Laurie Robinson

Laurie Robinson uses her expertise to help K–12 schools and districts develop sustainable, site-based professional learning communities and understand and implement the Common Core State Standards.

Using Moodle to Enhance Your PLC

Over the past two years, I have been facilitating the PLC and common assessment work with the Bismarck Public Schools in western North Dakota. They are a cutting-edge district with strong leadership at the top and committed principals at the 25 individual campuses, accompanied by a world-class Career and Tech Academy.

The focus of this blog is to share the use of a free district web program, Moodle, used to house the work being done by pre-K-12 departments and grade levels and create a common vision and common language across the district.  It’s not only a place to store standards, curriculum maps, district calendars, communication forums etc., but it’s morphing into a place where PLC teams can chronicle their most recent work, and share documents with “job alike” colleagues.

Most importantly, it’s becoming a centralized and dynamic platform for instructional resources, active board flip charts, websites to enhance lessons, and a consistent tool for PLC and assessment communications.  A gentle and gradual shift from textbook-heavy classrooms to a “laser focus” on the essential learning targets is evolving through the use of this 21st century tool.

To allow all teachers to maneuver comfortably on the site, ongoing “Moo Latte” sessions are being offered in real time and virtually to build capacity. Meta courses, a hybrid of synchronous and asynchronous instructional modules, are being designed for students who can do their assigned work from any location and in any time frame. The list of course options are plentiful and diverse to meet the ever-changing needs of the 21st century student and educator.

As teachers work in content PLCs, they use Google docs to share the construction, editing, and analysis of common assessment and student work.  The video contains a step-by-step demonstration of this program with tutorials.

In addition, the “Moodle Mentors” have accessed the zooming presentation editor tool, Prezi, to illustrate the shift from “text-heavy” to “tech-friendly” ways to deliver instruction through the video entitled, A Tale of Two Communities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhZCqFIwZl8

Productive conversations are being held regularly as the educator learning/doing gap decreases. Consequently, the goal is to take “pockets of excellence” and create “systems of excellence” using best practices. This is not only good work, it is the right work. And it’s work that sparks deep PLC conversations built around honesty, vulnerability, and the willingness to engage in action-research collaboratively, no matter what tools are used.  Happy journeying!

Comments

Little Rock PLC Institute: Day One #atplc | AllThingsPLC

[...] 19, 2011 Here’s a post by Laurie Robinson on using a tool called Moodle to promote collaboration and enhance your [...]

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Little Rock PLC Institute: Day One #atplc | AllThingsPLC

[...] a post by Laurie Robinson on using a tool called Moodle to promote collaboration and enhance your [...]

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Triangle High Five - Blog

[...] All Things PLC posted an article on their blog titled, Using Moodle to Enhance Your PLC. Educators in Bismark Public Schools in western North Dakota wrote, “Productive conversations [...]

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RJBohrer

The success of a PLC will be determined by the ease of accessing, sharing and collaborating on the curriculum, formative assessment and data. Teachers who are given common planning time is still pulled out of the meeting for student issues on a regular basis. Our world is changing the information needed is always in easy reach. My district has been using Google Apps for Education for about three years. We have found it an excellent tool for collaborating on documents and using Google sites as a 24/7 virtual classroom. We have not found it to be a good tool to catalog our curricula. Moodle appears to be the tools that will allow this to happen. Moodle also acts as a vehicle for teachers to collaborate with other districts. I am most excited to look into the features of Moodle that provide classroom management.

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critical mass

Helo everyone



This is my first time to this sight it seams very good.
Has anyone had to deal with a sittuation like this.
The roll of assitent principale will be covered. by two different men. These men will cover three buildings. What can I do as a teacher to Help this run smooth?

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EFord003

This is an exciting concept. I firmly believe that the more educators across the country share the things that are working for them, the better all of our teachers and students will be. I will share Moodle with my school when we return in the fall.

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debvano

I am excited about the possibilities that Moodle has to offer toward PLCs. Time is often such a limiting factor. Moodle eliminates that hurdle. I had never considered using Moodle for communicating with other professionals. I am excited to begin exploring this and hopefully introduce the concept to the rest of the teachers at my school. I also appreciate learning about the other two sites mentioned above. I can't wait to explore them, too!

