How to Effectively Design Good Generative AI-Using Student Assignments: Steps, Strategy, and an Example

If it were not bad enough to combat essays purchased from Course Hero, GradeSaver, or one of the other paper mills that purchase student essays, now one has to worry about papers generated by large language models such as ChatGPT, Scribe, Google Gemini, CoPilot or others.  Generative AI tools are being developed for specific topics or domains, and the assumption is, at least from a student’s perspective, that the product will be well written and accurate, or at least well written and accurate enough to merit a passing grade. 

As an instructor who develops, teaches, and grades courses and coursework for online courses hosted on Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, or even Google Classroom, this is a challenge you can’t afford to ignore, and an opportunity that can transform your entire teaching philosophy. 

https://www.amazon.com/Moodle-Learning-Course-Development-instructional/dp/180107903X 

WHAT INFORMATION IS USED TO TRAIN THE AI LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL?

What data sets are used to train the generative AI algorithms?  Let’s take the case of American literature. I would automatically assume that the first repositories to be ingested would be open access repositories such as Project Gutenberg and Archive.com.  Those would be primary texts for the most part. Then, secondary texts would be incorporated, which would consist of journal articles. Tertiary texts would also be used, which would include encyclopedias. While there may be some question about intellectual property and the right to use the materials, there would be few questions about the integrity of such materials, gleaned as it were, from peer-reviewed and quality assured primary sources, peer-reviewed journals and monographs, and peer-reviewed encyclopedias. 

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to materials about American literature that one can access through the Internet. There are blog posts, online magazines, repositories of articles from study guide providers such as Study.com, Sophia Learning, Shmoop.com, and many more. These resources may be a bit repetitive and not particularly original, but perhaps harmless in the overall scheme of things.  If anything, they may skew the results to bland and formulaic papers. 

LOTS OF BAD APPLES

What happens, however, when these AI bots ingest the massive repositories of essays which have been compiled by companies such as Course Hero, Grade Saver, and others?  Is there any quality control at all? Some of the sites encourage students to sell their term papers for $5 each. Is there any quality control?  Would the evaluator or screener check for accuracy, bias, originality, and innovative thinking? Would the screener be able to differentiate between a tired, flat, biased, inaccurate paper and a fresh, innovative, and accurate one? 

It is quite possible that the sheer volume of low-quality term papers, biased or error-riddled blog posts, student-shared material, unrefereed conference proceedings and “gray” literature could exceed the high-quality, peer-reviewed material by many orders of magnitude. 

REQUIRING STUDENTS TO USE CHAT GPT, KNOWING THE RESULTS COULD BE ROTTEN? 

Learning how to use generative AI as a helpful tool and understanding its limitations and pitfalls is probably a more pragmatic and useful approach than trying to ban it altogether. Further, if students learn how to use AI tools in their coursework where they receive feedback and guidance, it is likely that they will be able to more effectively use the tool in their professional lives. 

Instructional designers and instructors who understand how results are likely to be generated can design assignments that require students to incorporate their own unique vantage points, prior knowledge, experience, and insights rather than simply producing a bland summary or compendium of the blandest, least thought-provoking or original material that responds to the prompt. 

FERRETING OUT THE FLAWS WHILE ASKING, “WHAT’S GOOD IN HERE?”

Instructors can develop assignments that actually require students to use a generative AI tool, and then they can ask them to critique the response.  

Here’s a sample assignment: 

Please write an essay that identifies the possible themes in Emerson’s essay, “Circles,” and explains how they relate to American Transcendentalism. 

When I fed the prompt to ChatGPT, it churned out a six-paragraph essay in about 3 seconds. It sported a nice, clear thesis statement, a clear definition of American Transcendentalism, and then proposed several themes, and provided evidence, including quotes. On first glance, it seemed to be a very serviceable essay. 

However, upon closer examination, it was clear that the essay was pretty facile, and felt very derivative. It did not provide citations for the quotes, and the explanations around each of the quotes and the themes did not go into any depth and tended to repeat each other. There was no deeper probing of American Transcendentalism, nor was there any historical context. 

One could argue that the prompt should have asked for historical context, and could even be interesting and ask for connections to a darker, more ominous underbelly of what seemed, on the face of it, to be an expansive, all-encompassing dream of harmony and unity. However, there is no investigation of the philosophical or ideological underpinnings, nor any sense of how American Transcendentalism was popular because it uniquely reinforced and even expanded the authority of those who already possessed it.  

