Abstract:

A workshop on Moodle as a new Learning Management System (LMS) was given to the teachers of College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences (CAMS), Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman, in the academic summer semester- 2010. The workshop was designed to help CAMS college teachers to develop their agricultural academic courses on Moodle platform and to improve the effectiveness of their teaching methods as well. Also, to engage students in active leaning and improve their educational technology. Fourteen participants including academic faculties and their technical staffs attended the workshop affectively. A copy of online CROP3514 Fruit Production course, which was developed on Moodle, was used by some participants to practice on it. Participants were taught how to use Moodle components and how to upload all their course materials; Lecture outlines, objectives, weekly lectures, laboratory sessions, term projects and supplemental reading materials such as research or popular articles. Participants also learned how to announce for field trips, quizzes, exams, exam marks, and deadlines for assignments on Moodle platform. Moreover, participants were taught how to use learning forum and how to interact as teachers in the different types of discussion forums with their students. They learned how to use the calendar, chat and messaging tools, as well as including various resources in their courses such as photographs, YouTube videos and Google documents for student project work. As a result, the workshop was useful, with four participants, developing their courses on Moodle system in the Fall and spring semesters-2010-2011. A trend showed that the developed courses on Moodle facilitated and strengthen teachers-students interaction, learning communication and made learning more interest and effective to students. Students learning thinking became more critical and deeper. More workshops on E-learning at CAMS are needed.

Keywords:

Workshop, Moodle, CAMS, students, course materials, teachers-students.