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Chinese Language School Digitization

IT6930

University of Colorado Denver

Ming Yuan Chen

March 2011

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Overview and background

When I began to search for an internship, I knew it is very hard to find one

in my field, especially for someone who has no experience. At the end, I

decided to work with the Colorado Chinese Language School. After contacting

the principal, he offered me an internship opportunity. We mostly contacted

each other by mail and scheduled meetings when necessary.

CCLS, the Colorado Chinese Language Schools, is a non-profit school

founded in 1974. It was established by educators and parents, primarily for

teaching children how to listen, speak, read and write Chinese, also

emphasizing Chinese culture and extracurricular activities. The students’ age

ranges from 5 to adult and the languages classes are categorized by Mandarin

speaking, and non-Mandarin speaking. There are 13 teachers in CCLS and

eight of them are for language classes. As most classes focus on a basic level,

teachers use traditional methods for their teaching. PowerPoint and

Voicethread are the only technologies they used for their teaching. Most

teachers are mothers and have other jobs, and they only teach Mandarin on

the weekend.

In my discussions with the principal, he hoped that their teaching could

better integrate technologies. Their concerns were that they don’t know which

technologies they could use and how to take their first step. The principal also

hoped they could have a private environment for their students to post class

outlines online and have an online grade system. As in Taiwan, a traditional

Mandarin-speaking country, the ministry of Education strives to develop

digitalization of learning resources. Most schools use Moodle to improve

teaching quality. I told the principal the trends, and he agreed to use Moodle

and hoped that Moodle can improve their teaching quality.

As CCLS is a relatively small school, I began my analysis immediately. I

explained the differences between Edu2.0 and Moodle to the principal,

showing him the report, Moodle vs. Edu2.0, that I created with other members

(Bruce, Ming-Yuan, Linda, Ellen, 2010). Then I offered him a proposal

including purposes, learning objectives, evaluations, short-term goals, and

long-term goals. I thought that what I did was quite thoughtful; however, things

were not going well at the end. I sent the proposal to the principal and

thereafter began to design and prepare the teaching materials and

presentation for CCLS. After I met the principal and explained how Moodle

could help their teachers and their school, the principal found that there were

some problems, and that the project might not go as well as planned.

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The principal restated a big picture of what he wanted, and we discussed

the content more specifically. I redesigned the proposal and hoped that I could

try my best to help CCLS. Because of the time limit, I did not finish this project

as I expected. I definitely would love to help CCLS finish the project in the

future, yet this report describes the process and the reasons why I failed.

Project Objectives

After my project was set, I began to set up my objectives for my learners. This

project is based on the ADDIE model.

Analysis Phase

This is the first time the CCLS has tried to change their whole system and try to

use new technologies to improve their teaching, so there is no former

experience as my reference.

At the beginning, since the teachers have no strong background knowledge

about information technologies, I need to make certain that teachers know why

we want to do this. As a result, my first plan is to talk about the importance and

the value of digitalizing teaching. Then, I needed to make teachers familiar

with Moodle and help them know how to guide their students to use Moodle.

The third plan I wanted to do was to help teachers communicate on Moodle.

My final plan was to help teachers create digital materials. After that, I planned

to evaluate how the materials work and what else can be improved. Because

there are only 13 teachers teaching in language classes, I assumes I would

use three hours or longer to teach them face to face.

Design and Development

My design begins with the proposal as below.

Class Digitalization

The Purpose Unlike the tradition teaching methods, digitalization is a

student-based teaching method. That is to say, the

teaching designs will include interactive learning,

collaborative learning, social net working, and education

developing (Wen-Yi Xing, 2009).

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Interactive learning: For example, create a podcast for

students and allow students process the materials online

and have feedback and communications with their

classmates in Moodle. Also, teachers can present videos

in Moodle which allow students to interact and learn from

each other.

Collaborative Learning: Activities between students

and students allow them to learn from each other which

are very helpful.

Social Net Working: Moodle

Education development: Offer students an optional

reading materials and optional discussion area so that

gifted students can achieve their learning desire.

