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One of the themes for this blog is that the majority of current approaches to improving learning and teaching within universities simply don't work. At least not in terms of enabling improvement in a majority of the learning and teaching at an institution. Recently I finally completed reading the last bits of the book Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein. Chapter 18 is titled "The Real Third Way". This post explores how that metaphor connects with some of the thinking expressed here....more...
The following details an attempt to use user/messageselect.php with BIM in an attempt to move towards implementing an email merge facility for BIM....more...
This carries on "bits" from chapter 5 of the thesis. It's a rough draft of a description of the institutional context within CQU from 2000 onwards. It's brief and targeted mainly at the factors which impact on Webfuse development....more...
Back working on the thesis. The following is a rough draft of the introduction and part of the first section from Chapter 5 of the thesis. This chapter is starting to tell the story of Webfuse from 2000 to 2004 and beyond....more...
One of the issues I have to address with the BIM Moodle module is the provision of an email merge facility. I (and a couple of other people I know) haven't been able to find how to do this within Moodle. The following outlines one proposal for how this might be done within Moodle 1.9....more...
The following outlines steps to continue work on BIM's backup and restore functionality. As per this issue the user part of the back up has errors....more...
This post is a summary of work being done to update the Moodle indicators block so that it can support multiple visualisation tools and approaches....more...
The following is an attempt to explain the initial description and rationale of an exploratory research project (perhaps ethnographic, narrative inquiry or some similar qualitative methodology) aimed at understanding what teachers/academics actually experience within a particular environment during a single term. The assumption is that by better understanding the lived experience of the teaching staff you can better understand why (or why not) teaching is likely to improve....more...
A couple of days ago I wrote the last few sentences for a fairly serious first draft of chapter 4 of the thesis. This chapter has to be re-read by me, read by my esteemed supervisor and then by a copy editor, so it's not finished yet. But it's a step closer....more...
The purpose of this post is to provide a concrete description of how curriculum mapping of a Moodle course might work. The hope is that this will enable a broader array of people to comment on the approach and, in particular, identify flaws or problems. So, please comment....more...
The following reports on some work on the indicators block to move it towards using some object-orientation and the factory design pattern....more...
Markus and I have been talking about behaviour change and lots more for a bit. He's about to start a new job has been speculating about what he might do and how it connects with what we've been talking about. This post is an attempt to make explicit my initial gut reaction to the idea that...more...
Yesterday's post introduced Col's initial work on the indicators block. This post reports on some minor tweaks I've been doing this afternoon, trying to find escape in something concrete....more...
Yesterday, I posted a draft of an application for what is currently being called, the alignment project. Stephen Downes has commented on the alignment project in is OLDaily. Stephen's comments are...more...
Col has been playing around with some ideas for a Moodle indicators block. This is a record of my first attempt to install and play with the block. Might also do a bit of reflection and setting up of processes etc so we can go further with this....more...
The following is the latest, and first close to (but not there) complete, draft of the proposal explaining the alignment project. While informed by good discussions with a range of folk, the following is still a bit limited. Should be improved over the next couple of weeks....more...
The Indicators project team are off to Moodlemoot AU 2010. All three are giving presentations, but only two (i.e. not me) are on the indicators project. In thinking about how we might make the most of this opportunity, we've floated the idea of announcing an "indicators" Moodle block at the conference. This post is an attempt to make concrete our thinking and take some steps towards making it happen, hopefully even generate some interest and external comments....more...
The following is an early attempt at an "executive summary" for the alignment project. It's meant to get folk who know nothing about the project excited, or at least interested, in the project. The main audience, at the moment, is probably limited to institutional leaders around learning and teaching and those likely to be evaluating ALTC grant applications....more...
Am busy reading and trying to do up a grant application, when I should be working on the PhD. However, I couldn't bypass this quote from FUllan (2001: 65)...more...
BIM is a Moodle activity module that helps academic staff manage the use of individual student blogs, where those blogs are hosted on the students' choice of blog service (e.g. Wordpress.com etc.). An in-built assumption/limitation in how BIM works is that each student's blog must be open to the world. If access to the blog is restricted, BIM can't mirror it....more...