A few words about Moodle:
Moodle is a Course Management System. Although it is very flexible, it's primary purpose is to "organize" Web-Based Instruction - including class schedule, assignment due-dates and online activities in a Virtual Learning Environment.
A Web-Based Curriculum, including delivery of lesson content, can be totally constructed with Moodle - with NO knowledge of HTML. However, anyone who uses the Internet to deliver educational content should have a basic knowledge of how HTML tags control the way Web pages look.
The main drawback to building a Web-Based Curriculum exclusively in Moodle is that the curriculum CAN NOT be accessed or modified without being connected to the Internet server hosting the Moodle software. The most versatile plan is to build the curriculum on the teacher's computer first, then upload it to the Internet.
- Moodle can be linked to individual online lessons and resources according to the class schedule.
- The teacher can access and modify the files at any time, without being connected to the Internet.
- If power or the Internet goes down during class, the curriculum is STILL available on the teacher computer.
- By allowing file-sharing, students can even access the curriculum directly from the teacher's computer.
The following process describes the construction of a "stand-alone" Web-Based Curriculum and does not specifically mention course management with Moodle. The first step in the process will be the same, Moodle or no Moodle. If you are considering using Moodle exclusively for constructing your curriculum, your course facilitator will be glad to answer any questions.
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Online Curriculum Construction Begins Now!
The following steps WILL produce a quality Web-Based Curriculum.
These 10 steps produce an online curriculum for ONE class!
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- DO THIS STEP ON PAPER: Use your best set of lesson plans to list the 10 subject concepts that MUST be covered during the school year and the sequence in which they should be covered. DO NOT use more than TEN (10) concepts!
- If you teach an EOI subject, use the standards and "released test items" to pick the 10 concepts students MUST know to be able to "pass" the test.
It doesn't matter how many PASS Objectives your subject has, pick ONLY 10 concepts! If you think about it, there WILL BE 10 concepts that can be used to pass the test, if your students really "know" the concepts.
Remember, today's standardized tests DO NOT measure recall. more....
- Your curriculum will help students "Learn-To-Learn" using these 10 concepts!
- Using the "Perfect Web-Based Lesson Plan" to help students "Learn-To-Learn" takes TIME. more....
- Some of the things you have "always done" will have to be discarded.
- Assignments and Tasks that require "active learning" will probably take longer than traditional assignments.
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More concepts can be added, if needed, AFTER the online currlculum for your basic 10 concepts is complete − including all concept information, support material, appropriate tasks, and assessments.
Building an online curriculum for your classes is a long-term project!
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- Do not be concerned with pace. That will be taken care of through your Class Management System.
Construction Tip #1:
- When you are sure step #1 has been done well, decide which HTML editor to use. Will you learn HTML tags, or let the editor do the HTML for you? There are several good HTML editors, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
- Don't immediately reject the idea of learning to use HTML tags. Here are all the tags you need to build your online curriculum. Fairly impressive web pages are possible with only five different HTML tags. Remember, the goal of this project is to get your curriculum online, not make a "pretty" web page. It's all about the content!
- Almost all of my pages are built using the simple Mac word processor "TextEdit" and basic HTML tags. The 10 steps in this project describe the use of TextEdit. You can substitute any HTML editor!
- The few "scripts" used on my pages were added with Dreamweaver.
- Before making a Web page, plan the layout and design of your website and individual pages. There are many ways to organize the curriculum. Look at pages on the Web for ideas. Changes can be made to your curriculum at any time, but it will help if you have a basic design plan in mind before you begin.
- Whatever design you use, DO NOT date the material. Things are always happening that interrupt high school schedules. You may have "weeks" in mind as you build the curriculum - but don't call the divisions weeks. Absolutely NEVER add calendar dates to curriculum pages. Leave it flexible! Your Web-Based Curriculum can be used for years to come. Imagine what you would think of a textbook that had calendar dates for each chapter.
- Giving students calendar dates for assignments well in advance is an important part of successful web-based instruction. But this is a course management issue, not a curriculum issue. When designing a Hybrid class using Web-Based Instruction, scheduling is part of your Virtual Learning Environment.
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- Copy this basic Home page template and paste it onto a new TextEdit page.
- Set the TextEdit preference like this.
- Make a new folder on your desktop with the name "curriculum".
- ALL files related to your online curriculum will go in this folder.
- Save the TextEdit page as "home.htm" in the folder.
- Use a Web browser to open your new online curriculum Home Page to see what it looks like.
- On the TextEdit page, replace the generic concepts with the 10 concepts from your paper outline.
- Save the changes.
- Refresh the Web browser showing your Home page to see the changes.
- Copy this basic Syllabus page template and paste it onto a new TextEdit page.
- Save the TextEdit page as "syllabus.htm" in the desktop folder. The link should now work!
- This is the basic outline page for your class syllabus.
- It will be up to you to customize the syllabus.
- Copy this basic Concept page template and paste it onto a new TextEdit page.
- Save the TextEdit page in the desktop folder with a name related to the concept.
- This is the basic page for all your concepts.
- It will be up to you to customize the pages.
- Make a link on your Home Page to each new concept page.
- Copy the HTML tag for the syllabus link and change the file name → <a href="syllabus.htm">
- Notice that the link is stopped by this tag → </a>
- After you have made ALL the concept Web pages, and linked them to your Home page, add your lesson plan notes for each concept page.
- You are the expert in your class. Your lesson plan notes alone will not give students enough information. However, get your notes on all concept pages before expanding.