The focal point of class digitalization is not technology but

how we use technology to help our teaching.

The Value It is very important to let teachers know the value of

using technology for their teaching. I will show them the

real successful cases of using Moodle from other

schools.

Short term

goal

1. Teachers will know how to use Moodle.

2. Teachers will know how to communicate in Moodle.

3. Teachers will know how to input their teaching

materials and teach students how to use Moodle.

4. Teachers will know how to use different technologies

to create their teaching materials.

5. Two teachers will use Moodle to assist teaching for

trials.

Long term goal 1. Build up an online community.

2. All teachers can use Moodle to assist their teaching.

Materials

digitalization

Podcasts: Create podcast as an assignment or a

preview before next class. Teachers can use tool

such as VoiceThread or Voki.

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Note digitalization：Students don’t need to spend

too much time on writing notes. Teachers can offer

students PowerPoint or digital note by using Scrid,

or Calameo.

Animated materials：Share animations or digital

stories to strengthen students’ memory.

Online discussion：Offer students a forum for

interactions or talk in Mandarin by recording what

they said. Or, students can create Mandarin

conversations together.

Online Quiz：Linking online quizzes and

assignments are good for students to practice.

According to the report (Scott T. C., Robin W. T.,

Mark B. S., 2007), online test is an effective way to

help students practice because when students try to

finish their quizzes, they usually will use reading

materials rather than their memory. The goals of

online quizzes are not on students’ grade but

students’ involvement. Teachers can easily know

which parts need to be emphasized according to

students’ mistakes.

Sharing

Materials

Teachers can share their materials with other

teachers. Also they can embed their materials in

Moodle for students. In Moodle, teachers can have

privacy to prevent their teaching materials from

being stolen by others.

Evaluation A good digital materials design need to be

continuous improved so that the materials can

achieve better results. That is to say, the materials

designed for class A may need adjustments for class

B. Every year, depending on different students, the

materials may be a little bit different.

Final Performance：Periodical performance can help

teachers improve their teaching quality. Also, the

materials and outcomes can be published and

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promote CCLS popularity.

Notion Inform Parents: Inform Parents and guide them

how to log on Moodle to see their kids’ learning

activities and also can see the grade of their

children.

Consider to offer a discussion forum for parents.

After reviewing the proposal, the principal felt good with those ideas and I

began to design materials in Moodle. Designing teaching materials and

preparing presentation to the principal was not difficult to me. However,

Moodle is new to me and CCLS is a small school, and there was no technical

support for me. I not only needed to design the materials but also needed to

help them set up Moodle. I needed to take care of any problem I encountered

and presented all the functions to the principal before I really could teach their

teachers. I spent plenty of time on figuring out how Moodle functions and can

help their teaching. Every time there was a technical problem, it killed me and

made me painful for several days as I was eager to find out the answers. (The

original design materials are listed in Appendix A.)

Implementation Phase

When I finished my presentation to the principal, he liked the functions of

assignment, quiz, questionnaire, grade system, group and so forth. However,

he told me that there were some problems. For example, he said that even if I

taught teachers how to use Moodle, many of those teachers may not be able

to use it, because they don’t have materials to upload. The current materials

and most classes are at a basic level, so those teachers rely heavily on the

text book. Also, those teachers do not have time for face to face class, so it will

be better to use teaching videos for their teachers. Creating teaching videos

are not difficult but the principal wanted me to hold off on doing that next step.

He mentioned another problem and told me that actually they have different

online resources for CCLS. They used to have a blog and now they have a

website. Also, one of their teachers set up her own webpage for students’

teaching guide. It is a kind of chaos, because there is no representative for

CCLS. When students or parents want to find their class materials or class

information, they cannot easily find things they want. The principal wants their

website to be the main place that parents and teachers turn to. Consequently,

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the principal wants me to combine their website and Moodle first.

