Tuesday, March 01, 2005

"Moodling Around" with At-Risk Students

Well, it is not really a bad thing. This week, I have been really focusing on creating content on my class Moodle. I have spent some quality time reading and writing questions on Moodle.org. The educators that contribute to the forums have a lot in common with me. I noticed that a couple of them teach in the same kids of school environment that I do. It has been a great learning community.

I am not sure how to explain how this Moodle activity works, but I have to try. The concept of activity is simple-- pick a photo of a famous scientist and post it on a page within the course in Moodle. It would take several paragraphs to walk you through exactly how to do this, but is takes only a few minutes to do it after you know what to do. I know, my sentences are run-ons, but I am trying to watch American Idol and type and make sure my daughter's puppy is not tearing up the furniture. I have no quite time to write. No excuses, I could put the dog in the back room, turn off the TV, and “take charge.” My ADD feeds on the chaos.

The famous scientist photo "scavenger hunt" what a great success with my class. I know it was going well in class when no one asked to leave class to go to the bathroom, students asked for more hints, collaborated, self-accessed digital literacy skills, and peer-tutored. Talk about layering skills and making an activity relevant, it all came together with this lesson.

I have to post this in the Moodle Forum, but they will probably delete it or no one will read it.

So, if you are thinking about trying a different instructional strategy with your class and you want to see their faces light up and hear them talking and joking about famous scientists that they had before never heard of, this activity really works.

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