Abstract:
The MOD has a very large Moodle instance with over 350K users and c10K courses.
The MOD’s pedological practice is based on Social Constructivism Learning Theory as discussed by Palincsar (1998). This practice has worked very well during the COVID crisis and significant steps have been made towards a methodology more closely based on connectivism as discussed by Duke, Harper and Johnson (2013).
This development, however, is still ongoing and needs to be coupled with the associated technical, cultural and procedural challenges which must be managed. With Moodle requiring security updates every 6-18 months, this constant evolution of the platform and the increase in functionality for the user, the course designer and the business owners may also lead to frustration and inefficacies in them keeping up to date. Successful use of an online environment requires three elements:
1. Engaged and motivated users.
2. Highly skilled and motivated course designers to create, develop and maintain the online content.
3. Business owners who understand and support the development of the platform and resource it adequately.
The MOD and its subsidiary arms have to tackle the challenge that personnel can’t be released for long enough to learn how to build courses, at a time when online learning has come to the forefront. Another paradox to resolve.
Currently there are a number of fixed courses which trainers, course designers and category managers are required to complete in line with policy (MOD, 2019). These are one-off courses which have no annual currencies. Once the users complete them there is a risk that, if not regularly engaged with the community of practice, they will start to experience skill fade and knowledge degradation.
The Defence Technology Enhanced Learning Team (DTEL) have created a Rubric (MOD, 2020) which is to be used to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of courses. However, this is not linked to the DTEL training and over time divergence away from this is to be expected.
This presentation will show how the functionality within Moodle 3.9 has been evaluated; this will then lead into reviewing the range and quality of support sources behind developing Moodle and developing courseware on Moodle. Further consideration will then be given to demonstrating the capabilities of Moodle and how they may be linked to the DTEL Rubric.
This will combine to show progression to a newly planned CPD pathway that will adapt to this changing tempo by creating a learning Eco-system which reinforces the community's approach. It will raise the standards across the board, coherent with the DTEL Rubric.
The future of this pathway is assured by a change management review when a Moodle upgrade is implemented. This process will then use crowd sourcing of the community, in the same way as Wikipedia, to increase the value added.
This presentation will be of interest to anyone who is either a Trainer, Educator, Course Designer or the owner of courseware. It will be of particular interest to the strategic managers in understanding their role in this process.
Key Words: Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), MOODLE, MOD, Defence Technology Enhanced Learning (DTEL), MAHARA, COURSE DESIGN, LEARNING, CPD, LEARNING DESIGN, INSTANCE
Reference
· Duke, B. Harper, G and Johnson, M (2013) ‘Connectivism as a Digital Age Learning Theory’, The International HETL Review, Special Issue [Online] Available at: https://www.hetl.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/HETLReview2013SpecialIssueArticle1.pdf. (Accessed at 29 December 2020).
· Ministry of Defence A (2020) 20201009-DLE_Rubric [Unpublished]. (Accessed on 30 December 2020).
· Ministry of Defence (2019) Joint Service Publications [Online] Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/joint-service-publication-jsp. (Accessed on 30 December 2020).
· Palincsar A S, (1998) ‘Social Constructivist perspective on Teaching and Learning’, Educational Studies, University of Michigan, 610 East University, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1259 [Online] Available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/42562200/Social_constructivist_perspectives_on_te20160210-20760-owx4b7.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DSocial_Constructivist_Perspectives_on_Te.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20190826%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20190826T211622Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=cb46c14cee4f9951d14d6e59388fe967b286febf6130b815352d0dc452a15927. (Accessed on 30 December 2020).