The students could be asked to identify the weaknesses of the Chat GPT essay, and to explain when and how the responses were cliché, facile, or derivative of what one would expect to see in an encyclopedia or generic study guide, and they do not encourage critical thinking or a look at “Circles” through a new and innovative vantage point. 

It would be very nice for students to work on the critique in a collaborative workspace – for example, in a shared document, where each could highlight and comment on the ChatGPT-generated essay. 

AN INSTRUCTOR CHALLENGE: ASSIGNMENTS THAT DEVELOP CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS AND CREATIVITY

It is possible to write assignments and paper prompts that encourage students to incorporate their unique views, experiences, and prior knowledge.  While some may think that this subjectivity would make it difficult to assess the work, in reality, just the opposite is the case. 

For example, for an essay on American literature, a rubric would require the student to accurately describe what the text is about and also the main themes and characters as required by the prompt.  The prompt should also, however, require the student to think critically and ask questions that would relate to their own experiences and perceptions. They could also be asked to apply the concepts to a current situation. The students would be evaluated on their creativity and problem-solving skills as well as critical thinking. 

To apply this to the case of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, “Circles,” a prompt could look something like this: 

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Emerson’s ideas about agency as expressed in his essay, “Circles,” and describe how you’ve seen examples of the thinking expressed in your own life or the world at large.  Describe mid 19th-century American Transcendentalism and how it must have sounded to different groups of Americans: wealthy land owners, men wanting to move West for wealth and adventure, women in America, Native Americans, African-American slaves and freedmen, Irish indentured servants, Mexicans living in parts of Texas that were a part of Mexico before the War of 1848, and children. 

Granted, the new prompt is much, much more complex, but you probably get the picture, and can see how writing prompts to outwit the  AI bot is fun and engaging, while also encouraging collaborative activities and deeper learning. 

THE ROAD AHEAD

Colleges and universities are grappling with ChatGPT, Scribe, Google Gemini, CoPilot, and other generative AI platforms and tools.  While there is the chance of rampant violations of academic integrity, we are in the early stages of development and now is the time to envision new and productive pedagogical approaches that are ideal for adult learners and can help develop creativity, critical thinking skills and confidence.  

Exploring Ian Wild's Moodle 4 Security (Packt Publications, 2024)

Ian Wild’s new book, Moodle 4 Security (Packt Publications, 2024), equips the Moodle administrator and the IT team to protect all aspects of Moodle, from Moodle server security to Moodle application security, including Moodle infrastructure modeling, and strategies for educating the weakest security links – the individual users. 

 

Link to the text: https://www.amazon.com/Moodle-Security-administrators-regulating-infrastructure/dp/1804611662 

 The book begins by describing the depth and the scope of the problem, while providing a short history of hacking, understanding the nature of cybersecurity risk with Moodle, and the consequences of doing nothing. It moves to a section that explains how to identify threats, and how to use programs such as STRIDE and other Open Web Application Security projects that can be used to defend against many types of cybersecurity threats. 

 

A large section of the book is devoted to Moodle server security.  Wild guides the reader through a step-by-step process of building a secure Linux server which includes enabling TTS/SSL to have a secure SSL certificate, selecting the best firewalls, and exploring server immutability.  The process of assuring Moodle server security also involves endpoint protection, denial of service protection, and also making sure to have a backup and disaster recovery. Wild clearly presents options for each level of protection and gives clear, easy-to-implement selections. 

 

Another important section of the book deals with Moodle Application security. This aspect has to do with privacy concerns, a data integrity plan, and a review of the various types and functionalities of Moodle applications with an end to helping the user avoid fall into any pitfalls. 

 

Ian Wild, a technologist and developer of simulations for AVEVA, has many years of experience with Moodle and thoroughly understands the reasons why having a good security solution for the organization’s Moodle installation is imperative in today’s world.  The information and solutions presented in this book could not have come out at a better time. 

 

 

Effective E-Learning with Virtual Learning Environments

 Virtual learning environments take advantage of all modalities of online instruction, ranging from listening to recorded lectures to interacting in real-time in a 3D immersive environment.  Perhaps the most flexible virtual learning environment now is Moodle, particularly with Moodle 4.0's new capabilities. Please check out Moodle 4.0 E-Learning Course Development. 

https://youtu.be/ft8003rMjag

There are a number of ways in which virtual learning environments are the most effective path forward for training, primarily when there are health, safety, logistics, and cost issues.

