Moodle
for English Teachers
蘇正造 (su@ntjcpa.edu.tw)
國立臺灣戲曲專科學校
國立臺灣師範大學博士班學生
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Moodle for English Teachers
• I. INTRODUCTION:
– What is Moodle
– Why is Moodle?
– Some Technical Details
• II. USEFUL MODULES FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING
– Basic Modules
– Examples of How to Use Modules
• III. HOW TO MAKE GOOD USE OF MOODLE
– Create your online course
– Conferencing Web Site
– Online Community
• IV. CONCLUSION
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Official Moodle Website
http://moodle.org/
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INTRODUCTION
• A Need of a Convenient Tool for Teachers &
Students
– Web Presence
• Teachers might want to share with peers information on a
particular area of expertise within their field;
• They might want to help students establish a web
presence so they can write authentically and
communicatively to an audience that extends beyond the
walls of classrooms
– Content/Knowledge Management
• Considerable chunk of data/documents that is required to
be accessed quickly and managed easily but safely.
• Difficulty of maintaining Websites
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What is Moodle?
A Course Management System (CMS)
• Moodle: Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning
Environment
• http://moodle.org/: Moodle is a course management system
(CMS) - a free, open source software package designed
using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators
create effective online learning communities.
• Matt Riordan (2003): Moodle is the name of a program
that allows the classroom to extend onto the web. This
program allows a common place for students to go for
many classroom resources. ()
• Moodle is a free online course management system
(CMS) which is especially good for language teaching.
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How Popular?
• How many Moodle Sites?
– 10036 registered from 150 countries
(http://moodle.org/sites/ on March 10, 2006)
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United States of America: 2171 sites
United Kingdom: 798 sites
Spain: 715 sites
Brazil: 400 sites
Australia: 338 sites
Thailand : 311 sites
Japan : 166 sites
• Join the Moodle club: Don’t wait for your
install a workable CMS.
• Portugal:
165
• Taiwan: 164
sites
• France : 158
sites
• China: 53
sites
• Hongto
Kong:
institution
43 sites
• India: 62
sites
• Korea: 41 6
sites
An Outlook of a Moodle system:
Open Source for Educators
http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/
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Why Moodle?
• Free Opensource: Freedom and choice
Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?
What do you know about modern engines?
– Free: no payment, no advertisements
– Full control: You can edit the setting/option for your
need.
– Extensibility: If you know its computer language, you
can edit its code to fit your own use easily.
• Content-based web management
– Webpage (Html code)  Wiki/ BBS/ Blog 
PhpNuke/ XOOPS/ Moodle (content/module)
– Save and archive your files online easily
– Integrating your online source
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Why Moodle?
• Collaborative learning space
– Moodle provides a collaborative medium, a place where we can all meet
and read and write.
– Semantic Web (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/): “The Web can reach its full
potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and
processed by automated tools as well as by people.
• Good Support and Help
–
Help in Moodle System: A pop-up window to offer help.
– Moodle.org:
• Using Moodle
• Moodle for Language Teaching
• Other Special Features of Moodle
– Easy installation on any computer – Windows, Macintosh or Linux
– The Interface can be switched to more than 50 languages.
– Extensible: If you know PHP, you can add new functions relatively easily.
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Help: click
A Pop-up window
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Good Support and Help:
Using Moodle http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=5
Find documents or ask/discuss questions on different forums
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Good Support and Help:
Moodle for Language Teaching
http://moodle.org/course/view.php?id=31
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Some Technical Details
1/2
• Moodle need: a web server with PHP and mySQL
– A Web server: two options for your choice
• IIS (included in Windows)
• Apache http://httpd.apache.org
– PHP: a scripting program/language that is especially suited for
Web development and can be embedded into HTML.
• http://www.php.net/
– mySQL: a database system
• http://www.mysql.com/
• Free download:
– All of these are free.
– Complete Install Packages (Moodle+Apache+MySQL+PHP) at
official Moodle Website.
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Some Technical Details
2/2
• Get a Moodle system
– Install by yourself (Refer to Moodle Installation:
http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/course/view.php?id=16 )
• A nice computer connected to Internet
• An IP (and domain name)
• Software: Web server (Apache) +MySQL+PHP+ Moodle
– Convince your school to install it
– Ask Moodle.com to set it up on your machine for
you. Use Moodle.com’s hosting service. They will
charges your some money.
