I just gave a one hour presentation on "How to Create an International Graduate Level Course Using Moodle" to "Moodlemoot Virtual Conference" (MMVC11) via video conference. The video and audio worked fine, but I was not able to get the screen share function to work. So instead I pasted the web address for each slide to the text chat window. As with most such text chat systems, it turns URLs into links, so the participants just needed to click to see the slide. This might be all that is needed in many cases. It has advantages over a screen share, as a smaller amount of data is transmitted. Also it has security advantage, as the participant has to have access to the web page to see it. If an unauthorised person gets into the video conferecne they will still not be able to see the slides.
Showing posts with label Moodle Moot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moodle Moot. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Testing and Tagging at Conference
One of the more unusual requirements as presenter at Moodle Moot Au 2010 was to have my netbook tested for electrical safety. I was worried this would be a long and slow process, with my having to find an electrician in the basement of the conference centre. But there were three technicians from Jim’s Test & Tag Australia, each with test equipment, next to the conference registration desk.
The technician first examined the power supply, then attached two electrodes, pressed a button on the test unit, waited a few seconds and looked at a screen. They then pressed another button and a label was printed to be attached to the lead. As my power supply has a removable mains cable, this process had to be repeated for that cable and also for my 3G router, which has its own plug-pack. Even so the whole process only took a couple of minutes.
This all seems a little excessive, as laptops use double insulated external power supplies. These are designed to an international safety standard. Even if there was a failure in the unit, my laptop itself is encased in insulating plastic. About the worst which would happen is the computer would be destroyed by excessive voltage, without harming the operator. But better to be safe than sorry, and at international conferences there is an assortment of equipment brought along with electrical connections of uncertain origin. While I may feel safe from my laptop, I don't know about the one the person next to me brought along.
The technician first examined the power supply, then attached two electrodes, pressed a button on the test unit, waited a few seconds and looked at a screen. They then pressed another button and a label was printed to be attached to the lead. As my power supply has a removable mains cable, this process had to be repeated for that cable and also for my 3G router, which has its own plug-pack. Even so the whole process only took a couple of minutes.
This all seems a little excessive, as laptops use double insulated external power supplies. These are designed to an international safety standard. Even if there was a failure in the unit, my laptop itself is encased in insulating plastic. About the worst which would happen is the computer would be destroyed by excessive voltage, without harming the operator. But better to be safe than sorry, and at international conferences there is an assortment of equipment brought along with electrical connections of uncertain origin. While I may feel safe from my laptop, I don't know about the one the person next to me brought along.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
TAFE VC Learning Management System
One of the vendors at Moodle Moot Au 2010 was TAFE VC. This is funded by the Victorian Government to provide online services for TAFEs and other organisations delivering vocational training. TAFE VC provide a hosted Moodle service and other e-learning tools as their TAFE VC Learning Management System. This appears to be needed as Victorian TAFEs do not have a state wide online system to use. It would seem to offer interesting flexibility, as it can also include commercial vocational training providers as well as government ones. There are commercial non-government e-learning hosting services which should also be considered. But particularly for small education providers with limited experience of e-learning software, this could be a good option to get started.
Echo 360 Lecture Capture System
One of the vendors at Moodle Moot Au 2010 was Echo 360 with their Lecture Capture System. This grew out of Lectopia (or iLecture System) developed at the University of WA. It happens I had seen an early version of this system in use at the UWA's Albany campus, when a consultant for government.Echo 360 now offer custom hardware for lecture theatres, called their "EchoSystem Capture Appliance". This takes VGA from a computer, along with video and audio and digitises it all. The files are sent to a central server, incorporated in the LMS and if needed, Podcast. Echo 360 had a demonstration unit with a transparent case on display. I suggested offering this model to the Department of Defence and other security organisations, as it would allow the unit to be easily inspected for tampering.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Learning Asian Languages Online
The last presentation I chaired at Moodle Moot Au 2010 was "Moodle and the flexible delivery of small enrolment languages" by Dr. McComas Taylor (Australian National University). He gave an inspirational presentation about how he teaches Sanskrit in blended and pure e-learning modes.
