In preparing for a Moodle workshop–where the Moodle Glossary is prominently featured–I ran across some wonderful ideas for using Moodle Glossary as a part of one’s virtual classroom. One of the neat features of Moodle Glossary is that you can create content that can be imported from a variety of sources, such as the Kids Online Dictionary (link further below) and anything that can create XML. This ability to import XML and have it formatted properly for import into Moodle Glossary and Quiz modules is great for folks.

As I was mulling over sharing those resources on the blog–the as yet incomplete workshop series appears at Moodle Mayhem in the Workshops section–I received an email from one of the authors of the Moodle-Quiz Converter, Yulia Ivanova. Not surprisingly, in my search for resources, I’d stumbled on Yulia’s Moodle-Quiz/Glossary converter in my research (Monday night). However, what a nice surprise to get an email from one of the authors just two days later! Ah, the power of connections that the Web enables. As Seth Godin points out in his book, Unleashing the Ideavirus:

With word of mouse (word of mouth augmented by the power of online communication), you can tell 100 friends, or a thousand friends. . .the moment you connect to the Internet, you connect, at some level, to all of us.

Source: Seth Godin, Unleashing the Ideavirus

That aside, how neat to connect with Yulia and her development team (including Olga and Alexandr ) and see their slideshow which they developed and posted on SlideShare to illustrate it about 1 week ago:

Some of the features include (as listed on the web site):

• Supported question types: Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Essay, Description, True/False, Cloze, Numerical.
• Supports different types of glossary entries – Excel files (term TAB definition), term – definition, term: definition, term break definition.
• Encodes your textfile in UTF-8
• Unlimited number of questions and answers.
• Feedback and General Feedback for questions
• Use HTML tags in Question Text and Feedback. Supports embedded TeX formulas. 

I’m definitely going to add it to my toolkit of Moodle tools! Thanks to Yulia Ivanova for the email making me aware of this and the encouragement to share it here at Around the Corner!

Update 06/09/2010: Apparently, MoodleNews covered this announcement already! Ah well, still worth mentioning!

In the meantime, here is what I came up with for my workshop…stolen liberally from around the web:

Introduction to the Glossary A glossary is a Moodle module that allows you–or your students–to create a collection of useful, searchable vocabulary items. Not only can you have text in a Moodle glossary, but you can also embed images, audio, and video recordings. A neat feature of a Moodle glossary is that any word used in your Moodle course that is also in the glossary is automatically linked. That means that if your students encounter an unfamiliar word that also happens to be a glossary term, they can click on it and see it’s meaning. Glossaries are searchable, can be categorized, you can enhance your glossary with multimedia (e.g. a first grade student pronouncing the word), and allow students to add comments to each glossary entry. use it in conjunction with the Random Glossary block to have fresh glossary concepts appearing on your Moodle course’s main page.  As with any other Moodle module, you are limited only by your imagination! Videos 1 – How to Create a Glossary – View Video 2 – How to Import a Glossary –  View Video 3 – How to Export a Glossary – View Video 4 – Create/Get Glossary from The Kids Open Dictionary Builder – View Video Instructional Applications There are many ways to use a glossary to enhance learning in your virtual classroom. Here are a few: Book Reviews – Have students do book reviews, including embedded pictures of book covers garnered from the web. View this example. Collaborative Dictionary – Have students work singly or in groups to add to a glossary of unfamiliar words throughout a unit of study. Students could add comments to glossary items, sharing examples of where they have encountered the word in the text. Collaborative Encyclopedia – Have students create an encyclopedia of what they are learning about a person, or a people, a concept, a place, an event, a thing etc. Favorite Web Sites – Aggregate your favorite web sites and/or resources. You can do the same with student email addresses. Feature Student Work – Your students have a great piece drawing/picture or piece of writing? Why not add it to a glossary of exemplary student work in the Glossary. Glossary can be set to show a different item each time the Moodle course is loaded, displaying a new student work each time. Frequently Asked Questions – Tired of answering the same questions over and over again? Make them into an FAQ (be sure to select the FAQ option when creating the glossary). Inspirational/Motivational Quotes – Collect inspirational/motivational quotes encountered in student readings. Introduce YourSelf – Create entries where each student–and teacher–in the class is an entry in the glossary, the definition is a few sentences about themselves, and a picture, video or audio. Kids Open Dictionary Builder – Add/create glossary entries via The Kids Open Dictionary Builder and then import the resulting file into your Moodle. Mini-Research Project – Based on science, have students create glossary entries that reflect parts of a plant (or the human body or whatever), including photos, etc. Prompt for Impromptu Talk – Enter a list of topics students can speak on–impromptu–with the random glossary entry block. Students can take turns coming to the front of the room to speak for 2 minutes on the subject, as a glossary entry, that pops up when the page is reloaded.  Recipe Archive – Have students create recipes and put them in the Glossary. Student of the Week – With glossary, you can add a photo of each student without identification. The random glossary block shows the photo of that student as student of the week; every student gets displayed.  View this example. Tip of the Day – Create a glossary with tips of the day. References The ideas and resources on this page came from a variety of sources listed below: Creative Glossary Practices, Moodle.org Forum Using Moodle book Chapter 8: Glossaries Exchange Samples in the Moodle Demo site for glossaries shared in the Moodle Exchange set up to look at. Online Moodle XML Converter allows to easily create glossaries from existing materials with minimum effort. Supports different types of formatting. Language Correction

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