The tutor2u virtual learning environment for AS and A2 economics was developed and tested last year and used successfully with students from a group of different schools. The revamped version which incorporates new features within the upgraded Moodle version 1.9 will be available for teachers and students from the 1st of September. Details are below.
Our VLE for Economics has four default courses available.
AS Micro (Markets and Market Failure)
AS Macro (National Economy and Government Economic Policy)
A2 Micro (Business Economics and the Distribution of Income)
A2 Macro (National and International Economy)
Each of these ‘topic-based’ courses offers:
A comprehensive glossary of terms
Suites of multiple choice questions for students to attempt - automatically graded - with the scope to add new questions and amend tests as required
Hundreds of external links to promote broader extension reading - organised by topic
A core micro and macro wiki if you want your students to work collaboratively in developing new notes and resources
Full functionality in terms of teachers being able to set and mark assignments, create student workshops, online forums and revision chat rooms
Revision presentations in powerpoint format for revision work
RSS feeds of breaking economics and business news from sites such as the BBC, Guardian and Economist.
This year teachers interested in using the Tutor2u VLE have two main options
(1) Default Course: Option 1 is to subscribe their students to the default courses - in this setting, your students can be organised into school and teaching groups (simply let us know when the groups change and your group listings will be adjusted).
Teachers will have non-editing rights for these courses - Non-editing teachers can teach in courses and grade students, but may not alter activities. Choosing this option means that your students will have access to the VLE course being developed and run during the year for Eton students - new resources and assignments are added virtually every day during the year and we will be very happy to add in fresh assignments and other content suggested to us by subscribing schools.
(2) Your own stand alone course: Option 2 will give you a default copy of any of the September 2008 courses - available for the sole use of your students.
Teachers from the school will be assigned teaching editing rights. Teachers can do anything within a course, including changing the order of teaching topics, creating new activities and grading students. You have the option of adding extra questions etc to your quizzes and courses and changing everything on offer.
Please note that this stand-alone course will not be added to by Tutor2u during the teaching year but you will have complete flexibility to amend and organise the course as you want to meet your own individual demands. We will create your student names and groups as required and we can assign individual teachers to each group if needed. We can provide informal guidance on developing the course - although the best approach is learning by doing using the excellent user forums on Moodle
Subscription details
The subscription rates for the VLE this year are as follows:
Per course per individual student - £10 for one year
All four courses (2 x AS and 2 x A2) per individual student - £30 for one year
We are happy to offer a discount of up to 50% on these rates for schools wanting a subscription for larger teaching groups - please contact us about this if interested,
Teachers interested in having a look at the default courses as they stand are invited to apply for a free guest subscription which will last for seven days. Please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for details. An authentic academic email address will be required for all guest subscriptions. I will be happy to discuss the best options for you on the VLE if you need to contact me .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
There will be a “hands-on session” for teachers wanting to develop their own VLE at the Cambridge Economics Conference in November - provisional details are here
Geoff
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