Tokyo November 1, 2011

Special thanks to Karl Friday from the IES Abroad Tokyo Center for submitting these photos!

A Note from John S. Lucas

Our Educational Technology e ort is in full swing. This years Annual Conference and Center Directors Retreat featured presentations on creative applications of Moodle across IES Abroad Centers. Dr. Ariel Yabln, Assistant Director, IES Abroad Buenos Aires, demonstrated the use of Moodle in Buenos Aires, and the innovative ways that students are using video cameras as tools for cultural exploration. Dr. Octavio di Leo, Center Director, IES Abroad Rome, presented a case study from the Rome Center featuring several of the Centers courses and a glimpse at the ways in which the Centers student a airs team uses Moodle. We also highlighted Moodle course pages from Barcelona, Vienna, and Berlin at these events. You can read more about the use of Moodle at IES Abroad Centers in the upcoming edition of the Interculturalist, the IES Abroad newsletter that highlights IES Abroad intercultural activities and initiatives. In the month of October, IES Abroad partnered with the Center for Innovation and Learning at Wo ord College to train the ve Regional Educational Technology Specialists (RETS) who were featured in last months newsletter. At Wo ord, the group of RETS worked with Wo ord College faculty members to analyze the ways in which Moodle is used at IES Abroad Centers and at Wo ord College, and to develop a set of best practices and training tools that the RETS can share with their Centers through webinars and trainings, and through the IES Abroad Moodle training site. It was a pleasure to meet Martn, Laura, Wolfgang, Jeremiah, and Stephen. This highly skilled team represents diverse academic disciplines, teaching backgrounds, and technical skill sets. The RETS have already returned to their Centers and will be contacting the Faculty Champions in their regions to introduce themselves. To assist them, we have recently sent out a survey to all Faculty Champions to help us to understand how best to support the Centers as you use Moodle to acheive our shared educational goals. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and creativity of each of our new RETS and the other colleagues from IES Abroad who attended the Wo ord Seminars. With their incorporation into the team, you now have a fully sta ed educational technology department available to help you with technical concerns and pedagogical aims. I encourage you to write to your RETS often, to share your best ideas for using Moodle with your colleagues around the world, to ask questions, and to help IES Abroad grow in our use of technology in order to achieve our intercultural, pedagogical, and linguistic goals.

Moodle Tips of the Month...

Want to create a virtual sign-up sheet for an activity, eld trip or event? Use the Choice Activity! The Choice Activity allows students to vote or sign-up for events in Moodle. Once the students select their choices, (e.g.: yes/no, attending/not attending) the instructor or administrator can view the results from a list of student names along with their responses. Guides and tutorials for the Moodle modules and blocks featured in the monthly newsletter can be found on the MoodleLearn website: https://moodlelearn.muat.iesabroad.org Use the following generic log in: User ID - iesstudent Password - Student1

Tokyo November 1, 2011

Featured Moodle Module - Glossary Activity

The Glossary Module is one of the modules that best illustrates the way that Moodle can fundamentally improve upon the experience of a traditional classroom. When students contribute to a course in a public place like the glossary, their ideas are given weight and attention and this often results in greater pride or ownership of the assignment. The Glossary Module allows participants to create and maintain a list of de nitions, like a dictionary. Student entries can be previewed by instructors before publishing. Entries can be searched or browsed using alphabet, category, date, and author. A glossary of terms can be easily referenced by students. Almost any module of Moodle can be set to hyperlink - automatically - to any word or phrase that is stored in or added to the glossary. Glossary items can be grouped in categories. Participants can comment on glossary entries. Entries can be rated using teacher-de ned scales. Glossaries are searchable and can be viewed with di erent display formats.

Teachers & Admins Can Now Choose Course Themes

A course theme is a pre-designed user interface that changes the view of your Moodle page. Although it does not a ect the functionality of Moodle, it will change the design or theme of your course page. Moodle comes with a standard set of themes you can choose from.

New Modules/Blocks
Chat Module: The Chat Module allows smooth, synchronous text interaction. Chats can be limited to group members or to roles, or can be open for anyone in the course. Pro le pictures can be included in the chat window. The Chat Module supports URLs, emoticons, embedded HTML, images etc and all sessions are logged for later viewing. Wiki Module: The Wiki Module is a series of web pages that anyone can add to or edit. * Enables document pages to be authored collectively * Includes many teacher-based editing tools * Encourages and support group work

To choose a course theme:

From your main course page, click Settings under Administration. In the General section, click the drop-down option next to Force theme. Here, you can choose any design from the standard set of Moodle themes. Once youve selected your theme, scroll down to the bottom and click Save Changes.

