Comments on: WordPress as personal learning space http://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/ Thu, 07 May 2009 18:19:00 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: CELT Midway #8 at apcampbell http://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/#comment-41 CELT Midway #8 at apcampbell Mon, 26 Jun 2006 01:08:13 +0000 https://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/#comment-41 [...] Teachers should do exactly what they ask of their students and provide a model for them to follow. The real challenge is overcoming the inner barriers to such learning: the minds of students, many of which have been conditioned to associate schooling with passive reception of pre-packaged knowledge. They expect the teacher to deliver the goods and to demonstrate their acquisition through testing. Teachers maintain similar mindsets, all of which works against the kind of autonomous, self directed learning processes necessary for success in open Web environments. How can we overcome such conditioning? Bee offers some insights. [...] [...] Teachers should do exactly what they ask of their students and provide a model for them to follow. The real challenge is overcoming the inner barriers to such learning: the minds of students, many of which have been conditioned to associate schooling with passive reception of pre-packaged knowledge. They expect the teacher to deliver the goods and to demonstrate their acquisition through testing. Teachers maintain similar mindsets, all of which works against the kind of autonomous, self directed learning processes necessary for success in open Web environments. How can we overcome such conditioning? Bee offers some insights. [...]

]]> By: EFL Geek http://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/#comment-38 EFL Geek Thu, 01 Jun 2006 21:35:05 +0000 https://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/#comment-38 Bee, All of those are good points. I also agree with you that not many will continue after the course finishes, but it is the few that do continue that make it worthwhile. Good luck - hope to hear more about your project as it progresses. Bee,

All of those are good points. I also agree with you that not many will continue after the course finishes, but it is the few that do continue that make it worthwhile. Good luck – hope to hear more about your project as it progresses.

]]> By: Bee http://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/#comment-37 Bee Thu, 01 Jun 2006 20:49:54 +0000 https://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/#comment-37 Although Moodle is an open platform and you can tweak it and adjust it to your needs, it is still institutional, and feels very much like a classroom online, where you register and control the attendance and moves of your students. You need a server to host it and not many teachers have this possibility. The forums are clunky and impersonal and as the students do not own the place they cannot retrieve the information inside it once the course is over. All is too many clicks away so it is not easy to find the others inside it. As for the different features offered, I can find them on the web and link them to the blog. I found Wordpress much more open, sleeker and easier to handle (at least for my purposes). What we basically do is post, comment, insert photos/sounds and connect to others. Moodle is closed within itself. I want my students to gradually create their own English space, which they will personalize, where they will be able to aggregate material from other sources and share it with the others, create their own categories, insert their links and continue updating and posting to it once the course is over (not that many will, you may retort...to which I reply that there is always hope and that we, teachers, are incurable idealists). Although Moodle is an open platform and you can tweak it and adjust it to your needs, it is still institutional, and feels very much like a classroom online, where you register and control the attendance and moves of your students. You need a server to host it and not many teachers have this possibility. The forums are clunky and impersonal and as the students do not own the place they cannot retrieve the information inside it once the course is over. All is too many clicks away so it is not easy to find the others inside it. As for the different features offered, I can find them on the web and link them to the blog.

I found WordPress much more open, sleeker and easier to handle (at least for my purposes). What we basically do is post, comment, insert photos/sounds and connect to others. Moodle is closed within itself.

I want my students to gradually create their own English space, which they will personalize, where they will be able to aggregate material from other sources and share it with the others, create their own categories, insert their links and continue updating and posting to it once the course is over (not that many will, you may retort…to which I reply that there is always hope and that we, teachers, are incurable idealists).

]]> By: EFL Geek http://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/#comment-36 EFL Geek Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:25:17 +0000 https://bdieu.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/wordpress-as-personal-learning-space/#comment-36 Bee, I think your plan with wordpress flikr etc sounds great. I would however like to know what it is about moodle you don't like. I know it isn't perfect and doesn't work for everyone, but I really like it and am curious as to why others don't like it. Bee,
I think your plan with wordpress flikr etc sounds great. I would however like to know what it is about moodle you don’t like. I know it isn’t perfect and doesn’t work for everyone, but I really like it and am curious as to why others don’t like it.

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