Where+do+you+start?



Okay, so you have just been informed that you are going to teach an online course next year. Great, you're up for the challenge, maybe you even took an online course in college sometimes called [|e-Learning]. But the question you now have is, //**"Where do I start?"**//

Don't worry, many teachers have faced similar questions themselves when their Principal, IT Director or Superintendent asked them to teach their school's first or 100th online course. We are going to tear apart and look at ways that you can take your knowledge and expertise in your specific area of teaching in order to develop a killer online course. One that will challenge your students, satisfy any state or national objectives for your subject and one that you will be proud to share with students and colleagues alike.

//**What Can I Teach Online?**//

It doesn't matter what you teach, whether its merit badges to your local Boy Scout Troop, First Aid to a group of babysitters or Advanced Calculus, you can successfully put all of your "stuff" online in an organized, systematic and coherent sequence which will satisfy the objectives of almost any subject that can be taught. With the availability of numerous [|Learning Management Systems] (LMS), you will be able, help and some instruction, in a relatively short period of time be able to build a basic framework for your online course and then start to build your course.

//**Which LMS will I use?**//

As I said earlier, there are numerous LMS's that are available for your course. We will list a few and then move on to the one that we will be using throughout the rest of this lesson; [|Moodle]. Essentially, all LMS will allow you to a place to put all of the course work that you would like for your students to complete all in one place. You may add interesting links to websites that support a specific concept or idea, upload a [|.pdf] worksheet, insert audio or video files and also allow you to develop formal assessments such as quizzes or tests. You may have some experience with some of these learning platforms from your college years with [|WebCT] or [|BlackBoard] but they all basically do the same thing, they allow the teacher a place for all of the course work for their class.

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//**Notable Learning Management Systems**//
 * [|aTutor]
 * [|Blackboard Learning System]
 * [|CCNet]
 * [|Claroline]
 * [|Dokeos]
 * [|eCollege]
 * [|Fedena]
 * [|HotChalk]
 * [|ILIAS]
 * [|Jackson Creek Software]
 * [|JoomlaLMS]
 * [|Learn.com]
 * [|Meridian KSI]
 * [|Moodle]
 * [|Saba Learning Suite]
 * [|Sakai Project]
 * [|Schoology]
 * [|SharePointLMS]
 * [|Spiral Universe]
 * [|Thinking Cap]
 * [|TotalLMS]

So why do we use Moodle? Because Moodle is an [|Open Source] Software, meaning that Moodle is //**Free**// to its users. You may install Moodle, or the various modules with