Using Tutor LMS of WordPress to Create Mini-Module
Word Storyboard for Mini Module
Digital Checklist for Mini-Module
Finding an Authoring Tool
Finding an authoring tool to use was a struggle. I'm not ready to invest in a tool. I've always felt comfortable learning and working with Open Source tools and so I gave Moodle a try. I've been planning this for several weeks so I've watched several videos by Sali Kaceli. He offers so many wonderful tutorials and watching him build a course made me want to try too. It took me several days to finally successfully download Moodle and make my laptop a server. But then I realized that after making the course I wouldn't be able to share it without an LMS.
All along this process, I planned out and storyboarded my mini-module but the day for it to be posted was growing closer and I still couldn't figure things out. My daughter suggested I use Tutor LMS Pro with WordPress. I already had a blog on WordPress and so she showed me how easy the tool was. I thought that might be the way to go because if I had a question I would not have to spend valuable time watching a ton of tutorials to find the answer to one roadblock I was having.
Having created the Storyboard in Word and collected all items I needed using my Digital Checklist, I was able to start building my mini-module. The tool defined a lot of what I could do. I wanted to have survey questions but the tool did not offer them. I wanted to have a few drop down interactions but those are not in the tool either. I also wanted to have a discussion and the final project would be posted by the students to allow them to be a community of learners sharing their learning and experience repurposing the Concentration game. But this tool only had a Q&A thread. So I tailored my interactions to match the tool.
I made an intro welcome video using OBS and Movie Maker for editing. I also trimmed into it a piece of a creative commons video I found on YouTube CC to show the concentration game cards used in action. I also set up videos for my students to watch and learn from. The problem with using YouTube is that when the video ends the screen has several other video tiles across it. I would prefer to just have a black screen but did not know how to prevent YouTube from doing that.
Other technical issues I ran into were all the options in my questions appear to start with a lowercase first letter even though they are loaded as capital and I have no idea why that was happening or how to fix it. And I planned to put in feedback but the tool does not have an option for feedback in question responses. Also my portfolio is built on Wix and I have no idea how to link it from Wix to WordPress so that viewers can see my course for free. I set it as free but so far every time I try the link I end up having to enroll myself to have access to the free class.
All in all, I've learned a ton! But there's still so much more to get a handle on. It's frustrating when you imagine something and the tools you have cannot perform and you have to structure your content to the tool rather than to the learning you envisioned.