e-learning News – July 2012

Prepared by e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit, CETL

1. e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit (EPSU) Summer Activities

The e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit (EPSU) will continue to deliver seminars during the summer break. Details of these seminars will be provided as soon as they are available. A new series of e-learning workshops is being planned and these will be delivered prior to the start of the new semester. The workshops will focus on quick tips for making pedagogically sound use of Moodle for teaching and learning.

2. Completion of WebCT-to-Moodle Migration

The final round of migration exercise has been started at the beginning of June by the Computer Centre and is expected to last for one month. About 600 remaining WebCT courses will be converted to Moodle and made available for teachers and staff to access by the end of June 2012.

3. Moodle Video Tutorials for Teachers

In order to provide better support to our teachers and staff, the Computer Centre has started producing HKU’s collection of Moodle short video tutorials. They will be put on the Moodle support website as part of the overall support resources. Task-based videos each with duration of two to three minutes will be developed. They will form a large series of online video tutorials ranging from introduction to Moodle to more advanced topics and new features. To watch the videos, please visit:

[button link=”http://www.its.hku.hk/lms/moodle/v2/support_teacher.php” color=”orange” shape=”rounded” size=”small” ]http://www.its.hku.hk/lms/moodle/v2/support_teacher.php[/button]

4. Moodle Enhancements

Based on the enhancement recommendation report submitted by the EETF to the Computer Centre, the new features and enhancements of Moodle that will be ready in July 2012 include the followings:

  • A new Moodle user role: “Departmental course administrator”, will be introduced for the support of departmental e-learning officers and staff to provide basic Moodle assistance to the teachers in their Departments.
  • New course categories in the hierarchy of: Faculty -> Department -> Year be created for better course classification and administration
  • Customizable Faculty level theme support
  • Auto pre-enrollment of students and teachers for all new Moodle courses
  • Setting up a dedicated Moodle course reporting and statistics server
  • Enabling new repositories: GoogleDocs, Dropbox, Youtube, Picassa
  • Enabling new features (plugins): Drag and Drop File Upload and Group Choice
  • Enabling filters for Moodle courses
5. Moodle Hands-on Training Courses for Staff

The following Moodle hands-on training courses will be arranged in July 2012:

[button link=”http://www.itservices.hku.hk/lms/moodle/v2/moodle_training201207.php” color=”orange” shape=”rounded” size=”small” ]http://www.itservices.hku.hk/lms/moodle/v2/moodle_training201207.php[/button]

Report on University Studies: Lessons Learned from an Award-Winning Common Core Curriculum at Portland State University

Dr Candyce Reynolds discussed the successes and challenges of running a general education programme for 18 years at the seminar entitled “University Studies: Lessons Learned from an Award-Winning Common Core Curriculum at Portland State University (PSU)”.

Organized by the Common Core Curriculum Committee and the Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, this seminar was held on June 22, 2012 to provide an opportunity for participants who engage in Common Core teaching or associated activities to learn more about “University Studies”, the award-winning general education programme at PSU. The session was attended by over 40 of our staff members.

The structure, stages of development and curricular goals of the programme were described in the seminar. Dr Reynolds also presented examples of tools and methods used to assess student learning in University Studies courses. To ensure sustainability of the programme, she pointed out that the followings issues should be carefully attended to:

  • Creating opportunities for learning community development
  • Developing a culture of institutional assessment
  • Promoting and rewarding good teaching in general education at faculty and university levels
  • Managing students’ expectations about traditional modalities of education.
[button link=”http://www.cetl.hku.hk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/cetl20120622.pdf” color=”orange” shape=”rounded” size=”small” align=”right”]Download Presentation[/button]

Click here to access the presentation slides presented by Dr Reynolds at the seminar.

To know more about PSU’s comprehensive general education programme and its recent developments, please visit their website.