moodlefairy’s posterous

During the long months last year that I spent writing my book Moodle for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds, I was comforted by the thought that another Moodle colleague João Pedro Soares Fernandes was also toiling away on his publication - which I am glad to see has just now come out.  It’s a great read -in fact, I spent all today reading it (instead of marking) and have learned a lot.  There is a sample chapter you can download here.  It has to be said though, that Moodle 1.9 Multimedia is about 75% Multimedia and 25%  Moodle , but that is exactly how it should be: this book is aimed at those who already know the basics of uploading resources and creating activities in Moodle  and who are now looking for more exciting ways to enhance their students’ learning. While Moodle can do a lot of wonderful things - don’t I know it - sometimes it is useful to look outside of its Walled Garden to the Wider Web and gather in the Best of the Rest. This is what João’s book does: it covers, thoroughly, practically and in an easy-to-grasp manner a wide variety of  image, sound and video applications that can be embedded in Moodle or work alongside Moodle to the benefit of teacher and student. The full details are here but I particularly enjoyed the chapters on pictures (using GIMP) sound (with VLC and Audacity) and video (including instructions for Movie Maker and Photostory) Wherever possible he refers the reader to  free or  Open Source software and includes a huge range of “fun” Web 2.0 apps, many of which I know and love (Voki/Voicethread/Jing/Everything Google) and some new to me in the sphere of mind-mapping/ floor planning…oh and many more.. There are sections on assessment  with HotPotatoes and J-Clic and videoconferencing with Google Chat and DimDim. Most useful of all I felt  though, is the chapter dealing with Copyright, an extremely important issue in these times when we could (in theory) get any image, sound or movie we want off the internet without a second thought. João reminds us what we should and should not do in this respect. In conclusion: an enjoyable read! This book does not replace a Beginners’ Moodle manual such as Moodle For Teaching 7-14 Year Olds,  or Ian Wild’s Moodle Course Conversion but is complementary, offering additional functionality with more engaging features for those teachers who are ready to raise their Moodling up to the  next inspiring level -and take their students with them!