McComas humeriously described the problem that there are only about five students for Sanskrit in a typical city. To make a viable course he uses a blended course technique, with Moodle for the content delivery. Because Sanskrit has not changed for the last thousand years, much of the course content can be recorded and provided to the student unchanged each year. This frees up the lecturer from delivering the same lecturer over and over again. This time can be spent with students individually.
This I believe will be the essence of how to apply e-learning at leading universities, such as the ANU, and I have described as "e-oxbridge" style.
administrators who have difficulty with a format which breaks the boundaries between on and off campus students, local and overseas. The on campus students meet in a physical room and the off campus students meet using McComas asserted that the impediment to this style of education is not the students (who like it) or the technology (which works fine) but the university adiministration.
In addition to Moodle, McComas uses tools such as Wimba classroom and also prerecorded audio lessons, with accompanying notes. The audio can be downloaded to an MP3 player for practice. Also the assessment is aligned with the course material, which McComas claimed is not the case for many courses. Students are required to record their own voice and upload it for assessment. Live tutorials are also videoed using ANU's own DLD and Podcast.
One thought which occurred to me with this and the previous work, these courses neatly break into a traditional textbook, media additions and then the interactive components. These might be done using separate tools, such as an e-book for the text.
McComas argues this techniques can be applied to Asian languages important to Australia's security. As an election is about to be called I have suggested to McComas that he prepare a short proposal to create an online institute to teach languages important to Australia online. Such an institute would be much cheaper than one fighter aircraft and much more effective in protecting the nation: by being able to talk to people in our own language we can turn enemies into allies.
McComas humeriously described the problem that there are only about five students for Sanskrit in a typical city. To make a viable course he uses a blended course technique, with Moodle for the content delivery. Because Sanskrit has not changed for the last thousand years, much of the course content can be recorded and provided to the student unchanged each year. This frees up the lecturer from delivering the same lecturer over and over again. This time can be spent with students individually.
This I believe will be the essence of how to apply e-learning at leading universities, such as the ANU, and I have described as "e-oxbridge" style.
administrators who have difficulty with a format which breaks the boundaries between on and off campus students, local and overseas. The on campus students meet in a physical room and the off campus students meet using McComas asserted that the impediment to this style of education is not the students (who like it) or the technology (which works fine) but the university adiministration.
In addition to Moodle, McComas uses tools such as Wimba classroom and also prerecorded audio lessons, with accompanying notes. The audio can be downloaded to an MP3 player for practice. Also the assessment is aligned with the course material, which McComas claimed is not the case for many courses. Students are required to record their own voice and upload it for assessment. Live tutorials are also videoed using ANU's own DLD and Podcast.
One thought which occurred to me with this and the previous work, these courses neatly break into a traditional textbook, media additions and then the interactive components. These might be done using separate tools, such as an e-book for the text.
McComas argues this techniques can be applied to Asian languages important to Australia's security. As an election is about to be called I have suggested to McComas that he prepare a short proposal to create an online institute to teach languages important to Australia online. Such an institute would be much cheaper than one fighter aircraft and much more effective in protecting the nation: by being able to talk to people in our own language we can turn enemies into allies.
Learning English on-line
Greetings from the last day of Moodle Moot Au 2010 in Melbourne, which I just chaired the morning session on teaching languages on-line. Neil McRudden and Gareth Hughes (Study Group) talked about "Moodle Enhanced Language Learning: Our journey with Embassy Smart Express and Moodle".
Study Group is a private language training provider who use Moodle and their own bespoke software. Each student has a netbook in the language classroom and the teacher can see what each student is working on. Students also use a traditional English language textbook.
Students can do listening and grammar exercises in their own time using Moodle. There is also a speaking phonetic dictionary provided online.
Neil and Gareth poitned out that these types of courses have to deliver results in weeks, rather than the months a university course has. Moodle forums are used to provide a place for students to practice written English, with feedback from the teacher. Moodle's quiz module is used for assessment, using multiple choice and enter the word questions, as well as assessment of written composition.
