Goomoodleikiog 4 Students

Here’s a sequel to Goomoodleikiog.  This second video takes a look at Goomoodleikiog from the student perspective.  Why would an online academic suite composed of Google, Moodle, Wikis, and Blogs be helpful to students?  The  argument is that Goomoodleikiog provides them the following.

• anywhere/anytime access
• anywhere/anytime collaboration
• real-world audiences
• 21st century skills – design and technology skills (and collaborative)
• digital citizenship
• immediate feedback/validation
• easy organization of educational work  (harder for the dog to eat your homework)
• a challenge!
• and more

If you don’t K.I.S.S. ‘em, you lose ‘em

The KISS principle is nothing new, but sometimes it is easy to forget. KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid!  It pretty much speaks for itself.

For the past several years I’ve done a lot of professional development on technology tools for the SDUSD school district.   When I’ve planned PD, especially for a tool that is as near and dear to my heart as moodle, my enthusiasm for all of the possibilities with the tool cause me to forget this principle.  There are so many great ways that most tech tools could be used that I feel the urge to share everything that a tool can do with the teachers coming to the training.  I often have a hard time paring down the array of features and possibilities to the most important/useful ones.

What I’ve realized recently is how important it is to really keep it simple.  In fact, sometimes the simpler the better.  Here’s what I’ve found, when you show off lots of wonderful things that a tool can do, the people you are talking to will most likely want to recreate what you talk about.  That part’s great.  You want  your audience to be inspired.  The problem is that making it happen can be quite difficult (especially with something like Moodle).  If your audience isn’t able to be successful right away, sometimes you lose them.  They fall off the Moodle bandwagon or whatever bandwagon you’re pulling that day.

I’m beginning to realize that a better approach to PD may be to find the perfect hook that will make the tool invaluable.  Start there in the training, and make sure the attendees have developed the skills to be successful with that by the end of the training.  Then once they find success and gain confidence, they’ll want to learn more.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and there is only so much that anyone can truly learn in a few hours or a day. KISS!

Goomoodleikiog – No, it’s not something I found at IKEA

Leigh Murrell, and I have continued to inspire each other about how technology can be used in the classroom.  Throughout our conversations, we’ve felt that there were an essential set of four tools that make up what could be called a free online academic suite for students.  Each tool provides a virtual place for doing many of the things that typically are done in classrooms.  We called the online academic suite – Goomoodleikiog.  This isn’t to say that these are the only technology tools that we use, but they are the key venues.  Below is a video that we made to illustrate one way that these tools could all work together.

The Academic Suite

Moodle = online classroom

Google Docs = online binder/notebook/collaborative workspace

Blogs = reflection journal/class discussion/sharing ideas

Wikis = polished final products/brainstorming/collaborative workspace