Moodle early use by teachers in higher education: an exploratory study

Moodle early Early Use by Teachers in Higher Education: An Exploratory Study

Patrícia Fidalgo, João Paz and Fernando Luís SantosInstituto Piaget

IntroductionStudies about Moodle usage in Portugal in secondary schools (Lisbôa et al., 2007) and HE Institutions (Magano, Castro & Carvalho, 2008; Lencastre, Vieira & Ribeiro, 2007) stressed that Moodle is mainly used as a content distributing platform and the importance of further teachers training to change practice and to encourage higher quality use. In the course of our research we expect to contribute with useful information for users andeducational institutions in the process of using and implementing this kind of platforms.

ReferencesLencastre, J. G., Vieira, L. F., & Ribeiro, R. (2007). Estudo das Plataformas de eLearning em Portugal. Lisboa. Retrieved 25 March 2010 fromhttp://www.elearning-pt.com/lms2Lisbôa, E. S., Jesus, A. G., Varela, A. M., Teixeira, G. H., & Coutinho, C. P. (2007). LMS em Contexto Escolar: estudo sobre o uso da Moodle pelos docentes de duas escolas do Norte de Portugal. Educação, Formação &Tecnologias, 2(1), 44-57.Magano, J., Castro, A. V., & Carvalho, C. V. (2008). O e-Learning no Ensino Superior: um caso de estudo. Educação, formação & Tecnologia, 1(1), 14.

The authorsPatrícia Fidalgo ([email protected])Twitter: pfidalgo1João Paz ([email protected])Twitter: joaopaztwtrFernando Luís Santos ([email protected])Twitter: flsantosAvaliable for download: http://slidesha.re/mNEzl4

ContextPiaget Institute has made an effort to modernize its

technological infrastructure to implement a training

model able to answer XXI century learning

challenges, where the presence of Moodle is a

constant, as support to face-to-face teaching, or in

blended courses where the teaching has a strong

on-line presence.

The Piaget Online Education and Training Unit is

formally responsible for assuring access and

availability to Moodle LMS and the training of

students and teachers in each Campus. This study

was conducted by the Almada Team of that Unit.

This poster is a report on the findings of an exploratory study conducted in a Higher Education Institution about type of use, effects on teachingpractice and perceptions of teachers about Moodle as an instructional tool in both on-line and face to face courses.

FindingsAll figures are presented as percentage of stacked allowing the comparison of the proportional contributions of all groups.

DiscussionOur results show that although different, all groups use similar resources and activities and the perceptions of teachers are mostly positive, againcutting across all groups and considering factors such as communication, repository and educational use. Considering that teachers of groups A and Bhad only basic training about the use of Moodle and group C had a more advanced training it is somewhat surprising that there were no statisticallysignificant differences between groups. The early stages of Moodle implementation in the Institution may contribute to explain this result.

Figure 1. The study

As a repository of content

For evaluation of students …

To communicate with students …

To receive students' work

To keep the resources of my course organized …

To (support) activities outside school hours

To (support) activities in the classroom

C – b-learning (80%) B – b-learning (20%) A – face-to-face

Figure 2. Reasons for using Moodle

Figure 1.

Book

Insert a label

Compose a text page

Compose a web page

Link to a file or website

Display a directory

Add an IMS content package


Figure 3. Resources usage in Moodle

Chat

Journal

Forum

FLV player

Glossary

Survey

Lesson

Questionnaire

Choice

SCORM/AICC

Database

Quiz

Assignments

Wiki


Figure 4. Activities usage in Moodle

Question

Group AN=24

Median rank

Group BN=7

Median rank

Group CN=4

Median rank

X² p

A. Contact with students is facilitated through the use of synchronous and asynchronous tools

4 4 4.5 .836 .658

B. It is an excellent repository of various types of content 5 4 4.5 1.426 .490

C. Work on Moodle from any location is a plus 5 5 5 .274 .872

D. Work on Moodle at any time that is convenient to me is a plus 5 5 5 .757 .684

E. It's very useful for organizing my classes 2 2 2.5 .724 .696

F. Moodle is very useful to receive assignments from students 4 4 4.5 2.813 .244

G. Help me to save time in the organization of classes 3 3 3 .708 .701

H. Moodle has resources and/or activities to meet the objectives that I propose in my classes

2 2 2 1.630 .442

I. Does not make the relationship between teacher and student impersonal

2 3 2.5 3.047 .217

J. It is flexible in terms of structure 3 3 3 .856 .651

K. It is flexible in terms of content there may arise 2 2 1.5 4.054 .131

L. Working with Moodle is not difficult and/or complicated and doesn’t require specific technical skills

2 2 2.5 1.213 .545

M. The appearance is attractive 2 3 3.5 3.383 .184

N. Moodle has educational use 2 2 1.5 .0453 .977

NS

Figure 5. Teachers perceptions on Moodle.