‘Walking the talk: A model for Academic Staff Professional Development using Moodle’

The Staff Development Gateway

Susan Brosnan and Timothy van Drimmelen

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• Regional University located in Toowoomba approx. 1.5hrs west of Brisbane

• Founded in 1967

• A distance education provider since 1977

• Fully online programs since 1997

• 2 Faculties with 11 Schools

• More than 200 under-grad and post-grad award programs

• Every course has an online presence

University of Southern Queensland

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On Campus 7,235

Online 20,000

USQ Staff & Student Statistics

Total: 27,235

Source: Sustainable Business Management and Improvement - University of Southern Queensland https://intranet.usq.edu.au/bi/staff/Dashboards/FTE/FTE%20by%20Month.aspx

Academic 491

Professional 913

Total: 1404

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Background to Project

Mid 2012 a decision was made that no ‘staff’ facing resources would sit on the existing public facing USQ website and should be moved to an internal

solution

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USQ’s three Moodle instances

USQStudyDesk • Student

Portal • All Course-

based activity

_____________

USQStaffDesk • Staff portal • Staff facing

for PD activities

______________

USQOpenDesk • OER/OEP • Inter-

institutional activities

_______________

USQ LEARNING OBJECTS REPOSITORY (LOR)

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The Staff Development Gateway Project

• 2 part-time .8 staff members (Senior Project Officer and a Technical Project Officer)

• Media Services (Graphics, Photography and Multimedia) and Learning Systems and Support

• Commenced in November 2012 – October 2013 (11 months)

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Audience and Objectives

• Aimed at Academic and Professional Staff

• To deliver a solution to house staff facing resources across USQ within the current Learning Management System – Moodle

• To promote autonomy

• Be flexible and adaptive

• Engage and share knowledge with peers

• Easy to use and easy to navigate

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Why ________________? • We teach in it! Nothing new to learn!

• Enables us to showcase our excellence

• Content can be updated and live ‘instantly’

• Allows for multiple authors (currently 24) (previously only allowed 3)

• Demonstrates good practice in our teaching and engages the teacher to become the ‘learner’

• All resources sit within existing collections in the Equella Repository (LOR)

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Project Objectives

• Simple, clean interface that doesn’t require the user to ‘think’

• Google – perfect example

• Content should be broken into small vignettes of information and not overwhelming

• 1/10 second for like/dislike

• Should allow for different learning styles, follow the Read it, Watch it, Try it framework

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What is the Staff Development Gateway?

• A collection of courses, pages, books and multimedia resources for staff

• Currently compliant with tablet devices and should be fully mobile responsive with our next upgrade to Moodle 2.7 – expected by early 2015

• Collaboratively designed as a ‘services’ oriented gateway which showcases the excellence of LTS, LEM, ICT and HR

• Demonstrates to the lecturer what’s possible in their courses

• Enables relationship building with Academic Staff

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Like a peek?

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The Technical Stuff

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HTML (framework)

JavaScript (engine)

CSS (style)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_GT-R

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CMS (Hierarchy)

Moodle (Linear)

Moodle (Hierarchy)

Moodle Page Moodle Book Moodle Feedback

Our Wins and Gotcha’s

Wins

• Creation of the Moodle Page Editor

• Moodle Breadcrumbing Manager

• Creation of the USQ Vibe

• User Interface in development

Gotcha’s • No search functionality • Migrating this course, breaks a

lot of things

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Questions?

Questions for the Developer? http://moodlemoot2014.netspot.com.au/ sandpit area -

“Walking the Talk: A model for Academic Staff Professional Development using Moodle”

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Timothy van Drimmelen University of Southern Queensland P: 07 4631 1772 E: timothy.vandrimmelen@usq.edu.au

Contact Us Susan Brosnan University of Southern Queensland P: 07 4631 2715 E: brosnan@usq.edu.au

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