In the mood for moodle

The First footing in a virtual learning environment

Class 1C is now taking their first successful steps on our learning platform moodle. In this period covering a week, including autonomous homework assignments, our youngest students are faced with a variety of interactive tasks like quizzes, funny songs and videos, which are intended to revise the words and grammar related to the topic “MY BODY” previously taught in my lessons.

The big plus of this virtual open learning situation is that the students can choose the order as well as the amount and difficulty of the tasks they do themselves.  It is interesting to note that this recipe does not only prove effective and popular with our students.

Also other schools, among them secondary modern schools from our district as well as the ABZ Lambach (the Educational Centre for Agricultural Studies in Upper Austria) invited me to teach all the English teachers working at such schools vital skills to implement interactive applications of moodle in their lessons. What is more, all the AHS schools which are part of the ELSA network in Upper Austria are going to resort to my Safer Internet course “The World of Robin Hood or How to be Cybersmart” (created for year 3 and year 4 students) in February for a common initiative on how to teach kids how to use Facebook & Co safely. On the whole, eLearning intrinsically linked with powerful pedagogy proves to be an indispensable part of our school life which seems to radiate positively, thus infecting others with its didactic appeal! Even students at university take our practical insights and considerations into account for their theses on moodle and practicable solutions for content creation. Some more rewarding steps in our constant endeavours to teach our students in the most motivating manner possible!