Through the Nexus:A scalable, adaptive

professional experience solution through Moodle

Stephen Grono, School of EducationUniversity of New England, Armidale

sgrono2@une.edu.auor maybe @calvinbal

A quick overview

1. The initial challenge2. Solutions: ‘PREX Hub’, ‘PREXUS’3. Behind the scenes: the fun Moodle stuff

– Self enrolment – Activity completion

– Groups & groupings – Conditional activities

– Group self-selection – Topic restrictions

4. Yes but, did it work?

The story so far…

• Once upon a time, professional experience handled as separate, unique 0-cp unit codes

• That’s a lot of units with very similar materials• Relies on enrolment period for student access

• Then changed to ‘embedded’ pracs, mandatory pass/fail component of regular content units

Meanwhile…

• Course requirements change as a result, affecting different cohorts of students. Separate rules and unit requirements for students who started prior to this change.

• Information required, including dates, durations and number of pracs vary by the unit the student is enrolled in.

• Or based on their degree. Or even nth prac.

v1.0 – Prex Hub

• With the info given, we had a shot.• A combined site for all of these new

‘embedded’ students – they self-enrol, look for the heading relevant to their degree, where we provide subheadings for each unit, as it pertains to that degree

• Goal was something easy to use, but also easy to administer

Reflection• It went alright.

• Not as visual or easy to navigate• Easy to skip over mandatory tasks• Students forgot their degree (don’t ask)• Some PREX units still used in current courses as

well, so still not reliably matching student to info• Repeated work for Prac Office per degree for

units across multiple degrees, groupings per item

Back to the drawing board

The Professional Experience Nexus

Here we go…

Here we go…

Here we go…

Here we go…

Here we go…

Here we go…

Here we go…

Here we go…

Here we go…

Behind the scenes: Student self-enrolment

• Really 4 separate Moodle sites:– One ‘filter’ site to pick a degree– One if they began in 2009-2012– One if they began in 2013-2014– One if they began in 2015

• All with self-enrolment enabled and activity completion to step students through an intro sequence of initial tasks.

• The first site they meet, the ‘Getting Started’ one, acts as a Sorting Hat for students

• Students are split into their most appropriate area

• It doesn’t matter what year they began, what degree they’re studying, or how they got here, this is the right starter for everyone and every combo.

Behind the scenes: One starting point

Many ways to get into this start:– If they studied last Tri, already in– Manually enrolled from CSV list– Manually enrolled one by one– Can assign a Callista cohort here

directly for PREX unit codes– Can self-enrol from the tile within

their unit once Trimester starts– Can self-enrol from a link straight

from an email if they need earlier access

Behind the scenes: Enrolment methods

• Utilises the‘Group Self-Selection’ plugin from moodle plugins list:

https://moodle.org/plugins/view/mod_groupselect

• Allows students to self-enrol themselves into a group within the site – so for us, they’re given a list of all degrees relevant to that cohort, and pick a group named after the degree they’re currently studying.

Behind the scenes: Group Self-selection

• One group for every degree• These are then assigned to 3

different types of grouping:– Degree groupings– Unit groupings– The All grouping

• Using these groupings we can now group entire topics based on their unit, degree or anyone.

Behind the scenes: Groups & groupings

• Compact layout and format allows a neat section per piece

• A couple of nifty options here:– ‘Tile’ format (Androgogic shout out)– ‘Grid’ format– ‘Collapsed Topics’ format– ‘One section per page’ layout– A few sneaky CSS additions

Behind the scenes: Layout

• These checkboxes are all just manual student activity completion boxes

• But each tied to conditionals to reveal or hide the next section

• Unlike other activity types, don’t require the student to leave the page at all before continuing.

Behind the scenes: Activity Completion

• Moodle 2.3: Restrictions can be applied to entire topics– Cumulative, all or nothing– Based on activity completion

• Moodle 2.7: Enhanced conditional activities– Boolean operators (AND OR NOT)– Include combinations (ANY ALL)– Can be nested, can include groups

Behind the scenes: Conditional Activities

Behind the scenes: Conditional Activities

For example…• Year choices: Must NOT have

picked ANY other year for that option to remain visible

• Unit topics: Must be in this set degree group AND completed these three required activities

• Non-completion warning: Must NOT have completed ALL the introduction tasks

But was it helpful?

But was it helpful?I have found much of what I need to get myself started with is all on the moodle page which is easy to use once you have gotten the hang of it.

Moodle is far easier to navigate in 2015 than in 2014. Could find placement forms etc. with far greater ease.

The Moodle page looks better, easier to follow

More detailed Moodle site, grouping information by courses in an easier to locate format.

The new moodle site is more specific to the unit being completed and easier to locate forms required.

But was it helpful?

Yes, on the old Moodle site. It was confusing, I never knew which link to click on. There are so many people on different rules for their practicums, so the Moodle page had a lot of different information.

Having all the units for the course available

This year the way it was set out was very clear and helpful

Good attempt at dealing with streamlining information appropriately for the many different diplomas/degrees and commencement years/rules.

Moodle had been confusing prior to the upgrade, especially in regard to the varied degrees.

But was it helpful?All Prex unit years are viewable. Printing placement forms for units very easy

Let students be enrolled in PREXUS for the duration of their course instead of only when doing units with prac components, the resources are great and I’d like to have access to them all the time.

Easy to access, open 24 hrs, prompt responses

It is helpful having all of the information available under the different headings, once you understand what they are for.

Enrolled in trimester 2 placement. Wanting access to info and forms early in year so can organize placement before schools fill up. You can self enroll in PREXUS site to access everything.

But was it helpful?

The Moodle Site is far more organized and useful.

The new Moodle site just launched is great. I’m up to my third prac now, but I can tell this new site will make things clearer for all students.

Large easy to locate sectioned areasLots of information

Customises the information needed for each individual depending on their degree and year of commencement, in a clear and navigable way.

So, questions?

Anyone? Anyone? No?