I am finishing my first semester using an on-line component to my classes, so I wanted to reflect a bit on how it has gone. Our school does not have WebCT or Blackboard (although we can get access through other schools), so I installed Moodle on my own server. Moodle is an Open Source — and therefore free — course management system that is comparable to Blackboard.

I have been very pleased with my experience. If you understand web software, it is a fairly simple system to learn. It has enough modules that you can configure it for your needs. I added an attendance module that allowed students to see how many absences they had.

I dislike the idea of teaching on-line, especially at the undergraduate level. So much of teaching is face-to-face interaction, and I don’t want to lose that. What I used Moodle for was a way to deliver information to the students that otherwise would be done in handouts, provide them with access to their grades, and allow them to take quizzes on-line.

Here are my thoughts:

  • The on-line quizzes have been a big help. I use quizzes simply to ensure that the students are reading the biblical material. By doing it on-line, I could expand the quizzes to cover an entire week’s readings. I could also make the questions more difficult, since I could assume that they were using the Bible. It involved a bit more work on my part this time around, because I had to make a large database of questions from which the quizzes could be drawn. This was to ensure that each student would get a different test, since I knew students would try to cheat by taking the test together. With this system, the only benefit they get from helping each other is that they read more of the Bible. And, since I can keep the database from year to year, it won’t be as much work in the future.
  • An added bonus to the quizzes was that it freed up time in class for more teaching. Quizzes took 10-15 minutes in class, which was a quarter of the period (we use hour long periods here). That meant that with four quizzes, I got an additional hour of teaching spread over the course of the semester.
  • I was also able to give more quizzes. Instead of the usual four, I gave six. But only four were counted in the grading. This meant that if a student missed a quiz, he or she did not have to worry about it. Because all of my quizzes were pop quizzes before, I would always have students complaining if they missed that day of class. This way, it is not a problem. And, if a student does manage to miss three quizzes, this points to a problem on their part of not paying attention or planning their time well, so I don’t feel I have to cut them slack.
  • Quizzes are graded automatically, which makes up for some of the extra time I spent writing them.
  • Students have been giving me very positive feedback about being able to see their grades when they want to. Some have even been pestering other professors to use the same system. The system even averages the grades for them, so they can see how their final grades are coming along. As an added bonus, it also gives me the final grades already averaged in Excel format.
  • One unexpected benefit is that I have run an almost paper free class. Except for the syllabi at the beginning of the semester, all handouts have been available on-line. Hard copies were only made if the student chose to print them out, and many students would have just copied them onto their laptops. All assignments have also been turned in on-line. One student was complaining that I made the papers too long and was trying to convince me that we were wasting paper and killing trees. But all the papers were submitted electronically, so this was not an issue.

Overall, this has been a very positive experience, well worth the extra time it took. And since it will take even less time in future semesters, I can spend the time improving questions on the quizzes and making even more resources available from the site. The only downside I have noticed is the extra time it took, but that will not be an issue in the future.

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