Random Quote
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
---- Pablo Picasso
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
"It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'"
---- Sam Levenson
If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
---- Doug Larson
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
This may be the most interesting blog theme I've ever seen. http://eflgeek.com/index.php Definitely in my top 5 at least.
---- Steve Dembo
it's probably not a good idea to underestimate my ability to make an ass out of myself—just when I seem to have it under control, I'll turn around and surprise you.
---- Tenser said the Tensor
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
---- anonymous
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
My materials vs Commercial materials
Over the mid term exam period I set up a survey in my moodle course for advanced students using the excellent third party module feedback. In the survey I asked students to rate the various activities we had done during the semester as well as a couple of other questions to get a feeling for how the students liked my class. I’ve made a couple of adjustments for the second half of the semester.
What I found most interesting was the responses related to the activities we did during the semester. Students consistently ranked activities I made myself much higher than ones from teacher resource books. I’ve included screenshots (in the extended entry) of the survey results where I’ve highlighted in yellow the activities I did myself.
Do I think this means I make better materials than can purchased commercially? Yes and No. I make better materials for my teaching style and my students. With the materials I develop they are 100% tailored to my class and students. Many of the materials I created are available on this blog if you do a search for them. However with commercial materials they are designed to please everyone and quite often end up being less than excellent but better than okay.
Looking at the survey results makes me want to create more personalized material for my students but the amount of time necessary to make quality materials is alot and thus I am required to use my own material to mostly supplement. Any thoughts or comments? What is your experience with personally created material vs commercial?
click images for full size version
Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Wednesday Apr 30, 2008 at 01:29 PM
Teaching | Moodle | teaching_application |




JMac wrote 40 words on Wednesday Apr 30, 2008 at 10:40 PM
Some good results. Congrats. Only 9 in a class—nice!
Curious as to why you use 1 as ‘excellent’ and 5 for ‘terrible’ in your Lickert scale. Seems to be a bit of a golfer’s setup (shoot for the low score).
Sean. wrote 17 words on Thursday May 1, 2008 at 07:02 AM
No particular reason for the 1 being excellent - actually I hadn’t even thought about the order.
Seth Dickens wrote 87 words on Thursday May 1, 2008 at 05:50 PM
Hiya Sean,
I totally agree that tailor made materials are always going to beat something out of a book hands down, every time. The trouble is, it really is sooo time consuming :-o
I am the Moodle trainer for our school and I constantly get grumbles and groans from our teaching staff when we are teaching online about just how much time it take to prepare materials.
Something that might interest you is the discussion over on the WebHeads pages about an open Moodle Repository: Moodle Repository
Sean. wrote 27 words on Friday May 2, 2008 at 12:19 PM
Seth,
I’ll definitely check out that repository over the weekend - should be able to find time since it’s a three day weekend. Yeah for Children’s day!