Assignment

Pedagogical Use of IIUM iTa'leem

As we all know, IIUM e-Learning now has migrated to Moodle which is also known as iTa'leem. This new e-learning has more features and the interface looks more up to date compared to the previous e-learning (LMS). 

Previous e-Learning (LMS)

New e-Learning (iTaleem)

All registered students in IIUM can directly log in to iTa'leem using matric number & password (the same password used in myiium). After we log in to the portal, in the middle, we can see all subject that we've enrolled for that particullar semester. This is done automatically by iTa'leem, we don't have to find any subjects manually like in LMS.

On the left sidebar there is navigation which will direct us the home of the website, homepage of our site, our profile and our registered courses. Bellow that, we can find a quick links to edit our profile. There is also the list of our courses, and one search box for forum.

On right side bar, we can find the Main Menu which contains FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about the portal for staffs and students, iTa'leem forum which you can subscribe if you are interested in it, and also manuals and things to download in order to help you to use iTa'leem better like Browsers, Plugins, PDF converter and also quiz creator. Bellow main menu, we can find iTa'leem help desk, with the email address written there. So, if we face any problem we can contact the administrators through that email address.

Example of forums in iTa'leem

In my opinion, iTa'leem is user friendly. It doesn't required lots of time for me to be able to use it. There are many features that helps in facilitating e-learning. Some of the features are file uploader, so lecturers can upload files in many format like, words, excel, powerpoints, pdf, sound file, etc. In addition, topics divisions are divided clearly in iTa'leem, even though some lecturers still mix up everything in one topic. But if the file is uploaded according to the topic, it is very easy for us to find the files and if we forget which one did we learn first, we can just check from the portal. 

Topics Division

In each courses registered, there is news forum, and if there is new post, we will be notified. But the problem with the forum is that we cannot delete the post. For example if we make double posts, or wrong post, we can only edit or delete it within 1 minute. Moreover, students cannot start a discussion, it should be the lecturer who asked the question first and the students can answer, I guess this is because of the administration's setting. We can also send private message to other students that enrolled in that subject and also the lecturers.

Notification

Another good things about iTa'leem, lecturers can upload the students carry marks together with the percentage of each task. But, most of lecturers haven't used this feature yet.

Grade report

We can edit our profile like country, name, email address, etc. I would like to recommend to change your email address, from the one that's assigned by the system, to the one that you use the most, so that if there is new update or post you will be notified through your email. Furthermore, it also shows the first time and the latest time we access the portal. So, the students can't lie to the lecturers saying that he/she haven't accessed the portal because it will be shown there.

My profile

However, iTa'leem also have some deficiency that needs to be improved. For example, we cannot look back at the course we've registered in the previous semester, maybe we should have something like archive so the learning will be more integrated, and we can look back to the previous notes. I've tried too look at the previous session, but I cannot access the course anymore, maybe because my name is not listed in that subject anymore. And we cannot see other courses if we're not enrolled in it. 

In my opinion, the 2 sides bar are a little bit too complicated, which may confuse the users. It has so many subtopic, which most of them actually have the same function. 

Furthermore if we look into designing principle, where Repetition is important the part bellow shows a little bit of inconsistency in terms of navigation. In the site's homepage the navigations menu was is located in the left bar side, and in students' homepage its located in the right bar side. I feel that this might puzzled the users.

Up : Main site homepage
Bellow : Students' homepage      

Even though it has some limitation, overall, IIUM iTa'leem has a very good use in accelerating learning, with many improvement compared to the previous e-learning portal. Unfortunately, not all lecturers knows how to maximized the function of iTa'leem. and not all lecturers have migrated to iTa'leem, some of them are still using LMS, and some of lecturers does not even using online portal at all. I hope this migration might make the quality of education in IIUM get better.