the potential student benefits

Some thoughts that came up during the London meeting regarding how the different aspects of the Moodle can be utilized to most benefit students and teachers.
 
Grammar
The grammar section to my mind works most effectively in class as a resources that allows teachers to spend individual time with each student. In the computer room teachers can deliver a review lesson without having to select one grammar topic that most students have an issue with. By virtue of the fact that moodle provides both grammatical explanations and exercises students can be directed by their teacher to the topic that they most need to practice (this is not restricted to grammar by any means but I see grammar as the most likely subject for individual in class learning). In essence what this does is allows each individual student to practice what they need to and the teacher can circulate the class and answer questions as required. The only way to achieve such individual attention in a non-virtual class would be for the teacher to copy materials for each student. This may be achievable in a class of 3 but would be extremely impractical for 12 students.

Reading and Listening
Both passive language skills that students need to and should work on out side of class. There are numerous possibilities for these resources to be used by teachers in class however having a platform, much like a library, where students can access reading and listening material at their level means that they can easily get to it. In the future i see this as being more and more functional as students can use it on mobile devices while travelling or at home in the evenings. This is an infinitely more practical and cost effective way of encouraging listening and reading outside of school that lending books and tapes to students who may or may not return them.

Vocabulary
The vocabulary section of moodle is something that I see as growing and developing as students and teachers use it more. There is huge possibilities for class lists, for levels, for textbooks, for exams, the list really is endless and moodle allows you to merge lists, tag lists and upload and download them meaning that teachers can do a variety of things with them from having their own online vocabulary box which can be used to create games, to a constantly growing set of word lists from textbooks and courses which can be manipulated in many ways.