MoodleMoot.org

I would be the first to admit that the title of this blog is very misleading. There is virtually no posts about Moodle so if that is what you came to read about then this blog will disappoint!

Til now that is!!! I live in New Zealand for those who don't know. I did not go to the UK Moodlemoot 09' (7th - 8th April) and the small logistic that NZ is +1200 GMT does not help when you want to keep up with what is going on at the UK Moodlemoot. However that is where technology plays a massive role and without too much trouble and a great website (MoodleMoot.org) I have learnt some new new Moodle tips and tricks which I thought I'd share here!


First up GLOSSARIES!!
Within a Moodle course you have a primary glossary which collects together ALL glossary entries. So to create an individual topic specific glossary you need to set up as a secondary glossary. Also students can only make entries to a secondary glossary (V1.8).

Put more simply when you create a glossary, use the secondary option and you won't have any problems.

Ideas then on how to use the Moodle glossary: think outside the square... it can be more than a traditional glossary:

1. Book reviews - using the authors name students put that in the concept box and then write their book review in the large space. Remember if students use firefox for their web browser they get an html format toolbar so they can format their text - ie. Change colour of text, make it bold, italic, centred etc
2. Homework diary - each week you create an "entry" in the glossary and outline the homework task. To be extra nifty - create a Random Glossary Block and connect your homework diary glossary to this block. Set the Random Glossary Block to display the latest entry and that way it will automatically change when you create a new entry.
3. Home economics/Food technology - need I say more. All those scrumptious recipes. Yep... post them to a glossary and then 24/7/365 students can access their favourite class creations. It is possible to link images/photos to glossary entries, so when a student/class has created their favourite dish, take a photo and display it along with the recipe.
4. Introducing... most fitting at the start of the academic year no doubt... each person (staff and/students) write a short brief introduction about themselves. This one could also be displayed in a Random Glossary Entry (RGE) block. It is possible to have multiple RGE blocks.
5. Dictionary/Encyclopedia - CREATED by STUDENTS. At some stage when students have a grasp of the content in the unit they can brainstorm common terms in the unit. (or the teacher can make a list). Then each student is assigned one of the terms to then add to the glossary. Remeber to tweak the settings so editing is/isn't allowed depending on your circumstances.
6. A novel idea - Each student gets a character from a novel/shortstory to write a "character thingy" for. Again, depending on the class and how you want to operate the task you can allow other students to edit the original glossary entry. You could effectively allow editing and then the task would become more wiki like and in fact a wiki could be more suitable.
7. MFL - Languages I have not forgotten you. Obviously there is a lot of vocab for a student learning a MFL but it could be that students research their own little phrase, joke, or quote in the language being taught.
8. ESOL (Basic) - picture based glossary of everyday objects. A thought, if students were able to edit this glossary it could be a task for them to add the word from their language so each term would have the English term, a picture then the chinese, mandarin, samoan etc term too.
9. ESOL - each student makes an entry which includes an image of their home country and a liitle about that country like how many people live there and the climate so others can gain an appreciatian for where their fellow class mates are from