Sometimes, I feel sorry for my students who are experiencing VLE environments in a very primitive manner. They feel confused when they first touch the keyboard, try to register or create emails or even deal with the VLE activities. This has taught me to keep realistic goals and plan when considering these issues.

There are many students who are not well oriented to modern technologies or how to deal with the internet. Moodle or other similar platforms are completely brand new concepts for some regions of the world including the ME. In my context, I have seen students who struggle with email set up or even typing a short paragraph.

In contrary, I found some of the low-achievers or shy students became more involved and more motivated to participate. An example of this is one student who came to me today to check his written ideas before sending them to the other colleagues. This same student tended to be quiet in class and not willing to participate, especially in a writing activity. However, he was seeking help for a well-informed and thoughtfully written authentic piece. This incident, and other similar once, usually give me the support and help me regain my trust in these technology solutions which are there but are waiting for the learners who can handle them properly. A third group of few students who have already tried similar platforms in other earlier studies were comfortable dealing with the system and responding to different tasks.

In all cases, one of the most interesting facts I found when dealing with VLE activities, e.g. writing discussions and tasks is that students tend to be serious about their contributions and the content of what they write. They understand that there is a real audience of other students who may read their work. They also know that this work is not documented or ‘published’ and therefore it is out of their control. Some others may compete with their colleagues about their abilities and competences in responding to activities. Perhaps these could be possible advantages for using VLEs for learning.

In conclusion, I think training and further practice are the best solutions for teachers willing to integrate modern technologies in their teaching. Students can no longer count only on traditional learning media and techniques. Busy teachers, and students, need to find better alternatives and supplementary opportunities for independence and autonomy in learning.

Tags: autonomy, learning, motivation, vle

First, I have no experience using blackboard. That makes it a disadvantage in itself for a web technologies practitioner like me who is always keen to experiment education technology solutions for learning. Affordance is an issue in that respect.

If I am to compare between webct and moodle, I would go for moodle. I personally find it more open, user-friendly, and flexible in many aspects. I had the opportunity to experiment webct as a designer in my previous course, but the customization or ‘wizard’ selection looked a limit in that aspect. After several trials, I was not happy with the results of my work. As a user, webct is an effective tool for ‘discussion forums’, but again I don’t find it attractive in exploring the other resources.

On the other hand, I find moodle simple and open in choosing the layout, i.e. designing topic or theme-based courses. The rated/ graded ‘discussions’ is an advantage. Being an open source makes it a potential global software with lots of additions or added ‘plug-ins’ by other users, developers or educators. As a free tool, the affordance is not an issue. It could also be installed in an internal network or server with no internet access.

This year, I had some promising experiments running my moodle courses as part of a blended course. I hope to be able to effectively use it with more dynamic and professional tasks in the near future.

Tags: e-learning, environments, learning, virtual, vle