When cohorts and distributed teams must be trained together over a multi-week or month period, collaborative virtual learning is extremely effective. It's often good to couple the virtual learning environment with a learning management system (LMS) such as Moodle or Canvas to integrate assessment and to provide calendars, student success apps such as check-ins and notices, and "did you know" and "check your knowledge" informal engagers. 

eLearnChat 396: Augmented Reality, back to the Cave? https://youtu.be/zaVosvdIco4

For pointers on how to develop and effective elearning course that follows instructional design principles, please check out the highly rated Moodle 4 E-Learning Course Development. 

How will Moodle 4.0 affect Human Logic and other Moodle Partners?

 Moodle 4.0 has been released and it represents a tremendous breakthrough. The upgrade has focused on improving the user experience while keeping the best of the legacy resources and activities, as well as the overall framework. 

The result is a dynamic, revitalized platform that can energize learning programs so that students are more engaged and more likely to succeed. It's also a big "plus" for certificate programs and applied learning because bridging theory and application is easier than ever. 

Moodle 4.0 offers an almost infinite range of new opportunities for interaction, assessment, and commercialization of training and education

What does Moodle 4.0 mean to award-winning Moodle partners such as Human Logic? Human Logic, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has earned a great reputation for corporate e-learning as well as providing integrated solutions for universities and technical institutes. 

The first thing that the new interface assures is that students can more easily keep track of their work, see what is coming up, and to interact with their fellow students, collaborators, and instructors. That is a very important aspect, particularly in highly technical collaborative training for industries such as energy, manufacturing, and supply chain management. 

The new interface and user experience (upgraded dashboards, redesigned mobile interface, etc.), is fantastic for young learners because it makes it easier for them to work with their parents and tutors as well as their core teachers. 

Finally, the fact that Moodle is open source means that it's possible to customize solutions so that they align with the specific goals and mission of the organization and the learners. 

Please stay tuned! This will be one of many articles about the fantastic capabilities in Moodle 4.0! 

Susan Nash

Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D. 

Moodle 4.0 Is Here! What's new?

Moodle 4.0 is here! I’m trying to determine just what the advantages are and how much of a step change it is from Moodle 3.11.  I don’t think that Moodle can change the basic architecture for a number of reasons. So, the changes have to come in things like user experience and efficiency.  

 If you've worked with Moodle for very long, you know that it can be a place of almost infinite complexity, but also almost Zen-like simplicity. It's also a veritable ant-hill of programming activity, as programmers develop productivity and design apps - some are available for free, others require a download fee.  Moodle and Moodle partners are likewise entrepreneurial, and you can quickly use pre-built templates and hosting and an integrated software-as-a-service solution.

 

Improved User Experience, with modules listed in an easy-to-follow design.

 

MoodleCloud is still in 3.11, so I can’t experiment with it as much as I’d like. However, the “sandbox” is still available, and one can select a role as student, teacher, or manager, to play around with it.  

Here are some of my initial thoughts:

PROS:

1.  Much improved user experience, in terms of navigation, layout, use of new thumbnails, and course construction (with drag and drop). 

2.  The default theme being used in the Sandbox (probably either Clean or Boost) is very attractive and easy to use.  

3.  Fully responsive interface that works well with tablets, laptops, and phones. 

4.  Improved navigation – you can tell where you are, and can go back to a previous screen very easily. There may be some AI-based plug-ins that can help refine "smart navigation."  

5.  One can use the calendar as a dashboard. The "My Courses" screen can display in a number of different options. The “Card” option makes the interface look a lot like the way Canvas displays available courses.

My Courses page

6.  The basic structure of the learning management system is the same, so the same names, arrangement, process and procedure works.

7.  Moodle 4.0 is available for download if you’d like to host courses on your own server. That PRO is also a CON if you’re not ready to be a Moodle Administrator. 

8.  Outside Apps more easily integrate with Moodle 4.0.  Integrating apps has always been fairly easy by means of a link or embedded log-in.  I don’t know to what extent single-sign on is facilitated, and if authentication is otherwise streamlined. 

9.  There is less content on each screen. Not only is it easier to see with your tablet or phone, it’s much easier to stay focused and avoid distractions due to a busy design.

10.  Moodle is open source, which means that there is an entire industry dedicated to building plug-ins and other features that are useful and needed.  I would not be surprised if there will be machine learning-based apps that can detect patterns in student performance and help administrators and even teachers, see student preferences, gaps in knowledge, and collaborative strengths.   

