This presentation will demonstrate an innovative, time-saving implementation for distance and open education online self-paced Spanish courses offered online by Athabasca University (AU) and delivered through Moodle. Spanish courses have always had very high enrollments, and their tutors have heavy workloads. As in any language course, an important amount of Spanish students’ learning takes place through the tutor marked written exercises (TMWEs). Traditionally, these assignments include many questions and sub-questions with variable answers, which meant they had to be graded manually. Previously, students were doing their TMWEs on paper or as Word files that went back and forth by post mail or by email, which made the grading work very laborious and repetitive. To overcome the bottleneck, we designed a new way to implement and automate the delivery and marking of Spanish courses in Moodle that eases the tutors’ marking burden by around 65 per cent. The time thus gained can now be used to guide students in other ways. Since question types in Moodle are somehow limited, we used Hot Potatoes to produce many other types of questions that can be imported and included into Moodle quizzes. This new method is being used successfully across all Spanish courses and now is being introduced to other language courses successfully. We are now enhancing and refining this successful method.
Of Interest to: Online and distance education, Post-secondary education, Instructional designers, Educational technologists
