New Platforms for Teaching, Learning and Research

Beginning next fall with the 2011-12 academic year, Segue will be replaced by a collection of platforms connected by the Course Hub.  The Course Hub will become the definitive starting point for all online course resources and will provide links to other platforms including WordPress, ERES and soon Moodle, our new learning management system (LMS).

To help with the transition of sites from Segue to one of these new platforms, Curricular Technology (CT) team will be organizing workshops throughout the summer for faculty and staff.  The first series of workshops will begin next week:

Curricular Technology Platforms Overview

1:00 – 2:00 pm, Tues, June 21,  Library 105

Moodle workshop

2-3:30 pm, Weds, June 22, Library 105

WordPress workshop

1-2:30 pm, Fri, June 24, Library 105

Moodle @ Middlebury

Moodle has been selected as the primary learning management system (LMS) for Middlebury College.  Other LMS platforms considered were Sakai and Blackboard.  The Curricular Technology (CT) team researched these three LMS platforms extensively and organized a pilot program that involved over 20 faculty and more than 300 students.

Surveys of pilot participants indicated that more faculty and students who completed the survey considered Moodle the most useful and easy to use of the LMS platforms piloted. The CT team used an template developed by the Longsight Group (see: Longsight > LMS Selection Criteria) to do its own evaluation and came to similar conclusions.

Moodle has been in use at Middlebury since 2007, primarily for online assessment.  Beginning in the Fall of 2011, Moodle will be fully integrated into the new Course Hub platform which will become the definitive starting point for all new online course resources.

LMS Pilot Training Sessions

The CT team has organized a number of LMS training sessions for pilot participants, as well as any faculty or staff interested in learning more about the learning management systems (LMS) we are currently evaluating.  Here are details:

Moodle Workshops

2 – 3:30 pm, Thursday, January 13, Library 105 – Alex Chapin
2 – 3:30 pm, Friday, January 14, Library 105 – Alex Chapin

Sakai Workshops

10 – 11:30 am, Tuesday, Jan 18th, Library 105 – Shel Sax
2 – 3:30 pm, Thursday, Jan 20th, Library 105 – Shel Sax

WordPress Workshops

WordPress is another viable platform for course sites that will be included in the Course Hub.

2 – 3:30 pm, Monday, January 17, Library 105 – Alex Chapin
1 – 2:30 pm, Weds, January 19, Library 105 – Alex Chapin