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jyunker

Another free tool to enable the PLC process is Metria (metrialearning.org). Teachers can create essential skills plans that are tied to state standards or CCSS, create an assessment plan and track results, and monitor interventions. It's pretty cool to have so many free tools available to educators!

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allisonm

Wow! Moodle is a great way to bring professional learning communities back to life. This is the first time I have heard of Moddle, but I won't forget it. I am a math lab instructor and my classroom is in the computer lab. Moodle would be a great way for me to integrate technology in a way that is easy for students and teachers to understand. It seems very user friendly, for those teachers that aren't as "hip" with technology. I also meet with each grade level because I teach each child in my school and if I introduce Moodle to my school, it will make it a lot easier for us to communicate concerning professional development. This is a great resource and it is right up my alley.

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elissar

We use Moodle at my school; however, it is more student-directed. We have mainly used it as a form of online learning for students. It is used to extend learning beyond the classroom. It allows teachers to communicate with students where we upload daily plans, links or videos that relate to the lesson, extra worksheets and many others.
Since we are still at an early stage of developing a PLC, we haven’t really used Moodle for our PLC. I will be suggesting using Moodle as a system that would help us in building our PLC. I am sure the administration will agree.

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shackelford

Moodle soungs like a great tool for my district to be involved in to enhance our professional learning community. I discussed this with my collegues and we plan on bringing this up during our next falculty meeting coming up in a week. I really hope they get as much as excited about it as I am. It would be great for us educators to be in contact with other educators this way.

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lrobinson

Thank you for the suggestion of yet another free tool. We don't have to make this process costly and complicated. In fact, the easier we make it, the more confident we can be that our colleagues will use the tool! I'm particularly fond of programs made BY educators FOR educators! Thanks for sharing!

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Tgoble

MasteryConnect.com is another tool some of you may be interested in using in your PLCs. It alliows teachers to share CCSS focused formative assessments, track student mastery relative to the core and connect with teachers all over the country. Just like Moodle it is FREE! I love that teachers have already created multiple common assessments for every CCSS objective. This is a powerful tool created by educators for educators.

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browncm

I think that it is really amazing what you have been facilitating. I wish that this would be something that my district would implement.

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kaboothby0

I think this is a wonderful idea. I have seen Moodle used as an online classroom for teachers to connect with their students, but I never thought to use it as a place for teachers to connect with teachers. This would allow for teachers to collaborate without having to meet face-to-face, which can be difficult with busy schedules.

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vbyr4721

I think Moodle is a great tool to use as a way to enhance one's professional learning community. Using this resource will convey a common message across the schools within a district. For those teachers who find it not so easy to collaborate on a daily basis, an online program such as Moodle will allow these educators to communicate, share insights, and create an aim towards making student learning more successful. It's also a great way to keep up with modern day technology. Using various tools not only engages the students, but motivates us as teachers to utilize them in our lessons and activities. I definitely plan on introducing this idea to my colleagues!

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Jessica Morgan

This web program, Moodle sounds really great. I am really interested in a place to store standards, curriculum maps, district calendars, communication forums. I think that educators would really benefit from this as well as the students of course! I wonder how much resistance you face from the teachers. I have the difficulty of being around many teachers who are having a hard time with our online grade book so I can only imagine what their response would be to this. I do think it is essential to make everyone comfortable around technology and it is important to give them the benefits of technology.

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barthuler

I would love to see a system like this take hold in my district! Perhaps this would help encourage a PLC program all together.

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Margaret

Some have used this at the school I teach. I think its a great way to extend learning. Having the necessary technology is one draw back we face.

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Marisa

Wow! This looks amazing. I can't wait to bring this information back to my principal and share this with her. This would be a great way to further the PLC program at our site.

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lindabi

I find this to be a great learning resource for both students and professionals. After watching the video and looking through the demonstrations on the site, this site seems to be an efficient means of teacher collaboration. It must be helpful to have all of the information for professional learning communities all in one place. That must greatly increase accomplishment. I also like the features that allow student and parent participation. It seems like a very efficient way to provide classroom information and feedback. Thank you for sharing this resource.

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