What does that mean to combine the website and Moodle? For example, the

principal felt that the function of the grade system in Moodle was good, but he

didn’t want the students or parents go to Moodle’s main page and log in and

then click the grade button. For some parents, it may be very complicated. He

wanted me to think of a way that parents may just go to their website and make

the process easier. For another example, their website offers students to

register a new account; so does Moodle. The principal wanted me to think of a

way that students do not need to register again. Also, the principal wanted to

use the questionnaire, discussion forum, and other functions from Moodle, but

everything needed to be connected to their website to make things easier.

As a result, I needed to draw a map and give the principal another proposal. I

reviewed the website and thought of ways to achieve CCLS’s needs. Below is

what I came up with. (The original chart is in Appendix B)

My Suggestions

Class Page

In CCLS’s class page, they offer the list of their classes; however, they do

not offer enough information for viewers. So, my suggestion was that they

hyperlink the class schedule from the web site to Moodle, so the user can

click the class button and see the schedule and outline. Or, even more, it

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would be better if they offer a class sample for the viewers.

Registration Page

I suggested the principal input the account name and password into

Moodle, so the learners do not need to register again. Technically, this

suggestion needed to be evaluated by the engineer of CCLS.

Faculty and Contact

In this area, we only can see teachers' list but no contact methods. My

suggestion was to hyperlink the Moodle message address. Simply saying,

when parents click teacher's contact, parents need to log into a verified

account and send messages to the teacher. Then, Moodle will send mail to

the teacher automatically. It not only can protect the teachers' privacy but

also help parents and students contact with each other.

Parents

In this area, CCLS has an empty page. My suggestion was to put all

Moodle functions here, so parents and students can easily find everything

they need in this page. Below are the functions the principal wished to

have.

A. Online Grade system: Set up a Grade button connected to Moodle, so

parents can log in to the system and check for their children’s grade.

B. Principal Connection: As the principal mentioned an experience that

one time after class, teacher chatted with a kid’s mother and left. One

student was left behind in the classroom and parents were very angry

about this. As a result, the principal wanted to set up a way that parents

can directly contact the principal. This function was the same as the

contact function mentioned above. Parents can login and send text to

the principal. Unlike e-mail, the principal has privacy because only

verified users can connect to the principal and only he can check the

messages.

C. Questionnaire: Set up a questionnaire area so that parents can offer

opinions to CCLS. Or, they can use Google Questionnaire to reach the

same effect.

D. Parent Discussion Forum: Setup a discussion forum in Moodle so

parents can interact with other parents.

This was my proposal of how to combine their website and Moodle. I believe

that there are a lot of things needing to be processed. For example, I tested

several times whether the suggestions I gave would work on the website or not.

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However, all these suggestions may need to be built by the engineer of CCLS,

but not my personal website. Maybe the principal needs to have meetings and

discuss with other members of CCLS or maybe they have some difficulties or

may not consider whether my plan works. I told the principal that I was

planning to create the teaching videos first, whereas he told me not to, saying

that if the plans were not approved or used, I would waste my time on those

materials. I don’t have so much time waiting for their decision, so I decided to

write the report and announced that I did not finish this project as expected.

The project did not finish thoroughly, so there is no evaluation process of

ADDIE in my report.

Reflection

Constrains and requirements

One of my constraints is that this is my first time doing the project and I could

not find an experienced partner to work with me. Unlike a big school or

company, they may have a department for resolving Moodle or server

problems, but I needed to work alone on my own.

Working on this project really made me think and learn a lot. Retrospectively, I

made a lot of mistakes; for instance, my initial analysis was not thorough

enough, so there was an incident in the middle of my project. I realized the

importance of analysis, which corresponds to our duty that we need to save

time and money for our client. For someone doing this kind of project alone

first time, it is not easy to estimate what is going to happen. It is said that the

only thing that won’t change in the world is change. You will always need to

have plan B and prepare for unexpected issues. I know my job may look

awkward to a professional instructional designer, but I experienced all the

process alone and learned a lot from it. Even thought the work is not done, it

was a good lesson for me to learn project management. There is still a long

way to go in my career and I believe that I can do better in the future.

