INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER ENGINEERING International Journal of & TECHNOLOGY (IJCET) Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN

09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

ISSN 0976 6367(Print) ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), pp. 71-79 IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijcet.asp Journal Impact Factor (2012): 3.9580 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com

IJCET
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A STUDY ON USERS OF MOODLE THROUGH SARASIN MODEL

Maria Dominic1, Anthony Philomen Raj1, Sagayaraj Francis2, Saul Nicholas1 1 Department of MCA, Sacred Heart College, India 2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Pondicherry Engineering College, India dominic@shctpt.edu, philomen@shctpt.edu, fsfrancis@pec.edu, saul@shctpt.edu

ABSTRACT Education is a conscious attempt to promote learning in others [1]. E-learning provides greater freedom from the time and space constraints and allows more interactivity in teaching learning process. This benefits the learners more than the traditional learning [2]. Out of the various open sources or proprietary e-LMS we have customized and used MOODLE in our campus*. To evaluate this idea we made a study on the usage of it with respect to Sarasin Model and have recorded the findings in this paper. Keywords: Learning Styles, e-learning, e-learning models, e-learning open sources, MOODLE LEARNING Learning is acquiring new, which is existing within us, to bring out with the help of teaching method [3]. Different learners have different styles of learning. A learning style is a way by which the learner concentrates processes, digests and remembers. Understanding this process will make teaching and learning become more efficient since the teachers will become more aware of the learners characteristics. A synthesis of learning style theories about the learners characteristics from various theorist views are provided in [4]. One such theorist is Sarasin. In this paper we match Sarasins model [4] of learning auditory, visual and tactile/kinesthetic with the characteristics of MOODLE and conclude which of the features benefits/contributes more to the learning process in our campus. Sarasin classified the learning styles to three types as shown in Figure 1.

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

Visual Visual learners learn through two channels namely, Linguistic and Spatial.

Figure 1 Sarasin Model Learning Styles Linguistic Visual-linguistic learners learn more from reading and writing. They learn through written language and they remember the text even if they do not read more than once. Spatial Learners of visual-spatial type prefer to visualize their learning materials and hence they do better with charts, presentations, videos and other visual aids. They generally have difficulty with written language. Auditory Auditory learners often talk to themselves. They also may move their lips and read out loud. They may have difficulty with reading and writing tasks. They often do better talking to a colleague or a tape recorder and hearing what was heard. Kinesthetic Kinesthetic learners learn by doing themselves, experiencing and reflecting. The two channels of this learning are kinesthetic (movement) and tactile (touch). e-LEARNING Many conceive of e-learning as distance learning mostly self studied and lacking other dimensions of conventional teaching. It is a flawed misconception. The letter e as prefixed in e-mail, e-commerce, e-business stands for electronic. According to European Union (EU) it is the inclusion of all ICT in all learning systems and environment (formal, non formal) and according to American society for training and development (ASTD), e-learning covers a wide set of applications and process such as web based learning, computer based learning, virtual learning and digital collaboration. It includes delivery through internet / Intranet / extranet, audio, video, text, CD ROM etc., [5]. Even though there is so much hype around e-learning there are also limitations with regard to it. One such is limited audio-visual contact and experience which can never be as powerful as real time [5]. E-learning is made up of three components, namely enabling technology, learning content and learning design. Figure 2 depicts the component parts of e-learning [5].
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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

Figure 2 Components of e-learning Even though the teacher may be the subject expert and content developer but he has no control over the learning activities because e-learning is a team work between various stake holders such as subject expert, learning management system, web developer, graphic artists and the learner. e-LEARNING MODELS There is a variety of learning models in practice. The learning models can be classified according to the characteristics of learning. Table 1 lists the learning models and their characteristics [4].

Table 1 Learning Models Learning Models Sarasin Gregorc/ Butler Sims & Sims McCarthy Harb, Durrant, & Terry Auditory Abstract/ Sequential Cognitive Analytic Abstract/ Reflective Characteristics Visual Random/ Concrete Perceptual Imaginative Concrete Tactile/ Kinesthetic Concrete Behavioral/ Affective Dynamic Active/ Concrete

e-LEARNING OPEN SOURCES A search was made on the web for open source systems which can be used for elearning and it is providing in Table 2. These software are desktop based and can be installed in the local machine.

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

Table 2 Desktop based Software S.N o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Name OpenOffice.org Audacity CamStudio.org GIMP.org Handbrake.fr Mozilla Firefox SeaMonkey-Project.org Notepad++ Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) URL http://openoffice.org/ http://audacity.sourceforge.net http://camstudio.org/ http://gimp.org/ http://handbrake.fr/ www.mozillafirefox.us www.seamonkey-project.org www.notepad-plus-plus.org/ http://vue.tufts.edu/

The following Table 3 lists some of the e-learning software which works on client- server technology. These software need to be installed in the server and accessed and used by many clients (learners).

Table 3 Server based Software S.No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Name MOODLE ATutor WordPress.org MediaWiki phpBB StatusNet Piwik OpenWebAnalytics Sakai
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URL https://moodle.org/ http://atutor.ca/credits.php wordpress.org/ www.mediawiki.org/ https://www.phpbb.com/ status.net/ piwik.org/ www.openwebanalytics.com/ www.sakaiproject.org/

International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME MOODLE MOODLE[17] stands for "Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment." MOODLE along with BlackBoard [18] is one of the popular e-learning softwares used around the world. The main advantage of using MOODLE is that it is open source platform which can be downloaded and customized to our requirement and ably supported by group of developers. This was the main factor which made us to use this software in our college to popularize e-learning in our campus. MOODLE has been used in our campus from 2007 onwards.