One detail I noticed is that Study Group appear to have cut a hole in the lids of their netbooks, so that the teacher at the front of the class can see that the student's computer is turned on.
Study Group is a private language training provider who use Moodle and their own bespoke software. Each student has a netbook in the language classroom and the teacher can see what each student is working on. Students also use a traditional English language textbook.
Students can do listening and grammar exercises in their own time using Moodle. There is also a speaking phonetic dictionary provided online.
Neil and Gareth poitned out that these types of courses have to deliver results in weeks, rather than the months a university course has. Moodle forums are used to provide a place for students to practice written English, with feedback from the teacher. Moodle's quiz module is used for assessment, using multiple choice and enter the word questions, as well as assessment of written composition.
One detail I noticed is that Study Group appear to have cut a hole in the lids of their netbooks, so that the teacher at the front of the class can see that the student's computer is turned on.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Pedagogy 2.0
At Moodle Moot Au 2010 Michael Sankey (University of Southern Queensland) talked about "Incorporating Web2.0, Pedagogy 2.0 and Moodle 2.0 into your learning and teaching agenda: But just wait one sec". This was a moderately useful presentation, despite the problematic title.
Web 2.0 is essentially a meaningless marketing term not a technical one. Michael seemed to be using it to refer to social networking. He pointed out some of the obvious problems with using third party social networking web sites in education. However, these are not new problems, being essentially the same as using any form of external forum for education.
Also I have difficulty with descriptions of teaching done at university as being "pedagogy". This is because it misses the essential point about university: the students are (mostly) adults, not children.
Michael described a future where everything is not in the LMS. This is much the same issue as with other online systems, where external tools can be used. Some content might be on a non-Moodle system, but still within the university system, other content on external public systems.
Michael mentioned the problem for some of the pedagogy being embedded in the content and not being able to shared publicly. I did not understand what the issue was, as if the same "open access" approach to education is take as with public funded research publishing, then there is no reason not to publish course material freely.
Michael pointed out that voice tools in Wimba has been most popular. I did not find this surprising, as voice is easier to get to work than video and provides most of the level of communication needed. Video adds little extra benefit, but considerably increases the technical complexity and cost.
Web 2.0 is essentially a meaningless marketing term not a technical one. Michael seemed to be using it to refer to social networking. He pointed out some of the obvious problems with using third party social networking web sites in education. However, these are not new problems, being essentially the same as using any form of external forum for education.
Also I have difficulty with descriptions of teaching done at university as being "pedagogy". This is because it misses the essential point about university: the students are (mostly) adults, not children.
Michael described a future where everything is not in the LMS. This is much the same issue as with other online systems, where external tools can be used. Some content might be on a non-Moodle system, but still within the university system, other content on external public systems.
Michael mentioned the problem for some of the pedagogy being embedded in the content and not being able to shared publicly. I did not understand what the issue was, as if the same "open access" approach to education is take as with public funded research publishing, then there is no reason not to publish course material freely.
Michael pointed out that voice tools in Wimba has been most popular. I did not find this surprising, as voice is easier to get to work than video and provides most of the level of communication needed. Video adds little extra benefit, but considerably increases the technical complexity and cost.
Student engagement with e-learning
In "Academic Analytics: Indicators of Engagement" today at Moodle Moot Au 2010 Colin Beer (Central Queensland University) provided a very interesting analysis of information in a learning management system (LMS) to show a positive correlation between students results and their use of the system. International students use the LMS less, on campus students a little more and domestic online students most. Also more staff participation in online forums (posting to forums) correlated with more student participation and so with better student results. Also older students use the LMS more, as do females.
Students "click" on Blackboard more than the equivalent Moodle course. This may be due to Moodle's "flatter" interface. However, the time on site is similar.
One interesting finding is that students who fail a course tend to interact more with the LMS in the first few weeks, but their participation then tapers off.
Colin suggested this data can be used to categorise students who are likely below average so they can be given extra help. I have some ethical issues with this, as the students are being prejudged as to their likely results. Students who are so identified and still fail and those who are not identified and fail may have grounds for appeal. One option o avoid some moral and legal dilemmas would be to have the system advise the student but not tell the teacher.
