Knowledge Management in Moodle

MoodleMoot 0725th October 2007The Open University, Milton Keynes

Miles BerryHead, Alton Convent Prep

Outline• Learning environments

• Knowledge

• Managing knowledge

• Organizing• Sharing• Creating

• VLEs and knowledge management

• Moodle and knowledge management

Knowing that

• Explicit

• Subject knowledge

• Test scores

• Outcomes

Knowing how

• Tacit

• Teaching methods

• Personality

• Processes

Epistemology• Empiricism

• Experience as the only source of knowledge

• Rationalism

• Reason as the foundation

• Constructivism

• Knowledge is contingent on convention, human perception and social experience

“In the information society, knowledge forms the

foundation for education and culture.”

Smith and Wild, 2001

Knowledge Mapping

“For the majority of firms in the west, the priorities are the ‘capture’ of employees’ knowledge, exploitation of

existing knowledge resources or assets, and improved

access to expertise.”Quintas, 2002

How to externalize the insights

“Locked in the heads of individual teachers and

protected by the privacy of their classrooms”

Hargreaves, 1999

VLEs as Knowledge Maps

• Lesson planning

• Online resources

• Assessment data

• Podcast / Vodcast

• Pupil - teacher interaction

• ...

A VLE is not an MIS• The knowledge teachers use day to day

• The knowledge at the core of the school’s activity

• It’s not about accountability; it’s not about control, and yet...

• Accommodating the “inherent complexity, sophistication and subtlety of professional life and work in educational institutions”

• Constructed within and owned by the organizations that use them

“School-devised systems ... tracked individual pupils and allowed schools the flexibility to input internally generated

data ... i.e. such tools were easier to customize to the school and its particular

needs and circumstances”Kirkup et al, 2005

Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge sharing within the organization

• A key to organizational success

• Meaningful to professional practice

• Necessary for shared decision making

Knowledge sharing beyond the organization

• VLE tools for professional development

• Creating and sharing resources with others

• Collaboration on instructional design

• Permeable boundaries

“We learn particularly well from the act of creating or expressing something for

others to see”

Martin’s 2nd Law

Knowledge Creation

“The co-production of knowledge with colleagues is a natural part of a teacher’s

professional work.”

OECD, 2000

“A social group constructing things for one another,

collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared

meanings.”

Moodle Docs 2005-7

“By digitising their creative efforts this generation of young people can share

the fruits of their labour with a worldwide audience.

They can post videos on YouTube or GoogleVideo, upload photos to Flickr

and link back to their friends on MySpace, FaceBook or Bebo.

They are connecting, exchanging and creating in new ways.

Demos 2007

Innovation• Learn from other

• countries• contexts• phases

• Experiment

• Reinvent the wheel

• Learner voice and choice

• Autonomy rather than accountability

Data Mining• Log files...

• Trends, patterns, exceptions• Correlations

• Better informed decisions

• Management• Teachers• Parents

• Assessment for learning

• Web 3.0

VLEs and KM

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0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

our vle used for lesson planning

our vle brings together online resources that our pupils need

our pupil assessment data held in our vle

our vle used for pupil teacher dialogue

other teachers can access data teacher adds to vle

senior management can access data teacher adds to vle

we use our vle to share information amongst teachers

we use our vle to share resources amongst teachers

we use our vle to share information with other schools

our staff use vle to work collaboratively with each other

our vle used to work collaboratively with other schools

we regularly analyse data from vle

we look for trends and exceptions within data in our vle

use vle has allowed us to make better informed management decisions

use vle has allowed us to make better informed decisions about pupil support

our vle fully integrated with our management information system mis

our vle has had more impact on quality teaching and learning than our mis has

we ve changed way we teach because vle

we ve modified vle to fit in with way we teach

our vle has resulted in better management knowledge we have

our vle has promoted better organizational learning or development

our vle has promoted pupils construction knowledge

our school has knowledge management policy

most teacher s knowledge about they teach locked in their heads

most teacher s knowledge about their pupils locked in their heads

Findings 1• Little consensus about KM;

those that saw teacher’s knowledge as more tacit...

• Didn’t give SMT access to teachers’ data• Didn’t use VLE to inform support decisions• Didn’t integrate VLE and MIS

• Few schools had KM policies, but those that did...

• Analyzed data regularly and • Looked for trends and exceptions

Findings 2

VLE use includes• bringing together online resources, and• use for teacher - pupil dialogue,

but not• lesson planning, or• assessment data

although these seemed best to promote organizational learning and KM

Findings 3

• VLEs are used for sharing data, information and resources within the school

• 2/3 provide access to data for other teachers and SMT, particularly where respondents had participated in VLE development

• Those who share data inside the school also work collaboratively beyond the school

Findings 4

• Once a school becomes used to internal VLE mediated collaboration, they become willing to extend this practice beyond the school

• Collaboration amongst staff is a crucial dimension of organizational culture if the VLE is to be used to manage shared knowledge

Findings 5

• Not many analyze VLE data or look for trends and exceptions

• Relatively little integration with MIS

• Limited contribution to decision making (but better with Moodle than other systems!)

Findings 6• VLEs do have an effect on teaching

• VLEs support KM and Organizational Learning

• There’s less impact on pupils’ construction of knowledge or attainment, but...

• The introduction of a VLE alone will not be sufficient to impact learning and teaching, but embedding the VLE within the organization’s culture and practices might

Moodle and KM

Moodle

• Moodle content embodies the knowledge of its authors

• Moodle courses embody the knowledge of their teachers

• Moodle embodies the knowledge of its developers

Knowledge mapping • Courses!

• Lesson plan labels

• Podcast/vodcast

• Revision wikis

• Gradebook

• Outcomes

• Tags

Knowledge Sharing• Forums

• Wikis

• Resources

• Workshop

• Notes

• Repository

• Community Hub

Knowledge Creation• Wikis

• Forums

• Blogs

• Log files

• Courses...

• E-Portfolio

• Version control

Integration and Interoperability

• Courses

• Content

• RSS

• iCal

• PLE

• MIS

For more details...

E-Mail: mberry@bcs.org

Blog: eduspaces.net/mberry/weblog

School: www.altonconvent.org.uk