CONS:

1.  If you have not worked with Moodle before, you may feel a bit discouraged. Moodle is not a very intuitive LMS, and one may not know where everything is without going through a pretty thorough training course.

Courses and categories admin screen

2.  It’s not clear how much Universal Design for Learning was used with the new interface, dashboard, icons, etc.  I did not see multiple modes of content delivery on the sample classes in the sandbox site, but that does not mean that they are not available.

3.  Moodle 4.0 is not yet available in MoodleCloud, which is the most popular cloud-based Moodle.

4.  Moodle documentation is still at 3.11. 

An Initial Chat:

Relatecasts' Rick Zanotti and I had an informal conversation about Moodle 4.0, just hours after its release to the web on April 14.  Please click on the link to hear our conversation on E-Learn Chat.  I'm not as clear as I could be as I respond to Rick's questions -- I think my enthusiasm about the  arrival got the best of me :)  Please click and listen, then share your thoughts.

 

E-Learn Chat on the debut of Moodle 4.0 - speaking with Rick Zanotti

 Here's a link to the chat:

https://youtu.be/PqjHqLuWRqg

 Please note that an updated version of Packt Publishing's guide to Moodle course development will be published in July 2022, just in time to get courses and programs up and running. 

****

Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D. 

 

 

Meeting Corporate Collaboration, Training and Talent Management Needs with Workplace Moodle

Reading Corporate Learning with Moodle Workplace (Packt, 2020), by Alex Buchner, filled me with relief.  

There has never been any doubt that Moodle’s capabilities are ideal for any number of organizational needs, ranging from onboarding and compliance training, to collaborative projects across departments or locations. The problem for most people who want to use Moodle for their organizations is that most web-based Moodle templates are created for schools (primary and secondary) as well as colleges and universities. For someone who wants to have an on-premise solution, there will be a lot of customization to be done, and it’s easy to make a mis-step in the first few phases that lock you into something you don’t want, but it’s too expensive and time-consuming to change. To further complicate things, Moodle has frequent updates and upgrades, and if you’ve put a lot of effort into a custom solution for one version, you may not be too excited about experimenting with it to see if it will migrate to a later version. 

Thankfully, the enterprising Moodle community has developed Moodle Workplace, which is a Moodle build that has the structure and built-in activities for a wide array of workplace needs, which include on-boarding, training, certificates, bite-size training for badges, collaborations, compliance assessment, talent management records-keeping and more.  To give eager users the skills they need to use it, Alex Buchner has written a well-organized, clear, useable, and nicely documented book, Corporate Learning with Workplace Moodle https://www.packtpub.com/product/corporate-learning-with-moodle-workplace/9781800205345 . It is now available through Packt Publishing, an acknowledged world leader in technical training publications.

If you’re familiar with Moodle as it is used for an educational institution, you’ll immediately notice that some of the terms have been used to give the platform a business feel.  Individual users are “tenants” which evokes the feeling of a building with physical office space where you can arrange the workers. The decision by the makers for Workplace Moodle to trigger a visual image of a single building may be a bit ill-advised, given the distributed workplace and the very real possibility that post-COVID, many companies will choose not to pay high rents but will encourage working from home as much as feasible and practical. For Minecraft devotees, the open-world sandbox aspect is an exciting one, and the prospect of building a training and collaboration world with Moodle Workplace is exciting. 

Moodle Workplace does not replace Moodle. Instead it consists of a series of plug-ins that sit on top of the Moodle platform. In this sense, it’s a customization and the downside is that any inherent limitations in Moodle will be present in Moodle Workplace as well. Some of the plug-ins are Totara Learn-developed plug-ins, so if there are aspects of Totara that you do not like, you’ll need to learn to live with them, at least until Moodle 4.0, and then all bets are off. Another limitation is the fact that it’s not available for your own on-premise download. Instead, you must work through an authorized Moodle Partner. They can be expensive. 

That said, the biggest advantage of using Moodle Workplace vs another solution is a quick learning curve for Moodle users, customizable appearance, and rapid deployment. Further, Workplace Moodle has made an effort to integrate with other databases or systems. For example, many companies currently use AEP for their payroll functions as well as compliance, workforce development record-keeping. 

For a developer or instructional designer who is used to using Moodle with educational institutions, it will be intuitive to use Workplace Moodle to set up training modules that include the content as well as assessment. 