This newsletter was sent to provide the latest information for IES Abroad Moodle. IES Abroad Chicago 33 N. LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60602-2602 Phone: 1.800.995.2300

Adding a Faculty Member to Moodle

If you need to add a faculty member to Moodle, you must send the name of the faculty member and his/her email address to your Program Dean (or ask someone on the Center sta to do this). After the Program Dean enters the faculty members information into Cerberus, the faculty members name becomes available in Atlas within a few minutes. The Center academic manager/registrar then assigns the faculty member to the course in Atlas. Once the faculty member is assigned to a course in Atlas, it takes approximately one hour for Moodle to synchronize with Atlas, and for the faculty member to be associated with the same course in Moodle. If the log-in ID for a faculty member is not correct, please submit a helpdesk ticket that indicates the name of the faculty member, the original log-in ID, the correct log-in ID, and the faculty members email address. The Program Dean or the Asst VP for Academic Systems will make the necessary changes to change the log-in ID in Cerberus, Atlas, and Moodle.

Moodle Language Packs

Moodle can be translated from its default English to many other languages. The translations are created in language packs that are maintained by Moodle partners and community contributors. Over 90 di erent language packs are available for the Moodle administrators to install on your Moodle site. If you would like a language pack added to Moodle for your Center, please enter a helpdesk ticket for the IES Abroad Moodle Administrators. Also indicate the language pack required in your ticket: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, etc. After your language pack is loaded, you can change the language by going to your main course page. From there, click on Settings under Administration. Scroll down to the Language section and choose your language from the drop-down menu. Click Save changes at the bottom of the page.

Moodle Webinars Coming Soon!

Upcoming dates will be emailed to both the Regional Educational Technology Specialists and Faculty Champions for scheduling.

Students Report Improved Grades via Technology/LMS Use

Author: Joseph Thibault, Post Published: October 21, 2011. Moodle News. Retrieved from http://www.MoodleNews.com

Je Hargarten of the MNDaily reports that Of more than 6,000 students polled across 36 campuses, 77 percent said their grades improved through web-based course material and online classroom managing sites like Moodle according to a recent annual National Lone Star Report. These are students self-reporting their own thoughts on education. Is it a great argument for adopting technology? Perhaps. I think its partly due to students letting us know that their ideal learning environment (the ones that let them learn and explore without friction) just happen to be those that are cleanly integrated with technology and online resources like Learning Management Systems and research tools. Youll be hard pressed to nd students who didnt grow up with a computer at home, removing that from the educational equation is like forcing a sh to breathe out of water. According to the article, The survey showed that the positive results were strongly tied to proper use of the technology. Overall, students in the report said three major issues a ected their academic success: lack of progress updates, lack of technology availability and lack of instructors who know how to use the technology Another concern raised was the lack of consistency across courses and formats in which information was provided to students via a LMS. Course standards and ease of use can go along way in reducing the learning curve from class to class.

IES Abroad Moodle Summit at Wofford College

In October, we welcomed our Regional Educational Technology Specialists (RETS) to attend the IES Abroad Moodle Summit at Wo ord College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The IES Abroad Moodle Summit at Wo ord College provided comprehensive training for our RETS covering a wide range of topics such as course design, metacourses, fostering interactivity and setting up wikis, chats and forums. Wed like to thank our RETS for participating and contributing their creative ideas during the summit!

David Whisnant (right), VP of Educational Technology (Wo ord), addresses the IES Abroad participants in a workshop.

Anne Rodrick, Assoc. Professor of History (Wo ord), speaks with John Lucas during a break.

Ana Mara Wiseman, Dean of International Programs (Wo ord) assists Ellen Keating (IES Abroad Chicago) in an administrative activity.

John Lucas (IES Abroad Chicago) and IES Abroad participants in a workshop during the Moodle Summit.

J. David Alvis, Assistant Professor of Government Stephen McMahon, (IES Abroad Dublin), shares (Wo ord), gives a presentation on designing technical tips with the group on his iPad. e ective Moodle sites.

W. Scott Cochran, Dean of the Center for (From l to r) Stephen McMahon (IES Abroad Dr. Dennis Wiseman, Dean of the Center for Professional Excellence (Wo ord), speaks to Dublin), Wolfgang Bialas (IES Abroad Berlin), Innovation and Learning (Wo ord), assists participants about Moodle administration. Christine Dinkins, Assoc. Professor of Zhang Liqin (IES Abroad Beijing) in a Moodle Philosophy (Wo ord), and administration workshop. Zhang Liqin (IES Abroad Beijing).