Learning activities with the MLE-Moodle plug-in : Learning activities with the MLE-Moodle plug-in Antonio Nazzaro
computer science teacher at ITCP L. Amabile Avellino
e-learning/m-learning researcher on platforms: Moodle and IWT (MoMA University of Salerno)
white board interactive tutor and e-tutor ANSAS/MIUR (Italian Minister of Instruction and University)
Mobile learning – why ? : Mobile learning – why ? In recent years, the online training and educational activities, promoted by companies and institutions through the use of the Internet, are becoming consolidated in schools, universities and lifelong learning.
E-learning is not a border line but a reality that organizations and small organizations are adopting.
Therefore there are processes/products in terms of platforms, teachers and administrators of online courses that performing inexpensive viable solutions, from creation and development of online courses, to the management and administration of virtual classes and online courses.
These processes/products are useful to ensure completion of the certification of results. A critical e-learning, paradoxically, is that the students always cannot spent time to participate consistently and conclusively to synchronous and asynchronous activities.
So much so that researchers and european institutions are funding (Bonaiuti G. et al., 2010) and (L. Novak, M. Svensson, 2005) researching to make investigations and business plans on the effectiveness of ubiquitous learning environments in a m-learning approach.
Mobile learning activities : Mobile learning activities A learning environment mobile (m-learning) can be fully integrated within of an e-learning platform. In this case the learner could partecipate at the course online both his/her mobile and his/her personal computer connected to the Internet while he stays at home. The mobile learning means learning independently of space and time. With the phone, you could learn everywhere and optimize wait times, like in the following examples:
• students and workers during the trip could interact in synchronous and asynchronous activities, they could see the digital learning contents previously downloaded from the online course already published, or could play with the mobile phone, the quizzes in the course;
• educational tours for students in secondary school but also in stage/internships attended by students of the school and university, with mobile phones as well: play quizzes, see the contents prepared in online courses with the software MLE-Moodle developed by elibera.com and perform other activities synchronous and asynchronous (forum, wiki, chat, ...).
The interweaving of formal, informal and non formal learning : The interweaving of formal, informal and non formal learning In this context are useful:
the production of digital contents (photos, sounds, web links, ..) and email contacts and/or SMS -MMS with the formal context (school, university,company);
conducting quizzes and/or receiving feedback from the teacher during the activities in the presence with whiteboard interactive and the subsequent responses of the learners in real time with the mobile phone, all this does avoids many workstations connected to the Internet and check together the teacher what has been gained on the presented topics.
It’s clear that the m-learning systems especially in cases of interdisciplinary activities promote the meeting of formal, non-formal and informal learning environments and catch the needs of the learner for lifelong learning, attractiveness and needs such as greater spontaneity, autonomy and randomness in the study.
The MLE Moodle plug-in : The MLE Moodle plug-in MLE-Moodle is a mobile learning system. The software package is available on the web site,
http://mle.sourceforge.net/mlemoodle/index.php?page=tutorial.php,
with extensive documentation and a tutorial to install and configure. In any case, the minimum requirements for installation are: the platform Moodle 1.9.x, 4.3.0 and PHP Database: MySQL 4.1.16 or MSSQL or Postgres 8.0 or 9.0 Oracle 9.0. The reader is referred to the site http://docs.moodle.org/ for more details on the installation of Moodle platform.
After the installation of Moodle, it is useful to create at least two online courses called "mlearning" and "mobile community", immediately after observe the steps: log in as an administrator (Admin) in the platform; click on: the block "Site Administration", "courses", "Add / Edit courses" and "Add a new course"; choose a name to complete the course such as "mlearning" and save the course; go to the page assigning roles to add yourself as a teacher of the course; can now be added all activities (educational contents, forum, wiki, ...) provided by the Moodle platform within the course "mlearning”.
Installation of MLE-Moodle (part I) : Installation of MLE-Moodle (part I) In order to install the MLE-Moodle plug-in, it needs proceed as follows:
download the package MLE-Moodle in ZIP format from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mle/files/mle_moodle/0.5/mle_moodle_0.5.zip/download
then extract all files and folders (see Figure 1) and copy them in a folder on your computer:
Figure 1. The MLE-Moodle installation package
Installation of MLE-Moodle (part II) : Installation of MLE-Moodle (part II) Figure 2. Transferring files in the root folder of Moodle
as shown in Figure 2, launch from your computer a file transfer program such as FileZilla, then from the window called local Site select all content previously extracted from the package in ZIP format and transfer it to the root folder of the Moodle platform;
overwrite files if it is asked by the program FileZilla, in order to see if the transfer has been successful, it needs to check if it was created the folder mle under the root folder moodle/blocks in the remote Site window. To complete the installation of MLE-Moodle should be back on the platform as "Admin" and complete the following steps:
from the panel "Site Administration", click "Notifications" and after the loading of this page click on "Continue" button at the bottom of the page and click "Save" if prompted;always from the panel "Site Administration", click "Modules", then "MLE" and finally on "MLEConfig;
in this page check "Enable MLE-Moodle" is activated, choose the mobile community course previously created and activate the mobile communication mode;
the procedure ends by clicking on "Save Changes".
Usability of MLE-Moodle : Usability of MLE-Moodle Then it must comply with certain configuration steps to enable the following features: enabling mobile access, configuration of browser access, mobile application client (MLE-client) configuration, configuration of your internal download-server, and additional configuration of your downloads -internal server that allows users to have an SMS Gateway. In addition, you can always get the latest updates or uninstall MLE-Mood.
The learner can take online courses on Moodle through his mobile phone (m-learning) and his personal computer (e-learning). From the mobile phone he can use the browser of his phone to access the courses created and managed with the software MLE-Moodle.