The self-enrollment function for both synchronous and asynchronous training events eliminates the need for associations and professional societies with external members to use something like EventBrite.  Being able to integrate the webconferencing function (Big Blue Button, for example), makes it possible to do everything from within Moodle and not have to exit in order to set up a separate meeting with Zoom, Teams, BlueJeans, RingCentral, etc. 

Buchner’s text goes into detail about how to set up the following: 

• training with assessment
• training with automatic generation of badges and/or certificates
• designing badges and certificates
• collaborative projects with team members from different groups / locations
• brand-building exercises

Buchner does not go into as much detail as he could about one of Moodle’s big advantages. Although the file sizes are limited, Moodle does and can function as a content management system as well as a learning management system. The choice whether to archive and create repositories in the cloud-based Moodle site, or to create a portal to one’s own storage / repositories is one that the user will make. But, the bottom line is the same:  Workplace Moodle (as well as regular Moodle) can help you map your training path and the objects used in conjunction with it, and to do so with maximum flexibility and re-useability.

 

Interview with Shaunak Roy, Yellowdig - Innovators in E-Learning Series

People learn from each other and in online courses, the quality of interactions between students in their collaborative activities and with instructors is very important. Welcome to an interview with Shaunak Roy, founder and CEO of Yellowdig, a social learning platform that has been developed with the goal of enhancing the learning experience.

1.     What is your name and your relation to e-learning?
My name is Shaunak Roy, and I am Founder and CEO of Yellowdig, a social learning platform for education. I started Yellowdig with the fundamental believe that there is something magical about peer learning. Casual conversations, exchange of ideas, or occasional debates help form meaningful bonds with other learners, which make learning more fun, and real. As I look back into my own MIT and IIT days, I realize that I have learned as much from my peers as I have from my favorite professors. Some of those bonds have lasted well beyond those formative years and have morphed into lifelong friendships.

Shaunok on the video program, LifeEdge

2.     What is Yellowdig and what does it do? 
Yellowdig is a social learning platform that merges and combines the power of group learning and rapidly expanding real-time content from the internet into a seamless and easy to use learning platform. Yellowdig is Software as a Service (SaaS) that integrates into all Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and Portals to offer 1-click socially intuitive groups for a variety of use inside and outside of courses. For example, Yellowdig can be added in an individual course within minutes to offer a FERPA compliant, private and moderated collaboration forum for your course.

3.     How is it different than other collaboration apps?
The advantages of Yellowdig over other popular collaboration APPs such as Facebook Groups, Slack, and Yammer are the following :

·       1-Click Signup : Learners join the platform by clicking on a “Yellowdig” button in the Learning Management System (LMS), no separate registration required

·       Automatic grading and gradebook sync : Instructors can set up a points system to encourage learner participation, that is fully customizable from course to course.

·       Privacy and moderation : All the content remain private to a course and can be moderated by the Instructors and admins encouraging deeper and authentic participation.

·       Customization : There are many out-of-the-box and  custom configuration options available to support a variety of use cases and learning needs

4.     How are universities using the app? 
Yellowdig is bring used by over 40+ institutions and 140,000 learners across online, blended and residential courses and MOOCs.

5.     Many collaboration applications are not used in courses because they require so much extra time from the instructor.  How does Yellowdig approach that problem? 
We recognize that engaging students through prompt driven discussion and manual grading of discussion posts is a major time sync for instructors. In fact, this type of discussions tend to lower the quality of engagement as it feels less like organic sharing of ideas and more like assignments for the learner. Yellowdig, though peer driven discussion and automatic grading, substantially reduces instructor time commitment while improving both quality and quantity of engagement.

You can refer to our blog for many stories from instructors on how Yellowdig has helped them improve their instruction without increasing workload.

6.  What are your plans for the future?
We plan to continue to build our vision of making learning more engaging and real-world. We plan to add more features and data capabilities to help instructors and students get more from their learning experiences, from anywhere, at anytime and from any device. Our competitive advantage is our focus on working closely with our instructor community to co-curate the future of eLearning.

Check out Shaunak Roy on LifeEdge! https://youtu.be/SI-Y-bsHylg 

Develop and Host Your Course for Free: MoodleCloud Hosting

-->If you enjoy the flexibility of Moodle, but find that most hosting packages are too expensive for development and start-ups, or that you just do not have time to constantly add the updates, Moodle now offers free hosting through MoodleCloud (https://moodlecloud.com/en/). I used it when I was writing Moodle 3.x Teaching Techniques, and I can say that the experience was very positive.  

