PEDAGOGICAL OBJECTIVE
Posting media and Open Educational Resources (OER) to Moodle as supplements to readings provides a customizable learning experience for students and boosts their engagement with readings.
ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY TOOL
Adding or embedding audio and/or video within a Moodle site.
Featured Faculty:
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Adi Gordon
Professor Gordon shared his digital media practices at the Fall 2018 ATS event, "Promoting Active Learning through Moodle: Examples from the Amherst Classroom." Read about his practices, below.
Designing the Media-Rich Learning Environment
In the first year seminar Manifestos, taught in Fall 2018, Professor Gordon created a media-rich Moodle environment for learning. Every week, students were given audio or video supplements to the readings. Many of the readings were in the public domain, so audiobook versions were available on Librivox or elsewhere.
The Communist Manifesto is provided as a PDF as well as audiobook (with player embedded on Moodle) courtesy Librivox.
Universal Design for Learning
Professor Gordon’s goal in using media was to integrate Open Educational Resources and give students opportunities to engage with the learning materials in multimodal ways. Providing students with multiple options for interacting with course content- i.e., audio as well as text- is a key tenet of Universal Design for Learning. The students have the flexibility to choose their preferred method of engaging with the text, providing a truly inclusive classroom.
The course topic is introduced by a short video about Julian Rosefeldt’s film installation “Manifesto”. Gordon also provides related information in PDF form.
Evidence of Effectiveness
The fact that the Moodle site for his course received the most views-per-student of the entire 2018 fall term proves that the students were indeed highly engaged. Gordon also observed that this practice vastly improved in-class discussions.
Accessibility Bonus
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Gordon relied on Moodle to provide a clear structure for course resources and activities, which can help lower students’ stress/anxiety levels.
How to...
- Add Media to Moodle
- Find Open and/or Public Domain Course Materials: OASIS, from SUNY Geneseo, is a search tool for open educational content.
Published Spring 2020 by Academic Technology Services