moodlefairy's posterous

I’m just a small cog (teacher) in a large wheel (school) in a huge machine (Lancashire and Cumbria, NW England) As such, although I am passionate about Moodle, I don’t get to see the larger picture of  major initiatives. When I find a lack of progress frustrating, others are working very hard behind the scenes to move those initiatives on.  Not being on any committees or inner circles, I don’t  realise that, so this is my personal attempt (my own views, not those of my employers etc etc) to rationalise our current Moodle situation.

I first met Moodle in 2006 because my school Our Lady’s Catholic High School Preston was one of over 700 schools provided with a free Moodle installation as part of our broadband supply from the regional broadband consortium CLEO It was my opening to a new passion – and a new role – using, teaching with and eventually training with Moodle.  Although  as an individual school we couldn’t  access our files on the server to say, add new themes or modules or FTP in, the plus side of this was that we were regularly upgraded, we were kept up to date with security fixes, we had no limits on total upload (you should see our Site files!!) and if an admin accidentally broke their Moodle, a backup was always available. This was to a great extent down to LUNS who were responsible for large scale deployment over a significant part of North West England.

So what’s the issue? My school, like all the schools in Lancashire and Cumbria is still on Moodle 1.9. Over the next few weeks  I’ m giving  free “Moodle 2 taster sessions” to local schools in our area -anyone who wanted to come along. In fact, the first two sessions are full up and we have only a few places left for the last one. I’m looking forward to it because I get to show people Moodle 2, what it can do, allay their fears  and hand-hold them through the new features. Teachers in my own school  are beginning to take Moodle for granted – they need  some spice; they need some new functionality; they need to play with  a new Moodle.  So far so good. But  there is just one tiny cloud on the horizon: I don’t know when we 700+ schools will get  Moodle 2 and (being that small cog) I only partly understand what the delay is; I wish I understood it better.

Just over a year ago some sort of local re-organisation took place and now BT One Connect manage all our services, including Moodle.  While LUNS are successfully moving  on to newer Moodle pastures, our Moodle has ground to a halt. It still works fine (mostly) but our version of Moodle dates from October 2010. Our Moodle is  1.9.10 and the latest version is 1.9.16. Again – older versions work fine, but it is always better to try to be as up to date as possible. Any bugs found in our Moodle aren’t going to be fixed by Moodle HQ, and after June 2012 Moodle 1.9 will no longer be supported in terms of security issues. That means that if Jamie in Year 11 manages to hack into Moodle 1.9.10 we’re on our own. Or rather -we’re on our own with BT One Connect.

So when can we move to Moodle 2?  My impression in the Northern Hemisphere is that many establishments have been hanging on until Moodle 2 is more stable -which it most certainly is now. There have been retraining issues, not to mention whole mindset re-evaluation issues relating to course files. Many establishments will, I suspect, make the move over to 2 sometime this summer, giving time in the months before then to train admins and teaching staff and having time over the summer months to check everything has worked ok.

That’s fine if you are a single institution, albeit a large one. But what if you manage 700+ schools? It was always going to be a tough call, even before the takeover by BT One Connect. We have several non-standard modules: Book; Lightbox gallery; Questionnaire and HotPot and so there was no chance we could have been upgraded before as these were not yet ready for 2. (I think they mostly are now, although I am not sure whether you can upload zipped folders into Lightbox gallery and I am not sure whether 1.9 questionnaires transfer over to 2) Additionally, we have a MIS Upload tool created by ex-LUNS and now Moodle HQ developer Dan Poltawsksi. I don’t know if that needs upgrading for 2 but the new cohorts could help us out here.
And it’s not just about functionality – it’s about Pretty! If any of those 700+ schools had a customised them then they will need updating for 2 as well. We just use the Standard logo theme so it’s not an issue but we are really keen to try all the fancy new themes that come as standard in Moodle 2

So…. from my small cog point of view, we several issues (1) the magnitude of the job (2) contributed modules needing to work fine in 2 (3) themes needing updating (4) staff training issues. (OK so I have the knowledge to help out with one of those at least!) Those of you involved in similar large scale deployments -have I missed anything? I know you need PHP 5.3.2 and we have PHP 5.2.6 but I don’t see that as any great problem for these guys who just build their own PHP. I can’t see any issues on the server side of things (igorance is bliss!)

So why not get your own Moodle 2, you ask? We have several actually, not to mention @moodlefairy who has so many she can’t remember where they all live. I’ m going to use one to show our  colleagues in local schools the potential of Moodle 2. We wouldn’t wish to run one on our own server for 1000+ users. But (and here I am being a small cog again) my understanding is that the money is taken out at source, so if we got a Moodle 2 hosted outside of our suppliers we’d have to pay twice over for it. And if we wanted all our data from the Moodle 1.9 provided us at the moment,we’d have to pay for that option as well. So I guess in these times of restricted funding we shall have to wait and trust that BT One Connect have employed Moodle developers who are working to get Lancashire and Cumbria schools onto Moodle 2.  (Hopefully before Jamie hacks the system on the 1st of July..)

