[LINK] NSW Nettops for Students to Keep

[Tom Worthington]

At 06:48 PM 3/12/2008, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>... Of all the upsides to the computers-in-schools idea, the one 
>that makes the most sense to me is that the worksheets could be 
>e-mailed to students and they wouldn't have to waste otherwise 
>valuable education time acting as filing clerks ...

Learning Management Systems, such as Moodle, remove much of the 
administrative burden for both the teachers and students. You put the 
content and exercises in the LMS, which is essentially a web content 
management system tailored for learning, and the appropriate students 
get it. They usually interact with the LMS via a web based interface, 
but it can send them notices by email that there is something they 
need to collect. This is better than just e-mailing the material, as 
the LMS keeps the work for a particular subject in the one place, 
carefully categorized, rather than jumbled up in your e-mail in-box.

The LMS also makes collecting assignments easier for the teacher. The 
students upload their submission via the system, which enforces size 
limits and deadlines. No more "the dog ate my essay", although even 
adult ICT students, who should know better, will still try to claim 
an extension when they couldn't manage to submit five minutes before 
the deadline.

The ACS uses Moodle for its online courses 
<http://education.acs.org.au/> and I have found it also useful in a 
classroom for short  in-service courses. Several state education 
departments use it for distance education.

ps: I wonder how many extra adult NSW high-school students there will 
be, when they realize it is a way to get a free laptop and Internet access. ;-)

pps: More seriously, what about TAFE students? There would seem a 
good case for them to have laptops.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University