Here are some of the highlights of my experience using MoodleCloud:

Latest version of Moodle:  I've worked with Moodle in a locally hosted setting, and also I've used cloud-based hosting solutions available online.  MoodleCloud.com was far superior. MoodleCloud has the advantage of using the latest version of Moodle, and all the updates are present. Not all the third-party plugins are available for the free version, and since you're not administering this installation of Moodle, you can't add them, but that is a very minor detail when considering all the benefits of Moodle and the solutions. 

  

Generous Package for Free:  The free version of MoodleCloud allows you to have up to 50 users, and to develop as many courses as you'd like. 50 users gives you enough flexibility to really try out a course, and to see how things will work once you start adding users. For example, using BigBlueButton for web-conferencing and webcasting works seamlessly and smoothly within MoodleCloud. This is not always the case using other hosting options.

Plenty of Bandwidth:  One problem with some hosting solutions is that they do not have enough bandwidth, or there are other routing issues that cause annoying slowdowns and time-outs.

Accommodates a Wide Range of Media: I wanted to include videos, audio, and also photos I took for the course I developed on Trends in Tourism. I wanted to focus especially on the Mexican Pueblos Mágicos (Magical Villages), which are very successful endeavors by the Mexican government to preserve historical, cultural, and natural landmarks while also stimulating economic development by means of tourism. Here's an example of a unit focused on saving endangered sea turtles. 

 Mobile-Friendly: The Moodlecloud hosting solution is mobile-friendly, which is extremely helpful since so many people now access courses using their mobile devices (phones, tablets, iPads, etc.).

Scalable:  The free solution is perfect for beta testing new courses, and also for trying out some of the plugins and features of Moodle. If your course or your institution's e-learning takes off, you don't have to change solutions. You can scale up quite easily by subscribing to a larger plan, which are quite affordable.

The only downside that I can see to MoodleCloud is that it is in a beta mode, and it's possible that they may discontinue it. I hope not! But, that said, Moodle is very popular and I think that it's possible that it will be the first-choice solution of many users.

Moodle 3.x Teaching Techniques - Now available!

 

Interview with Don Tharp, COPAS: Leaders in E-Learning Series

Quickly changing environments pose special challenges for training and education developers and providers. The regulatory environment can be in flux, as well as the economic, political, and physical contexts. Being able to meet the challenges is of particular use, and it is gratifying to be able to talk to a professional who has successfully developed and implemented training and assessment in many challenging and rapidly changing environments. Welcome to an interview with Don Tharp, Director of Training and Education for COPAS (Council of Petroleum Accountants Societies).

1.  What is your name and your relation to e-learning?

Donald “Don” Tharp
Council of Petroleum Accountants Societies (COPAS) - Director of Training and Education

I spent 28 years in the United States Air Force involved with training, education and operations whether it was for my needs or my brothers and sisters in arms. I worked at the United States Air Force Academy twice with a stint at University of Northern Colorado completing my Educational Technology Ph.D. Think about the mid to late 1990s and the educational changes taking place especially regarding Distance Learning, Technology advancement and integration, and growth of Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Don Tharp, Ph.D.

The military was continually trying to develop ways to integrate technology to further education and training especially for those of us continually heading over to the “desert” for combat operations. This opportunity provided a chance to work on both sides of the process as a developer, user and integrator.

Don Tharp while deployed in Iraq

As I retired and departed the military I was fortunate to start work with Lockheed Martin as a training manager, holistic systems designer, business development and technology integrator. Working with engineers, partners and customers provided the basis for my vision of e-learning focused on life-long learning and learner engagement. I received an opportunity to return to academia and educational technology designing, developing, integrating and evaluating coursework for my courses and our schools’ faculty and staff. I had come full circle in e-learning and was ready to take on a larger project working in the same field as the rest of my family members, petroleum.

 I started work at COPAS May 2014 with the responsibility of updating and adding new educational courses. First goal was to breakdown what education and training we currently had available and establish a strategic plan to maximize e-learning and technology integration. I developed our 3-5 year strategic plan focusing on shifting from 8 courses consisting of PowerPoint with text and a few pictures and even less video to courses and modules that are objective driven. The key is to establish active learning for engaging our learners to entice them to become life-long learners focused on their own professional development.  With that thought in mind, our analysis showed we could use technology to enhance and triple our courses using a LMS for online learning, communities of practice, collaborative engagement, and instructor growth.