References

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Bruce, B., Ming-Yuan, C., Linda, M., & Ellen, R. (2010) Content Management

System Comparison: Moodle vs. Edu2.0. Unpublished master’s thesis,

University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado.

BoettcherV., & Conrad, R. M.J. (2010). The Online Teaching Survival Guide.

San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Jason, C., & Helen, F., (2007). Using Moodle: Teaching with the Popular Open

Source Course Management System. San Francisco: O'Reilly Media.

Richardson, W., (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web

Tools for Classrooms. California: Corwin

Scott T. C., Robin W. T., Mark B. S. (2007). The Benefits of Linking

Assignments to Online Quizzes in Introductory Biology Courses. MERLOT

Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 3, No. 3.

Wen-Yi, X., (2009). Digital Learning 2.0. [online]. Available:

http://www.slideshare.net/go38/20-1792094 (March 9, 2011)

Wen-Yi, X., (2009). Enjoy Moodle Just For Fun V2. [online] Available:

http://www.slideshare.net/jainan/moodlev2-1835863 (March 9,2011)

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Appendix

A

課程數位化

課程數位化目的 【課程數位化】不在像傳統式的灌輸式教學，數位化的東西是要以學

生為主體的教學設計，也就是說，設計內容會包括：互動式學習、合

作式學習、社群、深化知識等。

互動式學習：比如說，老師錄製影音放在線上，讓同學去回應或觀看，

也方便在上課時討論等等的，觀看小短片之類的。

合作式學習：比如說，同學與同學間的小組活動，同學戶相學習，是

很有幫助的。

社群：目前使用的就是 Moodle。

深化知識：如何讓同學所學的東西發展到更深的一個層面。

課程數位化重點不是科技，而是我們如何應用科技去輔助教學。

近程目標：

遠程目標：

數位化的價值 要讓老師知道數位化的目的在於輔助教學以及其效果

讓老師觀看其它中文學校成功的案例

初步方針 6. 老師先要學道如何使用 Moodle 軟體！

7. 開設一個空間讓老師與老師在 Moodle 上互相交流應用

8. 製作教學教材，告知學生如何使用 Moodle ，並指導學生們註冊

教材數位化 課程錄音：適用於課後回家練習聽力，以及回家作業，在下次上

課前的預習，可用免費線上軟體如：Voice Thread, Voki

課程筆記數位化：同學不用忙於抄筆記，並讓同學能看到更有效

的註解輔助，可用免費線上軟體如：Scribd, 講義王, Calameo

影音教材分享：分享課程相關的影音動畫，或和課文相關的中文

故事，加深同學印象

線上討論：讓同學有一個空間可以線上討論或使用中文，甚至可

以讓同學使用免費資源錄製中文等，或是讓同學團體合作錄製中

文對話之類的

線上考試：線上考試是一個很好的練習機會，報告指出，在做線

上考試時，同學通常不會使用記憶而且一定會使用參考資料。線

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上考試的目的，不在於其成績，而是要同學使用已知或未知的資

訊去回答問題，達到練習的效果。老師也可以知道，同學那部份

錯比較多或須要加強

教材分享 可將想要分享的教材製作成電子書，放到免費網站上，用成電子

書，不但可以避免教材被人輕易任易使用也可以達到宣傳的效

果。此外，教材可以崁入 Moodle 或網頁上使用，非常方便

教師與教師間的互動分享，教師教材交流，可以在 Moodle 設置

一交流空間做分享，不會外流

教材評估與修正 數位化教材設計時是必須要經過不斷的評估和測試的，也就是

說，這學期適用的教材，下學期對新的學生可能又要再調整修正。

成果發表：定期做成果的發表有祝於往後的更新和修正，也可以

用來宣傳和發表。

附註 要告知家長，並教導家長如何登入，可觀看其小孩的活動及學習

情形，或是觀看成績等等

可考慮是否供家長一個交流的空間

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B

Original - Mandarin

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English Version

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C

Teaching Materials