Another interesting use for the data is to report on staff engagement with the students. There are worrying aspects to this as well, with university administrators, or event the federal government being able to automatically monitor staff engagement.
One issue at question time was how real-time discussion compares to store and forward forums. This could provide interesting analysis of different types of active participation by students.
What was most interesting about these statistics is not so much the individual results, but the idea that statistical analysis can be easily done using the data in the LMS. This can be done much more easily and more regularly than for conventional courses, where there is little data available on student engagement. In a was I suspect that online courses are subject to far more scrutiny than face to face courses ever were.
In a second talk, also from Central Queensland University, Ken Clark gave "Suggestions for future Moodle analytics: conceptions of teaching, visibility and reflection". The premise is that staff interaction with students (on an LMS or elsewhere) is important to results. The claim was made that there is a difference between what academics say they do and what they actually do. With an LMS it is possible to see what the staff member and students actually do. It occurs to me that this could be one factor holding back use of LMS: staff don't want anyone looking at what they do.
Ken found that 27% of Blackboard courses did not have a discussion forum. Reasons posited for this are large student cohorts (up to 970 students) and a lack of staff student training in using forums.
With Moodle forums were made mandatory and so only 11% did not have one. But only 33% of the forums had more than 5 posts from the staff, indicating token compliance. It was postulated that staff will use more forums as they get used to them.
Average number of postings from all staff was 10 forum postings per staff member. This seemed very low to me.
What I found lacking from this presentation was any of this discussion of what forums were used for. If forums are not an integral part of the course, then there would be little incentive for students or staff to use them. I use forums as one of the primary teaching methods in my Green ICT online course, with student participation in forums a significant proportion of the course assessment. Students are required to participate on-line to pass the course, so there is active student participation. But I use a mentored approach to helping the students, with private feedback to each students each week, so there are few postings to the forums by the tutor.
The last presentation of the session was "Moodle and the Scholarship of Teaching", by Philip Marriott (University of South Australia). Phillip is a rare academic who works comfortably in business as well as university having been working at Netspot recently. In this presentation he argued that Moodle would not change education on its own, but may be a catalyst. Phillip argues there is a cycle with educational technology: excitement, disappointment and ending with teacher bashing. Conventional wisdom suggests that these technology fail because they marginalise teachers. Phillip argues Moodle allows teachers to design courses the way they want and so will be different. I have my doubts about this as Moodle's options can be limited, with all teachers required to use the same template at an
institution. Also the system could be used to closely monitor what the
staff do.
The core idea Phillip was presenting is a scholarship of teaching. He
suggested looking at how different institutions consult teachers on
Moodle use. Also he suggested looking at Moodle in the second year of
implementation.
At question time I suggested that teachers should act in a professional way and decide how technologies should be used and then tell the administrators in their institutions that this is how it will be done. This is an ethical obligation for any professional: they are required to act in the interests of their clients, regardless of orders to the contrary.
ps: The room for this session seated about 80 and used a plasma screen of about 2m which worked well. The Melbourne Convention Centre has very well designed integrated lecterns. These are movable, being attached by power, data and a/v cables plugged into the wall. The lectern has a work surface about 900 mm wide. There is a flat panel LCD screen beside a touch control panel at the top, then an area for papers and laptop.
There is a windows PC built in with corded mouse on the desktop and a keyboard in a pull out drawer. There are two USB ports on the desktop, and a microphone on a stork. There is a back-lit panel on the front of the lectern with the conference poster in it. One improvement I would like to see is replacing the poster with a screen.
Students "click" on Blackboard more than the equivalent Moodle course. This may be due to Moodle's "flatter" interface. However, the time on site is similar.
One interesting finding is that students who fail a course tend to interact more with the LMS in the first few weeks, but their participation then tapers off.
Colin suggested this data can be used to categorise students who are likely below average so they can be given extra help. I have some ethical issues with this, as the students are being prejudged as to their likely results. Students who are so identified and still fail and those who are not identified and fail may have grounds for appeal. One option o avoid some moral and legal dilemmas would be to have the system advise the student but not tell the teacher.
