Announcement: A New Online Learning Environment for QMUL
Blackboard, the centrally offered platform for e-learning, is being replaced.
The new online learning environment will be an integration of Moodle (for VLE) and Mahara (for student-led learning and group tools for informal learning).
The new platform will be available for previews and training from March, and people will be able to move and enhance (or start afresh) their course areas from April until September 2012). It will then be available for teaching over the 2012-13 academic year.
Moodle (and Mahara) is a very different beast to Blackboard. Though it also functions as a traditional VLE, it also offers the scope to think in new ways and encourage student learning within and beyond teaching and learning on modules.
The E-Learning Unit will be running a comprehensive training programme, both to support you in the practicalities of getting used to the new software, and to help you think about how you might use it to enhance student learning over the coming years.
We will also work closely with Faculties and Schools to ensure that we move at a pace that is right for you, and fit in with your strategies and educational priorities.
Some Schools (in Science and Engineering) do not currently use the centrally supported VLE, and they may want to use the new platform in the first year to explore and trial the possibilities to see what educational advantages it offers to support the ways they teach and support their students’ learning. There may also be courses where the timescales run over the traditional academic year. In these instances, we want to be flexible, so do get in touch (s.brenton@qmul.ac.uk) to arrange to meet.
Some of the more advanced functions of Moodle/Mahara will be phased in over time, and the platform will grow as it is integrated with other new technologies that QMUL is adopting. But it will be available for the core business of effective learning and teaching ready for the next academic year, and offers significant improvements on the old platform.
Timescales
The project will run to a detailed project plan with the various technical and support elements, but academic colleagues the most pertinent timescales are:
January 2012: Implementation project starts. Discussions with Faculty groups.
February: Discussions with schools and heavy users of the current VLE about how they want to use it to support their teaching next year.
March: Previews of the platform, access for staff to start playing/building. Training and development sessions.
April: Small scale pioneer uses (if you’re interested in being a pioneer, please get in touch with Stella Ekebuisi (s.ekebuisi@qmul.ac.uk). No new courses built in Blackboard.
April – September: Support for all module convenors to move from Blackboard to the new platform (see transition support, below).
August/September: Live for all students and staff
Over 2012-13: Courses which start later in the year go live; pioneer uses of Mahara for e-portfolio tools, informal learning networks. Forums for colleagues to share ideas and examples of effective use. Projects to look at more advanced tools for complex e-admin uses. Courses with non-standard timescales can ‘teach out’ in Blackboard.
2013-14: Mature use developing as a tool for teaching and learning and e-admin, student-led learning, learning profiles and informal learning networks.
Transition Support
The approach we take to the transition is key to realising the benefits of the new platform over the old.
Simply moving old content to the new system wholesale will in most cases not make best use of the new functionality or interface, though of course colleagues will want to use it for a basic provision of materials, information and course communications. Rather like moving house, you would not move your furniture and arrange it exactly the same way in your new, better house. You might choose to arrange your existing furniture in new ways, or get new furniture entirely. We’ll support you in both these choices, to either get you up and running quickly with a sensibly arranged and useful course area (which you might then enhance over time as you learn more about the tools it offers), or to realise the potential from the outset for using it as part of the fabric of how you teach.
Colleagues moving from Blackboard to the new platform will therefore be offered two approaches:
- ‘Move and Enhance’. Module convenors/lecturers can attend one three-hour session from April 2012. Here, you will learn about the new platform, go into your course area, and rearrange your core learning materials in a sensible fashion, so that you can start using it in your teaching and perhaps develop your use over the year.
- ‘Start Afresh and Innovate’. This is a chance to re-examine your use of e-learning and use the new tools to create a rich ‘blended’ learning environment for your students. You’ll work closely with e-learning professionals, and be given an e-learning assistant to help you develop and build your course area.
The aim here is that people who want to start with basic use can do so with a minimum of disruption, while those who want to use it in more advanced ways are fully supported
Outside of these sessions, we will offer other opportunities (online and offline) about how you can use it in advanced ways, e.g. for student feedback, supporting group work, assessment, student-led learning, using open educational resources or adding more interactivity. There will also be ways for you to share your ideas and experiences with other colleagues, and to see how others are using it.
There will be exceptions to the above: you may be running a programme which requires a more complex approach to ensure that complex processes are realized in the new environment, or a course which depends entirely on the platform (e.g. distance learning). In these cases, please get in touch so we can plan your transition and the support you’ll need.
Those who already have mature, successful e-learning presences in Blackboard will be given close assistance to ensure their course functions successfully in Moodle without the need to rebuild it from scratch themselves.
Further details will appear on the E-Learning Unit’s website at www.learninginstitute.qmul.ac.uk/elearning.
Overview of the environment
This document gives a brief overview of the main advantages and functionality of the new environment.
Further Information
This website will be used to post more information about the platform as the project progresses. Over the next few weeks, we will be announcing the training and support provision, and providing details of how to get involved, see previews, give feedback about design and configuration.
Get in Touch
If you have any questions, please email elearning@qmul.ac.uk in the first instance. We’ll respond directly, and also build a bank of frequently asked questions which we’ll post on this website. And if you would like to be a pioneer to get in early, or be involved in feedback for the name, we’d love to hear from you.
What will it be called?
‘Moodle and Mahara’ is a bit of a mouthful, and this is more than just a ‘VLE’ replacement, offering as it does more flexible tools for learning outside taught courses, so it needs a catchy, descriptive name. We’re running a naming competition for students and staff – do suggest something!
Thanks…
… to everyone involved in the project to select and procure the new platform. It has been chosen because it is much the best fit with the requirements that colleagues and students across QM contributed, and I’m really grateful for all your work and help. We’re confident that, while this is only software and software by itself does nothing, colleagues and students will be able to use it to help themselves – and QM – realise our educational ambitions.
Sam Brenton, Head of E-Learning
January 2012
Photo Credit
Matt Brown on Flickr.