 My current mantra is building up our network of instructors and subject matter experts who are willing to engage e-learners and their own learning. We are moving ahead with year one of e-learning that will include online with an instructor monitoring, webinars, virtual instructor training and face-2-face classroom using a variety of elearning methodologies.

2.  What do you think are some of the main issues facing individuals who need training to maintain their professional credentials?

There are a few issues facing individuals needing to maintain or even grow their professional credentials today. We need to get away from always calling it training when most of the time we’re engaging our learners educationally. Additionally, if you look online at the variety of professional education opportunities they are boring. They are either 8 hours of PowerPoint with tons of text spewed by the all-knowing instructor to the learner or Webinars spouting instruction or self-paced courses that just don’t turn the learner on. Sometimes we add in audio, video and/or graphics (pictures, clipart etc.) thinking we’ve expanded our learner engagement by hitting more senses. While that is a good start, it is far from what is needed for learner to become excited about learning. We need to get the instructors to become more engaging and “guides on the side” and not “sages on the stage.” Worrying about instruction time and not learning has trapped us. It is time to go back to step one in the design process and remember to include our learners and instructors during the analysis phase. Then decide on the appropriate media to get learning opportunities to the students.

Additionally, during the media selection process each designer gets locked into the tools they know and fail to use more modern and up to date instructional tools and media. Take Flash for example; while a great tool and has its place too many designers are still using it for every educational course they design. What about using social media (this is a tough one to use but things have changed), additional web resources, short PowerPoint (completed appropriately) snippets, micro-learning segments or even the old question and answer periods used by master teachers? We need to engage our learners actively.  Active learners become more willing to believe and use professional development to grow themselves maintaining and expanding on their professional credentials.

3.  What are some of your favorite tools?

As an Educational Technology believer and user, I believe in using a wide variety of technologies especially to reach as many of my learners as possible. Some of the items aren’t considered technology – collaborative/group learning and projects, communities of practice and peer-2-peer learning. What technology can do for us is expand our reach and assist us using those learner centric tools. Putting the focus squarely on the learners. To help me get there I believe in Learning Management Systems that are responsive and adaptable like Moodle or Blackboard. We’re going the Moodle route through a Moodle Partner in order to keep our costs down but also allow us to have better access to bringing in learner requested toolsets like: Video streaming (Kaltura), Communities of Practice and Portfolios (Mahara), Virtual Instruction and office hours (Adobe Connect and BigBlueButton) and lastly adaptable learning modules where I can use Social Media, Active Learning and a variety of evaluation techniques and types to avoid boredom and keep the elearning responsive. So whatever software and hardware can help me engage the learner via simulations, problem-based, case-based learning, and collaboration we’re trying to use it if it is cost effective.

4.  If you have to launch a new program, how has your approached changed from how you did it in the past?

Since we are actually launching a new program for COPAS and our Societies I will tell you, yes my approach changed from my military and corporate days. I believe having been involved military training and education, corporate training and education and then returning to higher education allowed me to finally understand we can engage our learners by working a mixed instructional design process.

 While using normal ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implement and Evaluate) gets great results we need to work faster and get more students and instructors involved earlier. This requires bringing in rapid prototyping and mixing it with ADDIE. It makes it easier on the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to work with instructional designers and stakeholders. Once I can show them a variety of ways to engage the learners they become much more interested in adjusting how to get facts and thoughts to the learners. They are becoming believers of life-long learning. Once you adapt the thought process "everyone continues to learn across his or her lifetime," you realize you don’t have to jam everything in one learning module. You can start thinking out of the old “sage on the stage” box and start guiding the learner towards their desired path. It is then the process gets fun and very interesting.

5.  What are some of the new directions that you find most interesting?

How learning technology is the be-all today tends to get way too much focus. I love technology and we need it to reach more learners and provide those engaging learning environments but it is only a tool. I do love how others are starting to think outside the box and focus more on learners and not learning styles. We need a mix of media opportunities to reach every learner but we need to do it correctly. 

All that being said, I am intrigued on pushing Moodle, its building blocks and outside modules to build a system that can provide learners multiple learning opportunities from: Webinars that engage, Virtual Learning used collaboratively, Communities of Practice, Badges and Portfolios, Instructor Development (as important if not more so to learners success as any technology or course), and lastly engaging material all focused for the individuals lifetime of learning. That is a quest worthy of pursuing.