Another interesting use for the data is to report on staff engagement with the students. There are worrying aspects to this as well, with university administrators, or event the federal government being able to automatically monitor staff engagement.
One issue at question time was how real-time discussion compares to store and forward forums. This could provide interesting analysis of different types of active participation by students.
What was most interesting about these statistics is not so much the individual results, but the idea that statistical analysis can be easily done using the data in the LMS. This can be done much more easily and more regularly than for conventional courses, where there is little data available on student engagement. In a was I suspect that online courses are subject to far more scrutiny than face to face courses ever were.
In a second talk, also from Central Queensland University, Ken Clark gave "Suggestions for future Moodle analytics: conceptions of teaching, visibility and reflection". The premise is that staff interaction with students (on an LMS or elsewhere) is important to results. The claim was made that there is a difference between what academics say they do and what they actually do. With an LMS it is possible to see what the staff member and students actually do. It occurs to me that this could be one factor holding back use of LMS: staff don't want anyone looking at what they do.
Ken found that 27% of Blackboard courses did not have a discussion forum. Reasons posited for this are large student cohorts (up to 970 students) and a lack of staff student training in using forums.
With Moodle forums were made mandatory and so only 11% did not have one. But only 33% of the forums had more than 5 posts from the staff, indicating token compliance. It was postulated that staff will use more forums as they get used to them.
Average number of postings from all staff was 10 forum postings per staff member. This seemed very low to me.
What I found lacking from this presentation was any of this discussion of what forums were used for. If forums are not an integral part of the course, then there would be little incentive for students or staff to use them. I use forums as one of the primary teaching methods in my Green ICT online course, with student participation in forums a significant proportion of the course assessment. Students are required to participate on-line to pass the course, so there is active student participation. But I use a mentored approach to helping the students, with private feedback to each students each week, so there are few postings to the forums by the tutor.
The last presentation of the session was "Moodle and the Scholarship of Teaching", by Philip Marriott (University of South Australia). Phillip is a rare academic who works comfortably in business as well as university having been working at Netspot recently. In this presentation he argued that Moodle would not change education on its own, but may be a catalyst. Phillip argues there is a cycle with educational technology: excitement, disappointment and ending with teacher bashing. Conventional wisdom suggests that these technology fail because they marginalise teachers. Phillip argues Moodle allows teachers to design courses the way they want and so will be different. I have my doubts about this as Moodle's options can be limited, with all teachers required to use the same template at an
institution. Also the system could be used to closely monitor what the
staff do.
The core idea Phillip was presenting is a scholarship of teaching. He
suggested looking at how different institutions consult teachers on
Moodle use. Also he suggested looking at Moodle in the second year of
implementation.
At question time I suggested that teachers should act in a professional way and decide how technologies should be used and then tell the administrators in their institutions that this is how it will be done. This is an ethical obligation for any professional: they are required to act in the interests of their clients, regardless of orders to the contrary.
ps: The room for this session seated about 80 and used a plasma screen of about 2m which worked well. The Melbourne Convention Centre has very well designed integrated lecterns. These are movable, being attached by power, data and a/v cables plugged into the wall. The lectern has a work surface about 900 mm wide. There is a flat panel LCD screen beside a touch control panel at the top, then an area for papers and laptop.
There is a windows PC built in with corded mouse on the desktop and a keyboard in a pull out drawer. There are two USB ports on the desktop, and a microphone on a stork. There is a back-lit panel on the front of the lectern with the conference poster in it. One improvement I would like to see is replacing the poster with a screen.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Moodle Across Courses
Greetings from from Moodle Moot Au 2010 where the last formal session of the day is a University Sector Meeting. One issue raised was how to get a program wide view of what a student is doing. Moodle treats each course as a separate entity, but students will frequently do several courses at once and several sequentially. There was discussion of projects for adding features for this to Moodle. I suggested using additional open source tools, such as the Mahara e-portfolio, Alfresco content repository and Jasper Business Intelligence package, rather than carrying out too much customisation of Moodle.