Learners can also use a special mobile application that was designed for learning with mobile phones called MLE client.
The MLE-Moodle is able to create quizzes like: true / false, multiple choice, short answer. Any attempt to conduct the quiz is automatically recorded by the system and the teacher can choose whether to send a feedback or to show correct answers.
Lessons and contents with MLE : Lessons and contents with MLE A lesson with MLE can also be multi-interdisciplinary and every page of the lesson may end opening a question. Browsing in the lesson can be simple or complex and the native Moodle lessons work perfectly within the MLE system.
Any content of learning is enjoyed both in e-learning and m-learning mode. The teacher can give an assignement and can review by the mobile phone.
The assignements can be sent in formats: text, audio, images and video. The surveys carried out in a Moodle platform are fully compatible with MLE environment. They are, for teachers, particularly useful to stimulate and improve learning if the students use them consistently and conclusively.
Moodle forums are naturally accessible through the mobile client that also enables: the reading, the creating, the editing of threads and replies. In the discussions and replies of a forum it is possible attach own images, video or audio files previously produced with the phone or selected from those already existing in the file system.
The Moodle Wiki can be accessed by phone.
Other features of MLE-Moodle : Another interesting feature is MLO(Mobile Learning Objects). This is an educational package that can be implemented with all the typical activities(cloze, multiple choice, free text, ....) of a learning object using the native editor( MLE editor). This editor is very easy to use and allows you to create appropriate ebook useful to be stored in the mobile phone memory
MLE-Moodle fully integrates with the messaging system to Moodle. The mobile phone recognizes reporting all incoming messages no matter if the message was created through a mobile phone or via web browser.
The block Moodle "Users (mobile)" shows all users who are connected to the MLE, i.e. both those linked from the Web and those associated with the phone.
Flashcard trainer is another innovative feature of MLE-Moodle. It can be used with the mobile phone (m-learning) and with the PC-web-browser (e-learning). A synchronization feature allows to continue learning on both sides. This is a card that provides help during the learning. You record a question on one side of card and a answer overleaf. The flashcards contain: vocabulary, historical dates, formulas or any other object that can be learned through the type format “question and answer”. The Flashcards are used extensively to repeat lists of questions and answers over time.
The MLE mobile tagging module allows to create and decode a lot of tag types. You can create a tag connection to a URL, as well as, Mobile tagging can also handle geo-information( i.e., the coordinates of a tag for the emulation of a GPS system).
Mobile community is a particular course used by all mobile users of the Moodle platform. This specific course offers special mobile contents such as: time tables, menu plans, free access to libraries, ... Other features of MLE-Moodle
Evaluation of effective interactions in on-line groups : Evaluation of effective interactions in on-line groups The technique for the evaluation of the effective interactions proposed by Calvani (Calvani et al., 2007), uses a set of variables, translatable into quantitative indicators easy to design that allow a complete and immediate representation of the level of effectiveness into a collaborative group.
This technique characterizes these indicators focussing on:
the amount of active participation by group members;
the regularity of constant participation;
the number of messages in a forum related to a thread and levels of replication triggered by a message in a forum.
Subgroups of partecipiants : Subgroups of partecipiants In accord with the literature(A. Tidwell, 1999), when the discussion group converges on specific and clearly identified topics as in the blended course on Moodle platform (Piattaforma Moodle, 2009), or blended training type vocational training addressed to secondary school teachers (Piattaforma IWT, 2009), within the group of participants online form subgroups with the following characteristic features:
• the subgroup of CORE, composed of very active participants and partners who have good technical skills and good autonomy;
• the subgroup of DROP-INS, composed of participants less experienced the CORE subgroup but who want to become like them. The DROP-INS, however, show a sufficient technical competence always accompanied by a sense of community and a constant level of participation;
• the subgroup of DROP-OUTS, composed of members which do not participate, are less concentrated and devoted little to the activities proposed by the e-tutor. It follows that the DROP-OUTS not yet have the necessary level of competence and they occupy the layer below in the organizational hierarchy of the community. The DROP-OUTS will improve and be part of the DROP-INS, or fall below the level of the subgroup of lurkers;
• the subgroup of LURKERS, composed of members apathetic and recalcitrant to various forms of appeal and exhortation of the e-tutor. These participate little to the activities, show disinterest and never offer interesting contributions.
Considerations and future applications : Considerations and future applications In this paper is once again revealed that e-learning helps to improve learning. E-learning with m-learning can be seen through the integration of advanced technologies that are based on a principle of consistent and effective educational practice. The designed and developed systems for online learning as in the case of MLE-Moodle, produce a continuous enreachment of the expressive forms and principles of formal, non formal and informal learning, stimulate educational designing and the development of new evaluation processes in multi-interdisciplinary like it is shown in this work. So it comes to realize a basic principle of modernity which affirm the need of investment in the process of learning to obtain new knowledge.
In the online einvornment, e-tutor needs to know if all the interactions between the participants are effectively and homogeneously distributed. According to the literature, the optimum participation can be seen when the majority of participants tends to converge toward the subgroup of drop-ins. Concretely, this representation helps e-tutors to identify individuals which must be encouraged(drop-outs and lurkers) and those must be moderated(core) because when the subgroup of the core is too large it would be a sort of implosion of the group. It is not restrictive to suppose that even in the case of on-line courses delivered with MLE-Moodle can be applied the tool presented at MoodleMoot Bari 2010 (Nazzaro A., Rotta M., 2010).
This spreadsheet, infact, allows the monitoring and evaluation of the effective interactions generated by a collaborative on-line group.
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