Moodle Course Design Best Practices (PacktPub) Now Available

Moodle Course Design Best Practices (PacktPub, 2014) is now available! Designed to be an easy-to-follow guide to help you create or update your Moodle course, this book will help people who use Moodle for training and education in colleges and universities, schools for ages 5-18, corporations, professional associations, and other organizations.

With all content rigorously reviewed by four independent Moodle experts, and written to reflect the latest version of Moodle (Moodle 2.6), Moodle Course Design Best Practices seeks to present a high-quality way to develop exemplary courses for many different users and needs. 

You may download sample chapters in PDF format and also order the book as a printed book or ebook. Please share your thoughts and feedback. 

Portfolios in Training and Development E-Learning

Portfolios can be extremely effective in training and professional development, and are quite easy to implement in asynchronous e-learning, especially when access is limited, and it’s necessary to show the progress of one’s learning or skill-building over time.  Learning management systems such as the open-source Moodle can accommodate both asynchronous and synchronous (“live”) learning and are ideal for both individual and collaborative portfolios.

Portfolios can be used to show individual progress, which can be very motivating because it utilizes cognitive scaffolding and employs a building block approach.

Individual portfolios can also demonstrate how an individual achieves learning objectives, and helps target where performance is optimal, and where it can be improved.

            Process-focus

            Iterative

            Incremental changes / modifications

            Reflective knowledge

            Adaptive

            Evolutionary

            Critical thinking skills

Collaborative portfolios are very effective for the following:

            Sharing ideas

            Knowledge transfer

            Skill building

            Team-building

            Critical thinking skills

            SWOT analyses

            Strategic planning

Simple Solution

In the simplest form, an organization can put together a link to a Sharepoint or Document Exchange portal where individuals can log in and share their files with each other, and then comment.  A simple solution would also be to incorporate Google Drive, and to use Google Docs for portfolios.

LMS Solutions

It’s very easy to utilize elements with typical learning management systems.

Moodle

Moodle offers a wide array of modules and, as it is open source, it offers a number of advantages with respect to adding modules and features. There are a number of low-cost hosting solutions.

Portfolio module. For example, Moodle 2.5  accommodates portfolios in a number of ways. Once the site administrator has enabled portfolios, the user can export a cluster of files into a portfolio that automatically saves into a file archive or Google Docs / GoogleDrive.

Workshop Module. Or, alternatively, you can use the Workshop module to develop spaces where a wide variety of files and activities can be housed and shared.

Forum Module. Another approach could be to use a Forum module to create a discussion board, and allow learners to post their activities that they will then pull together into a portfolio. In a final “display”, the learner can post the documents that constitute the portfolio.

Certificate Module. A nice feature of Moodle is that you can also use the Certificate module to generate a certificate once the portfolio has been completed, and the requirements for successful completion have been satisfied.

For more directions, ideas, check out Moodle for Training and Professional Development just released by Packt Publishing.  

Blackboard

Blackboard offers a number of ways to develop and display portfolios.

Discussion.  The first, and perhaps most inclusive and encouraging of group interaction is the Discussion Board. Keep in mind that Discussion Boards can be open to the entire class, or can consist of subsets and groups within the course.

Collaboration. In addition to having the public display and interaction via the Discussion Board, it’s also possible to set up small collaboration groups using the Collaboration tool.

Journal. In addition, for individual portfolios, the Journals tool can be employed, and a student can create a set of journals. While most people associate Blackboard with higher education elearning, Blackboard has prepackaged solutions for small to medium businesses (under 200 users) and associations. In fact, Blackboard’s ProSites “lite” LMS could be ideal for small-scale use of portfolios for specific association programs.

Desire2Learn (D2L)

Desire2Learn (D2L) has similar capabilities, but one may have to be a bit more creative. For example, it does not have a Portfolio tool, as does Moodle.

Dropbox

However, it’s possible to create a Dropbox that acts as a repository for the different drafts. Because many files can be uploaded to the same Dropbox, it’s easy to manage. The Dropbox can then be associated with Grades (the gradebook).  Rubrics can be associated with Grades, which makes it simple to evaluate different aspects of the portfolio.

Rubrics

In D2L, Rubrics have both Properties and Levels and Criteria. (I’m capitalizing these items because they are categories of tools found in D2L and are accessed through the tab marked “Edit Course.” Of course, Discussions (the discussion board) allows display and peer review of items in the portfolio.  It is easy to set up Groups and Sections for collaborative activities.

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