will be directly involved with the committee and will facilitate the meetings and discussions. As the year progresses, my hope is that each committee will set their focus and begin building their PLC course around this focus (with my assistance of course!).

In addition, I set up a Tips & Tricks area for the teachers. This was an idea I came across in my research and was inspired to create! Here is a snapshot of how it looks so far:
Each section is created under Toggle view so teachers can focus on the section they need. This section on computer set-up gives teachers access to instructions for basic set-up of Mail, Address Book, Safari & Firefox bookmarks and iCal on their new MacBook Pro teacher computer. The course Toggle sections continue for other items like Avatar (our district professional development course sign-up center), Pasco Star (district data collector), Moodle and access to our school logo files.

I see this area of Moodle being utilized and updated frequently in the first few months of school. Throughout the year, I hope to add screencasts and other helpful items for teachers. So far, I have taken baby steps toward making Moodle an integral part of each teacher's toolkit. In the next two years, I hope to continue what I have started. If I persist in setting the expectations for Moodle and demonstrate the many possibilities of its use, I believe that Moodle will become one of the greatest assets for professional learning at Odessa Elementary.