How to Create an International Graduate Level Course Using Moodle
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM
Adjunct Lecturer, Australian National University
This presentation discusses how Moodle was used to deliver an online postgraduate course around the world, on the topic of sustainable information technology. This includes the use of less than broadband Internet links, tablet computers, smart phones and e-book devices.
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM
Tom Worthington is an independent ICT consultant, an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Research School of Computer Science at the ANU and a Visiting Scientist at CSIRO. He is an award winning online education designer. Previously he advised on IT policy at the Department of Defence.
In 1999 Tom was elected a Fellow of the ACS for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy in Australia. He is a past president, Fellow and Honorary Life Member of the ACS, a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
One major challenge when teaching sustainable techniques is that students will
have different backgrounds. Emphasis was placed on practical aspects with the two
assignments for the course requiring the student to address sustainable ICT issues in
a real organisation, preferably one where they worked.
To give experience in discussing the issues, the students used an on-line text based forum. As an incentive to keep up with the work, 20% of the assessment was for weekly forum contributions, with the balance for mid and end of course assignments. No examinations were used.
In 2008 the Australian Computer Society commissioned the design of a Green ICT
course to be delivered using mentored
and collaborative e-Learning. The course was first run in February 2009 as
part of the ACS Computer
Professional Education Program (CPEP). The program uses Internet delivered
e-learning, via the Moodle open source Learning Management System. Students are
assessed on their contribution to group discussions and assignments. The CPEP
is a postgraduate masters level program leading to Certified Professional (CP)
status, accredited by the International Professional
Practice Partnership (IP3).
The ACS allowed the course materials for Green ICT to be released under a Creative
Commons open access license. A book of course notes was
distributed free on line as well as a print and e-book.
The Australian National University offered a revised version of the course in July
2009. The course was offered on-line to in the Graduate Studies Select
program, as well as on-campus full and part time students.
One of the former students of the ANU course adapted the material for North
America and
Use of Moodle
Practical progressive assessment (no examinations):
Weekly on-line forum using Moodle to discuss issues (24% of assessment),
Mid and end of semester assignments about green ICT in the workplace via Moodle (76% of assessment).
Practical Approach to Teaching
Moodle provides forums for students to discuss what they are learning, not just receive content prepared by teachers. This also teaches students how to use the same on-line collaboration techniques in the workplace.
The techniques of using mentored collaborative on-line learning for computer professional education were adapted for the ACS by David Lindley.
I published an electronic edition of my ""Green Technology Strategies" book for Amazon.com's Kindle e-Book device. PDF did not work well, as the Kindle uses a version of the Mobipocket format. So I decided to stop at that point and see if I could create a good quality HTML document in the format Amazon requires. It appears that Moodle can generate e-Books suitable for the Kindle which has significant implications for education.
The Green ICT book was originally converted from HTML created by Moodle's Book module. I was able to upload an IMS Content package created by the Moodle Book module to Amazon.com and have this converted to the Kindle format.
Amazon.com produced an 80 kByte zip file for the Kindle, slightly smaller than the original 81.5 kByte IMS content package. The Kindle archive appears to have the same folders and files as the IMS original, with an XML manifest, a folder with a CSS file and a folder with a HTML file for each chapter. The only change appears to be that the HTML 4 headers of the IMS content package have been stripped off the HTML documents.
When previewed by the Amazon's Digital Text Platform web site, the book content is displayed in a window of about 50 columns by 16 lines of text, with headings in larger font and hypertext links underlined and highlighted in blue, much like the web page original (current Kindle devices actually have monochrome screens).
Being able to provide educational content via the Kindle essentially unchanged is very attractive, but has some limitations. The Kindle does not appear to display the table of contents for the book. This is displayed in an Learning Management System (such as Moodle) from the XML Manifest. Without the table of contents the e-book is very hard to navigate. This may be a limitation of the way Moodle creates IMS content, or the Kindle online emulator (perhaps the Kindle device creates the contents page dynamically).
I tried exporting the OpenOffice.org version to HTML, but the results were not that good. OOO generated a table of contents with hypertext links, but the links are on the print page numbers, which do not make much sense for an e-Book (as the Kindle has smaller pages than a paper book). I could have used the web version of the book, but would have had to assemble all the chapters, which are separate web pages, into one document.
The Moodle Book module can also "print" a book. This produces one HTML file containing all chapters (unlike the IMS format which has each chapter in a separate HTML file). I saved this web page from the Firefox web browser, along with a folder generated containing a CSS file and images. When Zipped, this produced a 73.7 kByte archive file. After conversion by Kindle, a slightly smaller Zip archive (73.5 kBytes) with a similar structure, but slightly simplified HTML resulted.
One change I made was to move the front matter of the book to after the table of contents. While with a paper book you can quickly flip over the boring stuff at the front, with a e-book this is tedious. It is better to put the table of contents first. Readers will see the front matter if the then scroll through the book, but will quickly learn the can skip this by clicking on the first chapter in the content.
One issue to be resolved are the external hypertext links in the book. In the USA, Amazon provide limited web browsing, but not internationally. The reader can't see the difference between local links in the book and external ones. The reader could get frustrated when the click on links which do not work. I might need to hide the external links for the Kindle version, or at least distinguish them. This is possible with some more CSS.
The converted print file looked very similar to the IMS version when displayed with the Kindle emulator. The table of contents generated by Moodle in the HTML file was displayed.
With a table of contents the e-Book has sufficient for navigation. Amazon has Formatting Guides, with some more tips.
It should be noted that other e-book readers use similar web based formats to the Kindle. The Apple iPad is reported to use EPUB, along with the Barnes and Noble Nook, Sony Reader, BeBook. Different readers and formats use subtly different versions of HTML and other web standards, but generally then zip these into a manifest. For books without complex formatting it should b reasonably easy to convert from one format to another. The same basic web format also works on desktop and mobile browsers. Anti-copy protection imposes some complexity, but can be avoided with open access licences.