Technology (for Cows)

 I recently had the distinct pleasure of touring a brand new major dairy barn that is being built in the family. Since everything is new, they are switching over to RFID tags for the cattle. It all begins as they put a little round piece of plastic in the cow’s ear. From that point, the cow is a pawn in a fantastic tracking system.

As they enter the milk parlor, they walk to their place and the RFID chip is recognized.

  

The cow’s information comes up in the technology. The farmer can choose to milk/no milk along with other things.

As the cow is milked, the technology monitors the flow and amount of milk. This information is tied to the cow via the number on the RFID chip. Once the cow is done being milked, it’s time for the exit strategy.

As the cow leaves the parlor, she walks down the ramp and can be automatically separated by an electronic gate. The farmer (herd manager at this point, in my mind) sets up that certain cows need their hooves clipped or vaccines and enters those RFID numbers into the system. As that cow leaves, she gets separated via electronics into the area where she can be helped.

SOOO… What is the application? (AKA Why are you reading this?)

With the legitimate movement toward more and more formative assessment, we are empowered with information.  Through our empowerment, students are able to achieve at higher levels and it makes other things, like differentiation (for even more success), easier.

Technology can make our job easier, just as it does the herd manager. Maintaining and managing information about student ability through technology becomes easier and easier. The ability to aggregate and disaggregate this data can be almost fluid (after, of course, you learn how).

The technology I’m excited about for all of this, and plan on working with even more this year, is Moodle. Moodle has the ability to set up groups in your classes (separated and maintained by anything you think is meaningful) that can be visible or invisible to your students. You can then customize any assignment to certain groups.  You type in their number (add them to a group) and they can be separated for the help they need… online… (almost) effortlessly… seamlessly… and invisibly. Invisibility and seamlessness: the keys to meaningful technology.

How Moodle Can Change a School.

It’s kind of inspiring to watch how Moodle can change a school. I’ll let you check it out for yourself.

Human: How Moodle can Change a School

Moodling Madness

As part of the 23 things, I am going to add Moodle to the exercises. A number of staff members showed real interest in learning more about Moodle. I’m still very excited about Moodle and had the administrator enable Outcomes so that I can utilize formative assessment even more throughout my courses. Ultimately, I think it would be cool to rest mainly upon formative assessment, but I need to take it step by step.

I am also playing the waiting game for the workshop and exercise modules to get enabled by our administrator (who has been super helpful!). I’m excited about the opportunities that are held in the workshop module, with students able to work for and with one another… instead of just me. I think it reiterates the idea that teh teacher should not be the “be all and end all” because, in real life, teachers will not be there as the “be all and end all”… peers, on the other hand, will be. My wondering is how I am going to ensure that kids take their job of assessing others seriously.  I know that it will help them become better German students (and students in general), and I know that their peers are going to be amazing assessors (if they hold themselves to actually assessing), and I know  that assessment for  learning is the best… so what talk do we need to have for a good buy-in from all parties?

Last question: how have you used workshops, exercises, and (something I didn’t mention here today) Hot Potatoes in your Moodle?

Moodling it up…

After reading some historical bloging (aka: catching up), I found one of Bob Sprankle’s to be especially interesting. It links to the K-12 Online conference from last year (looking forward to this year!), and specifically to the presentation by Jason Hando about incorporating PageFlakes and other Mashups into Moodle.

I am looking for awesome new things to do with Moodle, and this is a step in that direction.  Check out the ideas he has for improving the Moodle usage. I think the biggest hint to get out of this is that you can add extra boxes (or labels) and then embed things (anything you might create that is “embeddable” from another web source) through HTML.  Love it!

Last year I set up my classes with Moodle and used it when I could. Computer time is hard to come by in our school, but it was really beneficial when I came down with Influenza A… because I could sit on my sofa at home and log in to Moodle and, essentially, hold class via Moodle! We had chats and online exercises. It was a life-saver for a teacher who, too often, doesn’t trust that anything gets done with subs.

So… I’m open (and hoping for) lots of feedback for someone who, right now, I would call a “Moderate Moodler”. Ideas?