Using Moodle for Teaching
Writing to Prep Students
Inst. Emsal Ateş Özdemir
İTÜ School of Foreign Languages
www.emsalates.com
emsalates@gmail.com
Two approaches for teaching writing
 Process approach
 Product approach
If you are following these steps...
 Prewriting (selecting a topic and planning what to
say)
 Drafting
 Peer / teacher response
 Revision
 Editing
Process approach
 Emphasizes prewriting, drafting, revising and editing,
and regards writing as a «thinking process» (Brown,
1994)
 The activities involved in the process approach create
the pathway by which students complete their
assignments (Calkins, 1994)
 Good writing does not just
happen. The best writers
spend a great deal of time
thinking, planning, rewriting,
and editing." Elizabeth West
Challenges for the teacher




Setting assignments
Following the SS’ process
Little time for peer review
Little time for individual meetings with
SS (after checking the assignments)
 Carrying lots of assignments in folders
home
 Spending a lot of time editing the papers
and giving feedback
Tired ??
The Crow and the Pitcher
The crow and the Pitcher
 A Crow, half-dead with thirst, came upon a
Pitcher which had once been full of water; but
when the Crow put its beak into the mouth of
the Pitcher he found that only very little water
was left in it, and that he could not reach far
enough down to get at it. He tried, and tried,
but at last had to give up in despair.
 Then a thought came to him, and he took a
pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then
he took another pebble and dropped it into
the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and
dropped that into the Pitcher. At last, at last,
he saw the water mount up near him, and
after casting in a few more pebbles he was
able to quench his thirst and save his life.
(Aesop, 1912)
So?
 What can be the connection between
Aesop’s fable and the presentation?
Moodle
 Modular Object Oriented Dynamic
Learning Environment
 “a course management system (CMS) - a
free, open source software package
designed using sound pedagogical
principles, to help educators create
effective online learning communities”
(http://moodle.org/)
 For teaching all courses
In short..
 Moodle is the name of a program
that allows the classroom to extend
onto the web (Riordan, M. 2003)
What can you do with Moodle?
 Create online learning spaces called
“courses” for your students.
 Each course has its own set of
resources and activities that can be
customized in terms of appearance
and organization
 Once you have set up a course, you
can fill it with activities and texts
(documents), including audio and
video.
And...
 Enhance your teaching by designing activities that are
tailor-made for your course and students
 Provide students with links to websites that are
relevant to your course
 Ask students to reflect on their learning through a
blog
 Work in teams to co-author a glossary or a document
using a wiki
What about using Moodle for a
Writing Course?
My moodle writing course at first look
Moodle modules for writing
 Assignment (upload a single file)
(Advanced uploading of files)
(online text)
Giving feedback for the assignment
Keeping the files
Blog




SS may use the Moodle blog for creative writing.
Real audience
Can comment on each others’ writing.
This blog is only for the use of the participants of this
course, it is not seen on the web.
Sample activity (blog)
 What news have you read recently that caught your
attention? Find a story you like and you think your
friends might find interesting and tell us about it here.
Don’t just copy the story, tell it in your own words. Try
answering these questions:
 What’s the news about?
 When did it happen?
 Why is it interesting? (Stanford, 2009)
Personal Profile
 SS write good personal profiles as others will read.
Glossary
 Writing encyclopedia entries (descriptive writing)
A topic: famous people
towns in your country
historical events
musicians
See the link for other educational uses.
http://www.mguhlin.org/2010/06/moodle-glossary-tipsfree-xml-converter.html
Sample glossary entry
Wiki
 ‘Wiki’ is an editable web page or set of web pages.
Any course member can edit any page on a wiki.
 Collaborative wiki
 İndividual wiki
Sample activity (wiki)
Students work on one big project. For ex, they describe their
university to the Erasmus students who will come to study
with them.
Each person will write about a different aspect of the
university
Student
Subject
John
Library
Matt
Sports Facilities
Dan
The teachers
Maria
food (Stanford, 2009 )
Forum
(Each person posts one discussion)
Our trips
 Where did you go in the last summer holidays?
 Choose some of your favourite photos and post them
in a forum. Next to the images write a commentary.
Tell us what’s going on and what you thought about
it.(Stanford, 2009)
 Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.
~ John Cotton Dana
References
 Brown, H. D.(1994). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to
language pedagogy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall Regents.
 Stanford,J. (2009). Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques for Teaching
English.Packt Publishing.
 Zhao, Y. (2003). Introduction: What Teachers Need to know about
Technology? Framing the question. In Zhao, Y. (ed). What Should
Teachers Know about Technology: Perspectives and Practices.
Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Thank you!
e-mail : emsalates@gmail.com
Presentation link: www.emsalates.com