- Go back to the first concept page and add everything students must know to understand the concept.
- If you refer to web sites in class, add links to them in the appropriate place.
Studies have shown that people do not like to "scroll" Web pages. This means you should avoid making long pages. If a concept has enough material that the page gets very long, you should consider making a second (or more) page and linking to it at the bottom of the page.
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Construction Tip #2:
Links to other web pages are an important part of any Web-Based Curriculum.
- DO NOT add a link to a page with the words "click here". Make some key word or words in the curriculum the link.
- You should know and use the trick of "shortcuts" when linking your curriculum pages together.
- A shortcut is a link to another page within the same Website. The shortcut does not send the user all the way back to the WWW. It tells the browser to change pages within the current site.
- Using the shortcut keeps the user's computer from breaking its connection with the current Internet server and then having to reconnect to get the new page. This saves time, sometimes LOTS of time, loading the page.
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- Add graded assignments and tasks to each concept topic.
- A web-based curriculum lets you make better assignments than giving a true-false, multiple choice, or fill-in-the-blank test at the end of a concept.
- Consider making assignments that involve students in "active learning", requiring them to use their thinking skills. These assignments are more than just finding the answer in the curriculum and using it in a blank on the assignment.
- At the very least, require students to write a complete sentence to answer a question.
- Some assignments should require students to write!
- These may be a part of your Virtual Learning Environment − such as Moodle Forums.
- While you may not be teaching English, requiring students to write in your class will support the EOI standards in english class - as well as preparing students to write in a professional environment.
- Work with the english teacher to come up with an evaluation rubric that guides students to do what you want them to accomplish for your class as well as support what they are leaning in english class.
- Consider spreading more graded assignments through each concept.
- This may be the most time-consuming part of the project. Finding the right mix of objective and subjective assignments - and where to put them in the curriculum - may not be easy, but it will ultimately determine the worth of your web-based curriculum.
- In fact, this part of the project may take years. After adding your main assignments, go on to the next step in the process. If you wait until the curriculum is perfect, you will never publish a Web-Based Curriculum.
- If you do any "special projects", now is the time to add them.
- If your class has some type of work that requires practice problems or handouts that are part of the curriculum but not graded - add those now.
- Provide solutions for the practice problems as well. Don't just give the answers! Show how the problems are actually worked!
- Since these are ungraded, students may try to get out of doing them. It is important that you devise a way to "encourage" students to do them.
- At first, students may just look at the solutions and think they understand. You will eventually be able to convince them, especially after they do poorly on a few graded assignments, that actually working the practice problems - then checking the answer - is the only way to gain experience in how to do them.
- Making your Web-Based Curriculum visually attractive is an important step. But it is the LAST STEP. Too many teachers spend time making a Web page that is pretty, with all kinds of colors, pictures, and moving graphics - but almost NO useful curriculum.
- Now is the time to add curriculum-related graphics. If it doesn't support your curriculum, don't use it!
- Some Web Designers like to put all graphics in a separate folder. This does make it easier to find your actual Web page files when you update the curriculum − but it is a personal preference.
Construction Tip #3:
- You are now officially a "Web Designer"
The Web Designer's Priorities:
- Speed: how long it takes a webpage to download
- Usability: efficiency and flexibility of communication
- Accessibility: easy to use regardless of disability
- Aesthetics: visual appeal
- Graphics - Graphics take a lot longer to load on a web page than text. Too many graphics can make a web page load very slowly.
- There are 20 kilobytes of text on this page. The seven pictures on this page total 104 kilobytes. That means the seven pictures make up 84% of the digital data on this page.
- When working on my MacBook Pro, it takes almost NO time for the browser to load this page. Accessing it through our school's high speed Internet connection still takes little time to load this page. But if a user has a less powerful computer, combined with a slower Internet connection, those pictures will slow down the loading of the page over the Internet. The more, and larger the graphics, the slower an Internet page loads!
- Good web developers are ALWAYS concerned about how fast their pages load and will do everything they can to speed it up.
- To check the size of a file or folder:
- Select the file or folder by clicking on it one time.
- On the Finder toolbar, under "file" click "get info".
- The size of the file or folder is on the popup.
- Always build your web pages for the low-end user, not the high-end user - especially when your users are students. Some students may have better technology at home than you do - but many do not. Keep those students in mind as you begin to make your pages "fancy". If you see a page load slowly on your computer, your students are likely to have a real problem loading the page at home.
- As of December 2006, 29% of American Internet users still used a 28K dial-up connection.
- One last thing to consider:
Not all web browsers are created equal. It is possible that your web page may look great on your computer's browser and look totally different on another. Most of the time, differences are minor and don't make that much difference. But there are things that some browsers just don't handle the same.
- Simple things like screen resolution and increasing or decreasing font size can really change the way different computers will display a web page.
- As a rule-of-thumb, the more complex your web page, with graphics, scripts and other "goodies", the more likely your page is to look different on different computers.
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How good is your curriculum? 
- Obviously the curriculum must be posted to the Internet before it is "Web-Based" for students. School districts that are ready to support Web-Based Instruction MUST be able to "host" it. There are places on the Web that will host teacher products for free. These are OK for a few lesson plans, but NOT for a complete Online Curriculum.
Your tech people will have to tell you how to "post" your curriculum to the School Web Server. When you are ready, "upload" the FOLDER containing your curriculum to the School Web Server. You will probably not have "rights" to the School Home Page, so your tech people will have to make the link from the School Home Page to your Curriculum Home page.
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