PS And I’m not even going to mention our Mahara version…

There are lots of blog posts and videos out there about avoiding the scroll of death – a couple of them I am responsible for myself, at least in 1.9 -here and here and in terms of editing courses there is also this here However, this current suggestion makes use of a contributed module from the Open University -the sub-page module available here but only in beta so use at your own risk.  You add it to your Moodle in the mod folder on your server and then when in a course, choose “subpage” from the “add a resource”drop down menu. And then what?  Basically, the module allows you to create pages (sub-pages!) to which you can add activities and resources to avoid cluttering up the main course page. Brilliant. Take a look at the video below:

On my travels I’m often asked “what does “Moodle” mean?” and I reel out the acronym Modular- Object -Oriented -Dynamic -Learning Environment, together with the information that “to moodle” is also a verb describing the  process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity. (See Moodle.org for more)

The word Moodle™ is trademarked, however, which means that if you are not an official Moodle Partner, then you can’t use the word Moodle alongside related paid services such as training or hosting. This is perfectly reasonable, because otherwise every Tom, Dick, Harry -or even Mary- would advertise themselves with the word and the logos -  and then potentially substandard services could bring the name into disrepute. Moodle Partners are vetted for quality (and also contribute back towards the development of Moodle.) Years ago when I first began blogging, I was naively ignorant of this and called my blog moodletraining – only to receive a warning within weeks that this was a no-no; hence its current plain but descriptive name. (Still, at least the warning meant people were reading it!)

This does make for interesting linguistic challenges though as an individual or little enterprise offering training: how can you advertise without using the word itself? While it’s clear from some websites, that a number of companies just ignore the rule completely, others are very imaginative – one in particular taking its inspiration from a Britvic softdrink Despite being very careful, the training centre at my school,OurLearning, fell foul of Moodle Partner wrath last summer because we had “Moodle” in the title of a couple of our courses. A quick Search and Replace rid us of all offending terms, but somehow, VLE 2 just doesn’t quite get the message across! Fortunately I am  allowed to say I am the author of books about Moodle,  but I confess I nearly went into hiding last year when, having cheerfully agreed to write  a foreword for Vinny Stocker’s Science Teaching with Moodle 2 my free copy arrived emblazoned with “Moodle trainer and Consultant” on the front cover. Noooooooo!!  I didn’t call myself  that, honest.

I’d imagine that  while the trademark rules apply to the words written online and on paper, in general conversation it’s not quite as rigid. However, Paula, our training co-ordinator, is so paranoid about it that she refuses to use the term even when talking on the telephone, for fear, I suspect, that the Trademark Police might have tapped her phone and heard her using the “M-word” innappropriately. (It’s ok; she doesn’t read this blog!) Most times that doesn’t matter, but it did cause some confusion in September when she was trying to explain to a potential client that although it does say we offer VLE courses, actually, Mary is unable to provide training on Microsoft Sharepoint…

Of course, thoughtless use of terminology can backfire in the opposite way too: I went to a school in Oldham to present Moodle to the staff on an INSET day. I talked about Our Lady’s use of Moodle; I showed them example Moodle courses with good practice, explained how Moodle would save them time on marking, motivate their students, how the Moodle community would offer free help and support… and at the end of my hour slot, one lady, with a particularly puzzled expression,  raised her hand: “Excuse me – but -what exactly IS Moodle?” she asked. Before I was able to formulate a response, her colleague nudged her: “It’s the VLE” she explained.  Enlightenment shone across the first lady’s face: “Oh -THE VLE!!” she exclaimed; “why didn’t she say that?!”

Do you like Moodle but it sometimes does your head in? Here is your chance to have your say to the developers on what they should be working on during 2012. Martin Dougiamas has released a quick survey (4 questions only) which you can complete here.

I am about to fill it in for me but it just got me thinking about some of the enhancements I would like to see. To be honest, a lot of them have already happened with Moodle 2. One big hope I have is that the simple forms feature being developed by LUNs will be taken onboard - it makes Moodling a lot more user-friendly to the newcomer. Other than that, and in no particular order, here are some thoughts:

• Conditional activities available for whole topics AND for blocks. I've seen the first requested several times and I think it makes perfect sense. I'd also like the feature extended to blocks.
• The super feedback/questionnaire/survey module- this was promised but seems to be on the back burner, for understandable reasons in terms of people's busy lives. Feedback works OK;Questionnaire is better but is a contributed module. It would be nice to have the best of all in one , standard module.
• Make the gradebook easier to manage. A particular bugbear of Our Lady's Chief Moodler Mark Greenwood who is always asking me "get your Moodle friends to fix the gradebook!" In the quest to give it more functionality, it has become more complex and daunting.
• Templates on the online text assignments. The assignment module is being rewritten by the guys at Netspot who have put out a call for suggestions.  This again is something that has been raised on a number of occasions -  if you are a teacher of younger children or if you are a teacher of languages, it is useful to be able to give a scaffold for the students to base their answer around. I know there are workarounds and I know that the student could copy and paste a table you might add in the assignment description - but they are just that: workarounds. It would be helpful to have the option as standard.
• I shall probably think of more as I publish this post. If I do - I will come back and add them!

