eLearning

Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) hosts an eLearning system to support the teaching of science and technology in second-level schools.  This system is used to form connections between schools, teachers and students and also by individual teachers to create online classes for their students. This eLearning system has two distinct parts; eClass and eConnect.

eClass

moodle_poweredeClass provides learners with a rich environment of information, resources and activities.  Moodle, an open source Learning Management System is used to host this service. It is designed using a modular system and offers many activities including the following:

  • Assignments -  can be specified with a due date & students  upload their work
  • Chat -  encourages real-time conversations between students outside of class
  • Forum – community building in an online environment
  • Glossary -  create and maintain a list of definitions
  • Quiz – create simple quizzes for the students to take outside of class
  • Survey – like a poll, can either be used to vote or get feedback
  • Wiki – the entire class can edit a document together
  • Lesson – a series of pages which can be presented in a linear fashion
  • Resource – supports display of any electronic content, Word, Powerpoint, etc
  • Calendar – the Calendar displays site, course and user events
  • Workshop – allows peer assessment of documents

Teachers can use this system to publish course materials, set up discussions, send messages, create self-marking tests, upload and mark assignments. Students can access their courses from any internet-linked computer.

eConnect

elggeConnect is a social networking platform similar to Facebook. It is powered by Elgg, a social networking platform for education offering elements of blogging, e-portfolios, news feed aggregation and file sharing. Each student is provided with a personal weblog, file repository, an online profile and an RSS reader. Additionally, all of a student’s content can be tagged with keywords so they can connect with other students with similar interests and create their own personal learning network.

Where eConnect differs from a commercial social network is the degree of control each user is given over who can access their content. Each profile item, blog post, or uploaded file can be assigned its own access restrictions from fully public to readable only by a particular group or individual.

eConnect has many features making it suitable for elearning. These include groups, communities and blogs that can be used for online classes where students can communicate in a new way with each other and with students in other schools in a managed, protected environment, creating a personal learning network. As a result this system provides a safe, fun social network retaining complete control over how it works.