Figure 3 Customized MOODLE Features in MOODLE Even though MOODLE provides a wide array of plug-ins which are constantly developed and uploaded for the user community, some of the commonly used features are as follows, 1. Online assignment(single and multiple file upload) 2. Chat 3. Quiz 4. Forum 5. Survey 6. Hot Pot 7. Wiki 8. Database 9. Glossary 10. Lesson 11. Bulletin board 12. Online evaluation 13. Report generation 14. Notification 15. Blogs 16. Question Bank 17. Legacy site files 18. Online users

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

VIEWING MOODLE THROUGH SARASIN MODEL Since 2007 onwards MOODLE has been used in our campus and been used by our faculty members and students. So to evaluate its impact on our learning community in the teaching learning process and to answer the following two research questions i) What is the learning style preferred by our students? ii) Does students learning style differ according to the gender? A study was done by considering the parameters provided in Sarasin model on a sample size of 160 students. A questionere collected data on the students preference on the features used by them in MOODLE namely, audio, video, animations, lexicon, mind mapping, online compilation to test their program and do projects, lecture materials like presentations, lecture notes, e-books, other references, discussion forum, messaging/chatting with peers and tutors, online quiz with automatic marking. The statistics of the data is given in Table 4. Then the following methodology was followed to interpret the data a. b. c. Initial data was collected. Mean (X) and Standard Deviation (SD) was computed for rows. Based on X and SD, the score has been classified into three levels, which is Less Usage / Moderate Usage / High Usage. These three indicators show the level of usage of the learning style. Categorization of the respondents was done by Indexing Statistics method [4]. Less Usage = X SD (1) High Usage = X + SD (2) Moderate Usage = X SD to X + SD (3) Table 4 provides the breakdown of the respondents with respect to gender and Table 5 and Figure 4 provides the overall relationship between the students and MOODLE with respect to the various learning styles mentioned in the model taken for study. Table 4 Break down of the respondents Gender Male Female Total Frequency 80 80 160 Percent 50.0 50.0 100.0

Table 5 Learning Style Vs Usage Style Audio Visual Kinesthet ic Less Usage 29 30 30 Moderat e Usage 108 90 90 High Usage 23 40 40

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

Figure 4 Learning Style Vs Usage

Table 6 Male respondents Style Audio Visual Kinesthet ic Less Usage 77 62 4 Moderat e Usage 3 18 52 High Usage 0 0 24

Figure 5 Male repondents

Table 7 Female respondents Style Audio Visual Kinestheti c Less Usage 80 55 1 Moderate Usage 0 24 58 High Usage 0 0 21

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International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 09766367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013), IAEME

Figure 6 Female repondents

CONCLUSION From this study, teachers got an insight on the learners attitude and their expectations which help them to fine tune their approach to make teaching learning process better in future. Figure 5 provides the result for the first research question about the learning style preferred by our students. The results of the study points out that, at present students learn much from the visual and kinesthetic learning through MOODLE, auditory comes the third. Regarding the results for the second research question, whether the learning style differs according to gender, Figure 5, 6 indicates that it is same as the results for overall. That is the results for both the gender matches, first comes kinesthetic followed by visual and audio with slight variations which can be viewed in the tables provided. This provided us with a insight and inspired us to go ahead with the experiment to develop an e-lms by means of the available open source tools in web 2.0 to incorporate collaboration and socialization [19] into the teaching learning process. REFERENCES 1. Lavanya Rajendran, Ramachandran Veilumuthu, A Cost-Effective Cloud Service for ELearning Video on Demand, European Journal of Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.55 No.4 (2011), pp.569-579 2. Sean Wolfgand Matsui Siqueira , Maria Helena Lima Baptista Braz , Rubens Nascimento Melo , e-learning content warehousing architecture, IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2002 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning 4. Nancy Csapo, Roger Hayen, The Role of Learning Styles in the Teaching/Learning Process, Central Michigan University, Volume VII, No. 1, 2006. 5. Kenneth Fee, Delivering e-learning: a complete strategy for design, application, and assessment, Published in Great Britain and the United States in 2009 by Kogan Page Limited, ISBN 978-0-7494-5397-8. 6. http://www.nwlink.com/donclark/hrd/styles/ 7. http://blog.matbury.com/2011/10/19/open-source-software-for-elearning/ 8. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/learning 9. http://www.learning-styles-online.com/ 10. http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm
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11. http://people.usd.edu/bwjames/tut/learning-style/ 12. http://www.missiontolearn.com/2009/05/definition-of-learning/ 13. Som Naidu, Ph. D, E-Learning, A Guidebook of Principles, Procedures and Practices, Publication Design and Coordination: Sanjaya Mishra, ISBN: 81-88770-04-3. 14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Other_models. 15. Richard M. Felder, Linda K. Silverman, Learning and Teaching Styles In Engineering Education, published in the Journal of Engineering Education, Engr. Education, 78(7), 674681 (1988). 16. Melanie Arthur, SPSS Companion for Research Methods,Revised Third Edition, Portland State University. 17. moodle.org 18. blackboard.org 19. Mohammed Al-Zoube, Samir Abou El-Seoud, Using Social Networking Sites as a Platform for E-Learning, ICL, 2009

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