What’s a Moodleboo? A mini Moodle podcast on Audioboo. It would be fun – and quick! – to record a Moodle suggestion, idea or item of news each day. Well, nearly each day. We’ll do something different on Fridays!  :)

The inspiration behind Moodleboo was   IdeasMeister Mark Greenwood The motivation came from  two other people. The first was John Mannion, History Teacher and author of History Teaching with Moodle 2 I met John at my first Moodle Moot in 2009 and he said one of the kindest things ever to me: that he had been encouraged to go further with Moodle because of some podcasts I used to do using podbean. I moved away from podbean to this current  Wordpress blog when I decided I was more comfortable writing than speaking, but I never forgot his lovely compliment.  Podcasting has moved on apace in the last couple of years and now with the prevalence of smartphones, posting quickly to Audioboo makes it simple for educators to get a message across.

The second inspiration for Moodleboo was Principal Teacher of ICT and Computing at Our Lady’s High School Preston, Alan O’Donohoe. A huge fan of Moodle and Mahara (naturally!) Alan is currently  on a quest to give Computing a major place in the school curriculum. He’s been recording – literally – his journey using Audioboo and you can listen to him here.

I don’t have an iphone or anything androidy, despite my frequent hint-dropping that I’ve no way of testing Moodle for mobiles… However, armed with microphone and the brilliant Audacity, I will either offer some Moodleboos myself or cajole some colleagues and pupils into giving us some Moodle moments.  You will be able to access them from Monday 12th December on Audioboo here or subscribe via RSS here.

Three things have  got me thinking this weekend: the first, on Friday. A colleague of mine in the OurLearning training centre based in my school said that it was all very well my posting articles and videos about the latest nuances in Moodle 2.2 -  but what about your average Moodler who doesn't know what version they are on; doesn't care  how to (for instance) enable Gravatars -  but would simply like some basic ideas for their school Moodle?

The second was yesterday as I did my occasional forray into the stats of this blog. It's interesting from time to time to see which keywords people are using  in google that bring them  to your site and I noticed over the last three months a big increase in the likes of "primary Moodle" /"Moodle for young kids"/"Moodle for Primary school teachers"/"primary kids Moodle"

And the third was last night I had an email from a Moodle admin in the US planning on rolling out Moodle to the primary schools in his district. He wanted to know if I would be updating my book Moodle 1.9 for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds for Moodle 2 in time for summer 2012. I'd love to - but I haven't been asked by Packt, so I don't know their plans!

So.. the upshot of this is that I'm going "Back to Basics" this week, starting with Primary schools. I go out each week to our feeder primaries and help the teachers there with Moodle and also work with pupils on Moodle courses. In fact. I'm making another primary Moodle course with them before Christmas.  I've agreed to put together some simple ideas each day and blog about them on the OurLearning blog. Nothing revolutionary; nothing that hasn't already been mentioned before (indeed some even by me years ago) but just basic Moodling to get you started and save you time.  Then after that I'll do the same for Secondary schools and share with you some of the stuff our teachers are doing behind the doors of Our Lady's Moodle.

I really like talking to people about Moodle! Last year at my school, Our Lady’s Catholic High School Preston, we held a lovely “coffee afternoon” for local schools where we had “show and tell” about how we’d been using Moodle over the last five years. It left me enthused and if it hadn’t been for the site supervisor locking up, I’d happily have carried on sharing experiences.

In 2012, Lancashire and Cumbria schools are more than likely to have their Moodles upgraded to Moodle 2 and so we thought it would be nice to repeat the informal “coffee afternoon” and invite local schools to come and see what you can do with Moodle 2. Our county advisers will be offering free training nearer the time, so this is just an introduction to the sorts of things you can achieve with the new version – and also, hopefully, I can allay any fears about the upgrade. It’s going to take place in the OurLearning training centre based in the grounds of our school, but although there will be some training involved (we’ll show you how to use Moodle 2) it isn’t a paid for official session; it’s just one of our community events. The full details are here so I won’t repeat them – but I am looking forward to showing people in our local region Moodle 2, and I hope to see you there!

Gravatars – or “globally recognised avatars” – they’re all around us:) Perhaps your gravatar will appear if you comment on this blog post? Moving with the times and popularity of gravatars, Moodle 2.2, due out in a couple of weeks’ time, now allows users to bring in automatically their gravatar as their Moodle profile image. Here’s a little screencast showing you how:

Rubrics, according to wikipedia, are  an assessment tool for communicating expectations of quality I wasn’t familiar with this term in UK English but maybe that’s just me? I would call them grading or marking criteria and the addition of this feature in Moodle will be a huge boon to those educators who rely on them to make their grading more specific and pertinent. And they are coming in Moodle 2.2 in December !  Credit to  Moodlers Marina Glancy and  David Mudrak (send him a postcard :) ) who has also  documented the new features here ready for Moodle 2.2. You can try rubrics out on the test site here, which I used to make this quick (and very basic) screencast. Thanks David – and looking forward to seeing this new feature.