Jay Melton
JALTCALL 2009
Toyo Gakuen University, Hongo Campus
Tokyo, Japan
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Room 1402
Abstract
It has been well established that extensive reading should be an integral part of any language program seeking to expand learners' potential. Many options exist to keep track of students' progress. These range from paper-based solutions, where students write out by hand what they read, to sophisticated, and often proprietary, computer-based tracking systems that include testing for comprehension. This presentation outlines development of a computer-based solution that lies somewhere in between paper-based and proprietary systems. The learning management system moodle and its database activity module will be the focus of the presentation. Moodle's database activity module provides an extremely flexible way to collect a variety of data types. Teachers can use the module to track their students' reading over any time period chosen. Teachers can choose what data is to be collected according to their needs. The data can then be sorted according to the data submitted. For example, students' ID numbers, book titles and series, number of pages, ratings, or any other data field created can be used to examine students' reading reports. Data can be exported into CSV, Excel, and/or ODS files. Attendees of this presentation should leave with a better idea of how to adapt the moodle database module to collect data from their own students. Privacy issues are considered in the presentation.
APA Reference
Melton, J. (2009). Tracking students' reading with the moodle database module. Paper presented at JALTCALL 2009, Tokyo, Japan. Retrieved June 5, 2009 from http://jklmelton.net/annual/2009/jaltcall/
