Technology Supported Learning Platform:
Moodle Integrated Academic Course

Yıl 2010, Cilt: 11 Sayı: 2, 146 - 160, 01.06.2010

Saziye Yaman

Öz

It is substantially accepted that constructivism proposes knowledge as “not a fixed object”; constructed by an individual through her own experiences. As a learning theory, constructivism in education emphasizes collaborative learning, such as authentic challenging projects involving in students, teachers and experts in the learning community. Its goal is to create learning communities that are more closely related to the collaborative practice of the real world as strongly reflected in social constructivist idea. The technologies used in the filed of education will support learning through collaborative practices, using learners’ experiences for “meaning making”. The challenge now is to extend the educational networks so that it offers access to learning resources, online storage and tools for communication and management not just within the limitation of school and time. Through learning platforms, such as Moodle, teachers and administrators may bring hardware, software and supporting services together to enable more effective conditions among teachers and students. In this study, Moodle was used to support the 4th grade pre-service language teachers’ (student teachers) one of the academic courses, named as “Field Experience”. The student teachers were expected to prepare graduation theses in the field of English language teaching. Moodle was integrated as a technological learning aid and used as online support throughout a semester course. So, we will discuss how Moodle was integrated as a learning platform, while discussing, the use of Moodle as a “course supporter” process, steps and the sample activities will be presented as well.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Moodle, Social/Constructivism, Learning Platform, Technology Supported Language Learning