{"id":141,"date":"2017-04-12T15:06:50","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T15:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/?page_id=141"},"modified":"2017-08-11T23:40:09","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T23:40:09","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Why the English department uses\u00a0Moodle:\u00a0<\/b><b>A Guide for Instructors and Students<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many people, instructors and students alike, wonder why ISUComm foundation courses (i.e., Engl 150 and 250) utilize Moodle instead of Blackboard. Below is a rationale to help all stakeholders understand the decision.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CONTEXTUALIZED: Our Moodle is customized to the context of our curriculum. Much of its functionality is a\u00a0product of dialogue between the Online Learning Team (OLT) and users, as well as consultations with Moodle\u2019s online support community, which creates and modifies the platform\u00a0with pedagogical needs in mind. Thus, the learning management system (LMS) not only provides a platform for undergraduate foundation courses, it also provides our department&#8217;s graduate students who teach the courses and maintain the learning management system valuable skills related to course and LMS management.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CONTROLLABLE: Having control over the software and its development means the technology is distinctively ISUComm; it does not surrender authority to proprietary systems\u2019 branding or their vision for education. Moreover,\u00a0it is\u00a0a platform suited for collecting data for research purposes. We work with the Institutional Review\u00a0Board (IRB) and maintain\u00a0forms to obtain students\u2019 consent. There is no\u00a0need to coordinate with outside sources other than the IRB, so we have control over the student\u2019s data. This control assists us in continuing development of the program and assures us that no one makes a profit from\u00a0students\u2019 work.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FLEXIBLE: Moodle can have a steeper\u00a0learning curve than some proprietary systems, but that is because much of that learning is owed to the degree of control, functionality, and customization it offers teachers. The\u00a0Moodle platform affords instructors the\u00a0opportunity to exercise course design skills. Below are some \u00a0examples of different course sites with various themes, layouts, and buttons:<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2155\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-02-at-2.55.42-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-6177 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2155\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-02-at-2.55.42-PM-347x400.png\" alt=\"Why Moodle Screen Shot 1\" width=\"347\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2155\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-02-at-3.02.55-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-6182\" src=\"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2155\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-02-at-3.02.55-PM-343x400.png\" alt=\"Why Moodle Screenshot 2\" width=\"349\" height=\"407\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2155\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-02-at-2.56.58-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-6178\" src=\"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2155\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-02-at-2.56.58-PM-400x324.png\" alt=\"Why Moodle Screen Shot 3\" width=\"498\" height=\"403\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2155\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-02-at-3.02.04-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-6181\" src=\"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2155\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-02-at-3.02.04-PM-200x400.png\" alt=\"Why Moodle Screen Shot 4\" width=\"265\" height=\"530\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OPEN-SOURCE: According to the National Council for Teachers of English, <a href=\"http:\/\/kairosnews.org\/ncte-cccc-resolution-open-source\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">open source platforms offer a number of benefits<\/a>. Chief among them, \u201cOpen-source software development is built within communities of committed users who are dedicated to maintaining and improving the software. Program code is shared and collectively reviewed by multiple parties, and collaboration drives related tasks such as promotion, documentation, usability testing, and support. This process resembles the ways in which knowledge is constantly made, refined, and re-thought in universities.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>The OLT is made up of teachers of ISUComm. We are not only tech consultants, we are consultants on how to effectively incorporate technology in the classroom.\u00a0Besides the context-specific documentation in the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ISUComm Support Site<\/a>, we offer support by email and office hours in 306 Ross Hall. Come\u00a0see us!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2588,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"isu_carousel":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Bremen","author_link":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/author\/bvance\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":null,"coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/author\/bvance\/","display_name":"Bremen"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 9 years ago","modified":"Updated 9 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on April 12, 2017","modified":"Updated on August 11, 2017"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on April 12, 2017 3:06 pm","modified":"Updated on August 11, 2017 11:40 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","featured_img":false,"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152,"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/141\/revisions\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.isucomm.iastate.edu\/courses-instructors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}