Details of our Moodle-based Economics VLE are now available. We’ve had tremendous positive feedback on the trial version of the Economics VLE which has been developed over the last 15 months with the help of colleagues in several schools and colleges. Now your students and departmental colleagues can join in the collaborative approach which has been so successful to-date.
PRICING
We have set the pricing of the Economics Moodle VLE at a level which we hope will cover our annual running costs. The VLE is hosted and managed by Synergy Learning - we’ve gone for an industrial-strength, full-service installation which can withstand the high demands placed on it during the school year.
The pricing structure for Academic Year 2009/2010 is:
Smaller Institution (20 or fewer enrolled students) - £50 per institution (+VAT) for the year
Larger Institution (more than 20 enrolled students) - £75 per institution (+VAT) for the year.
The price quoted above is for all enrolled students and staff together (i.e. a network licence) - there are no extra per student charges.
To order a subscription to the VLE, please complete this contact form:
Request Subscription to the Economics VLE
You can also use the form to request a Teacher Evaluation Login which will last for 30 days
ABOUT THE ECONOMICS VLE
Geoff has written a brief introduction to the Economics VLE below:
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The tutor2u Virtual Learning Environment is built using the open-source Moodle platform and uses the latest version of Moodle currently available. Updates are installed as and when they become available. Moodle is a global development project designed to support a social constructionist framework of education.
Our aim is to develop a vibrant learning resource by encouraging teachers and students to engage in a variety of online activities.
The tutor2u VLE is designed to be collaborative both for students and teachers - in the sense that it is developed on a daily basis by teaching colleagues from schools and colleges who have subscribed. Teachers will be assigned teaching editing rights and assigned only to the teaching groups of their choice. The VLE is set up so that students will only see the assignments and other resources (including blogs and forum entries) that are specific to their allocated teaching group.
We encourage experimentation and an ongoing discussion about which teaching and learning activities work well in a Moodle environment. This is not a bells and whistles system built around expensive proprietary software. Instead it shares the guiding principles of the founders of the Moodle organisation that now encompasses over three million teachers around the world.
Our VLE for Economics for the 2009-10 academic year has four default courses available.
AS Micro
AS Macro
A2 Micro
A2 Macro
Each course is organised by topic and includes
- A comprehensive and dynamic glossary of terms
- Suites of multiple choice questions for students to attempt - automatically graded - with the scope for teachers to add new questions and amend tests as required from a question bank
- Links for guided reading for students
- Full functionality allowing teachers to set and mark assignments, create student workshops, online forums, wikis, student blogs and revision discussion rooms
- Presentations in PowerPoint format for revision work
- RSS feeds of breaking economics and business news from sites such as the BBC, Guardian and Economist.
The tutor2u VLE does not offer a specific teaching support system for subscribers. Instead we use the collective experience of teachers developing the resource and also the wealth of knowledge and help available through the forums on the main Moodle site.
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