– Find a free host
• Opensource for Educators: 700 registered from all over
the world. http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/
• Opensource for Educators #1:
http://moodle.ntjcpa.edu.tw/
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II. USEFUL MODULES FOR
LANGUAGE LEARNING
• Basic Modules
– The People Box
– Administering Your Class
– Adding Content
• Examples of How to Use Modules
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Self-introduction
Forum
Journal
Glossary
Quiz
Assignment
Multimedia integration
Participants’ log
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II. USEFUL MODULES FOR
LANGUAGE LEARNING
• Basic Modules: for course management
People
Administration
Adding a
Resource
Adding an
Activity
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Basic Modules
• People
– Participants
• Profile
• Activity reports
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Basic Modules
• Administering Your Class
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Turn editing on
Settings
Edit profile
Teachers
Students
Groups
Backup
Restore
Import course data
Scales
Grades
Logs
Files
Help
Teacher forum
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Basic Modules
• Adding Content
– Adding a Resource
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Compose a text page
Compose a web page
Link to a file or web site
Display a directory
Insert a label
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Assignment
Chat
Choice
Forum
Glossary
Hot Potatoes Quiz
Journal
Lesson
Quiz
SCROM
Survey
Wiki
Workshop
– Adding an Activity
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Examples of How to Use Modules
• 1. Self-introduction: People  Participant
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Edit Profile
Input your selfintroduction
Upload your
picture
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Participant’s Profile
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Examples of How to Use Modules
• 2. Forum: a board for asynchronous
discussion.
– Unlimited numbers of forums: you can
have as many forums as you want.
– Two special features of forum in Moodle
• Group (Mailing List):
• Mugshot of the poster:
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Forum
Forced everyone to be subscribed
=> Group
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Forum: Mugshot of the poster
post and email with a tiny mugshot of the sender
 community
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Forum: Mini-interview
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3. Journal
A private board that can only be seen by the teacher, who can offer
feedback and a grade
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4. Glossary
A place allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions,
like a dictionary.
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5. Quiz
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Multiple Choice
True/False
Short Answer
Numerical Question
Matching
Description
Random Question
Random Short-Answer Matching
Embedded Answers (Cloze)
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5. Quiz
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5. Quiz: Result
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6. Assignment
Content of
assignment
Upload a single
file
Grade: Scale,
Score (1-100),
No grade 32
6. Assignment
• Feedback and Grading
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7. Word & Multimedia Integration
• Html or Word documents can be directly
imported into Moodle by copy & paste
without losing its format.
• MP3 and flash files can be uploaded
and integrated into your course web.
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7. Word Integration:
Copy & paste without losing its format
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7. Multimedia Integration
• MP3 & Flash: just put in the link
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8. Participant’s log:
Teachers can check their students log
Today’s
log
All log
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Log: Record keeping
Trace what materials our students have accessed
• Course log
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Participant’s Log
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Other modules: File
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File: Upload
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File: Link the file
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III. HOW TO MAKE GOOD USE
OF MOODLE
• 1. Create your online course
• 2. Conferencing Web Site
• 3. Online Community
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1. Create your online course:
Course categories/ List
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1. Create your online course
Core block:
course content
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Side block
2. Conferencing/Journal Web Site
• PacCALL: http://paccall.org/Interact/
– Conference
– PacCALL Journal
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2. Conferencing/Journal Web Site
• WiAOC 2005: Webheads in Action Online Convergence
http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/course/view.php?i
d=20
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WiAOC 2005: Webheads in Action Online Convergence
http://www.wiaoc.org/
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3. Online Community
• Student List Project http://sl-lists.net/
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3. Online Community
• Taiwanese Tertiary Teachers of English: Professional Development
Program http://www.opensource.idv.tw/moodle/course/view.php?id=22
– six-week program
– Forum
– Chatroom
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Taiwanese Tertiary Teachers of English: Professional
Development Program
Conference Room in Talking Communities
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Teacher Education in ELT
http://teachereducation.org.uk/
• An online community for teacher educators and
teacher trainees with free courses (but Course
Enrolment Key access control)
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WorldBridges
http://worldbridges.com/moodle/
• A global network of homegrown webcasting
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KnowPlace
http://www.knowplace.ca/
• A world learning community with free open
source and charged courses.
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Share/Put your
documents/projects/activities online
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Content/Knowledge Management
• Learning English by Singing
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IV. CONCLUSION
• Moodle is:
– A platform to save and achieve teaching material easily.
– A collaborative online platform for teachers and students to
learn together.
• Humanware: “The key to successful use of
technology in language teaching lies not in hardware
or software but in humanware” (Warschauer &
Meskill, 2000).
• Teachers’ Participation: Moodle system does not
promote learning or teaching on its own. Its
effectiveness lies in the way of your participation and
interaction to experience and feel that you are among
like-minded people who share the same curiosities,
needs and interests.
• Join the open source & Moodle club and join our
online communities today.
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Thanks
Thanks for your attention 
Comments and Discussion
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• Visit me at
http://www.opensource.idv.tw/
and send your comments to
su@ntjcpa.edu.tw
MSN: vennysu@hotmail.com
Yahoo: venny_sou
• Thanks
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