Supporting Teaching following a 'Major Incident'

Learning technologies, including Moodle, could play a crucial role in maintaining students' academic progress if conventional teaching is ever suspended following a major incident. As part of Business Continuity Planning, departments are asked to consider what preparations to make and what guidance to give to students taking component courses in the event of such an incident. The Centre for Learning Technology can help you with this through the use of Moodle and other online tools.

It is of course far better to know how Moodle can help in advance of any incident (and some uses would require significant pre-planning) so if you'd like to discuss any of the following topics please contact CLT for a meeting: clt-enquires@lse.ac.uk. CLT also run regular workshops, which you can book online through the LSE training page.

Communicating with Students

The Announcements Forum in Moodle provides an easy way to contact all students on a course. Messages are both sent as emails and are available within Moodle. Using Quickmail in Moodle provides an easy way to email specific students or groups of students. Standard Forums used in conjunction with Groups also provide an easy way for class teachers to communicate with their seminar groups or classes.

Providing Students with Material

Moodle can be used to deliver both teaching material and administrative documents to students. Adding reading lists & lecture notes or slides is a straightforward process. Students can be given access to multimedia resources & online readings including e-journals, digistised book chapters & e-books. Lecture recordings are also delivered via Moodle and can be restored from previous years. Alternatively, new lectures can be recorded from off-campus using Echo 360 personal capture (link to video demonstration).

Collecting Work & Giving Feedback

Moodle can be used to collect written work & provide students with feedback. Using Moodle Assignments, students can submit files or type directly into Moodle. Teachers can then give private, personal feedback to students which can either be text or audio (recorded within Moodle).

Other Teaching Activities

Moodle includes several options for providing students with online tasks & activities:

• Discussions - the Forums enable online discussion and CLT can help with ideas for activities and advise on how to moderate such discussions. Forums can also be used by students to share information & files with each other.
• Students can be tested on objective questions using multiple-choice, multiple response and other pre-prepared questions in Moodle Quizzes.
• A number of further tools in Moodle including Wikis provide additional opportunities for online teaching activities.
• Through the use of Wimba Classroom it is possible to hold live online classes & meetings that include both audio & video. Please note: more than any other option outlined here, this one would require a significant amount of preparation & practice well in advance of any incident.
• Free web conferencing tools such as Skype also offer possibilities for small group and one-to-one conversations.

If you are any questions about any of these topics or would like a more detailed discussion with staff in the Centre for Learning Technology, please don't hesitate to contact the CLT Director Steve Ryan, clt-enquiries@lse.ac.uk x6008.