Moodle@Picacho: Transforming Teaching with Interactive Online Course Management Tools

I dig action research. I was very lucky in my graduate experience to be invited to the Center for Teaching Excellence Action Research conference in Taos in 2006 to present my study on a strategy I used in my classroom.

During the 2006-2007 school year, I lead an action research study using CTE grant funding with a wonderful team of teachers at my site. We studied Moodle in our own professional learning and we used it with our students - collecting data and reflecting on our work along the way.

The result is the lengthy Action Research Report that I will post today. It's been in Google Docs for a long time now and it's time to put it on record. This report will be included in the CTE Action Research report which will come out in June at this year's conference.

The report is located here: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dg2jjhbv_45dndxn5

As Moodle has changed, so has the relevance of the technical discussion of Moodle within the report. The highlights, however, reveal that customized professional development and access to a professional learning community supports teachers in their adoption and implementation of Moodle. By working together, educators mediate the challenges of implementing new tools with students. There is also some interesting data on the attitudes of the students who participated.

Almost a year out from the busy time when I wrote this final report, I view it more as a comprehensive snapshot of what we worked on and what we learned, rather than something which informs other educators from a research standpoint. Don't get me wrong~ It could very much be useful, but I am learning every day how the little things about technology change rapidly and the conversation is more about reflective practice than analysis of the tool.

I look forward to future writings on my work with educators and Moodle, now that I can see the study from different angles. I would enjoy engaging in a discussion about the report and the question of how it could inform what teachers are doing today with online tools.