Moodleicious

All semester I have been teaching with a moodle. I have confined its use largely to an organizational device, the core site where we post all assignments and important course documents (e.g., calendar). I also post ancillary links of supporting material and material that supports developments in class discusssion. I have also kept a teacher's forum where I can comment on specific issues or return to students' ideas and questions.

But the most interesting aspect of teaching with the moodle has been using the "Forum" option as an opportunity to have students post their service-learning journals. This has been interesting because each entry is posted in a public forum--everyone has access to what everyone else is writing. That's a great converstation--still largely one-way, and static, but I've also encouraged students to rrespond to each other's journal entries as well as my comments. So they get to see me as a writer and a teacher, and they can learn from, and join in on, the discusssions that we're having. And there's a range of voices and moods. So students see me from my most serious to my most playful; they have access to my suggestions and questions and problem-solving.

As the dialogue has evolved this semester it has become moree fun and more engaging. It took me until tonight, on the cusp of the last week of classes, to realize that we're watching each other as writers. All of that solitary isolation that traditional journaling offers is missing. Students write to each other in a spirit of cooperation and support.

Now, how can we find a way to bring that conversation, that community, to otrher classes, on targeted issues?