Moodle, eXtension and a little Twitter- social learning, communities of practice and 140 characters.

1. new options in distance based educational programming Paul Treadwell May, 2010

2. A guiding principle? The technology and tools we use should be consistent with the underlying principles that guide our work.

3. Something new under the sun? What has changed? Greater awareness of the power of technology to connect: People to people People to resources Increase in technical facility Deeper penetration of technology into daily life Necessity of use

4. Connecting people and resources 2 (plus) tools to discuss today: Moodle: Building social learning opportunities e-Xtension: Building communities for educators And a little Twitter: Building connections with 140 characters

5. What is MOODLE? Software that allows you to: Build online courses Foster learning communities

6. Why Moodle? Facilitates anytime-anywhere learning: Moodle incorporates elements such as: Discussion boards Readings Assignments That: Encourages learning through social exchange Builds a repository of knowledge

7. How we use Moodle Internally: Structured learning As a collaborative tool Publically: Access to a variety of courses including: Horticulture Agriculture Pesticide Safety Education

8. Who are Moodle courses for? (Almost) anyone: Our users range in age from 18-80 Self motivated learners Spanning the globe (though most from NY State)

9. Creating courses Moodle provides the framework and tools: Activities: Discussion forums Quizzes Assigments Resources: Documents/files Webpages

10. Creating courses 2 Moodle provides the framework and tools Student management: Usage Logs Reports Grades

11. Facilitating online learning Requires: A level of technical familiarity and comfort: How to create content online How to link to web sites How to embed files And more

12. Facilitating online learning 2 Requires: An ability to manage an online community: Moderating discussions Encouraging contributions Facilitating learning exchanges

13. What is eXtension eXtension is an interactive learning environment that: Connects university based extension faculty and staff across the U.S. Provides tools for collaboration and development of new content Supports the development of new information resources, usable by all

14. More than a web site eXtension is a model of content creation and distribution: “Walled garden” for extension professionals Community formation (Communities of Practice) Content development “Public market” for the general public Content consumption Feedback, questions

15. Communities of Practice eXtension uses a “communities of practice” model for content production: Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. Etienne Wenger http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

16. Supporting collaboration eXtension offers access to tools that support community formation and work: Wikis for creation and shared editing eXtension People for locating collaborators and colleagues Moodle for structured online course development

17. Connecting distributed expertise eXtension facilitates knowledge networks that draw upon geographically distributed experts to create new content and resources for the Cooperative Extension System. This provides: greater reach and distribution of content Expertise sharing across boundaries New opportunities for program development

18. Twitter 140 characters or bust: Microblogging: Connect and share with other like minded people Instant feedback mechanism Discover new resources, events Why 140? The limits of a mobile (SMS) message Actually 160 but,20 characters reserved for username 140 characters for message

19. Social and Mobile Social and mobile are the 2 key words for the next year or two: Increasing power of mobile phones is giving rise to new possibilities for content creation and distribution. Social media, social networks, social learning are all growing. We can use these new tools and technologies to further our work, and still maintain fidelity to our core values and principles.

20. Contact Paul Treadwell Blog: www.paultreadwell.com Twitter: ptreadwell Email: pt36@cornell.edu eXtension: pt36