Legal Online Learning
Greetings from Moodle Moot Au 2010 where Aliya Steed (ANU) is talking about "Moving in- and out-of-role: Safe & unsafe spaces in online simulation learning". ANU uses a virtual legal practice to assist postgraduate law students to gain some practical experience. Students form simulated three person legal practices via the UK developed SIMulated Professional Learning Environment (SIMPLE). Real professional lawyers then set the students tasks and see how they perform. The students are placed under pressure to perform, but with the reassurance that real clients would not be harmed by mistakes made by the students. This is a powerful technique, which I use for my Green ICT course at ANU: in that case the students undertake real projects for their real employer (or if they do not have an employer a ANU IT manager acts as the employer).One interesting aspects of work place simulations for education is that these are becoming more real. Not only is the sophistication of the simulations improving, but real work is becoming more virtual as more use is made of online tools for communication. As an example, lawyers such as Philip Argy conduct international intellectual property arbitration online. Even aircraft pilots can do most of their training in a simulation and increasing numbers fly real aircraft remotely from a desktop computer.
It occurred to me that ANU's approach might be usefully combined with elements of USQ's use of Second Life to simulate a courtroom.
It occurred to me that ANU's approach might be usefully combined with elements of USQ's use of Second Life to simulate a courtroom.
Moodle for iPhone and Android
Unfortunately I missed the keynote presentation for Moodle Moot Au 2010 as I was still trying to get my slides to work. So my first session was Mobile Learning
with "Moodle Mobile" by Romain Mallard, Angela Branco Moreno and Cesar Barizon (Digital SK), followed by myself with "Using Moodle for Postgraduate Professional Education with eBooks and Smartphones" (ANU) and "Moodle4iPhone project" by Julian Ridden (Pukunui Technology). All three of us had a similar message: don't build special phone "apps" for Moodle, instead make sure the web features used are compatible with smart phones, including the Apple iPhone and Google Andriod.
Julian talked about the Moodle4iPhones project, which has expanded to now include Android phones as well as iPhones. New code is due shortly. Limiting smart phone development to iPhone and Android seems a reasonable compromise, until there is more HTML5 standard support on smart phones.
Julian pointed out that a link to the Moodle content could be placed on the Apple iPhone front page, so it looks just like an App, without needing to develop an app. One issue the
presentation raised was that it can be assumed there is "Flash" on all devices, except Apple iPhones and iPads. Given that Apple devices are so popular, there will need to be a way to support them. Moodle4iphone uses th clever workaround of replacing the flash video file extension with a mpeg4 one automatically if the user has an Apple iPad or iPhone. This
just requires the content creator to remember to provide a version of their video in both flash and Mpeg 4 formats (should be possible with configure video creation systems to do this automatically). I did wonder if a simpler solution was not to use Flash in the first place.
My takeaway message from this was not to worry about software for mobile devices, just worry about suitable course design for mobile users and assume Moodle will be able to support them. This still raises issues about how a student is likely to use a mobile device in a course compared to a desktop computer. This has implications for course design.
One issue I raised in my presentation and not addressed by the other speakers, was what to do about offline access. An app (or even a printed book) has the advanatge that once you have it you do not need Internet access. As discussed in my presentation HTML5 has an option for off-line access. It should be feasible to easily enable this for mobile and other browsers. HTML5 seems to be progressing much quicker than I was expecting, and, as an example, my conference presentation was done using HTML5, not Powerpoint.
An interesting unrelated comment was that Moodle 2 is taking up a lot of the time of Moodle developers.
with "Moodle Mobile" by Romain Mallard, Angela Branco Moreno and Cesar Barizon (Digital SK), followed by myself with "Using Moodle for Postgraduate Professional Education with eBooks and Smartphones" (ANU) and "Moodle4iPhone project" by Julian Ridden (Pukunui Technology). All three of us had a similar message: don't build special phone "apps" for Moodle, instead make sure the web features used are compatible with smart phones, including the Apple iPhone and Google Andriod.
Julian talked about the Moodle4iPhones project, which has expanded to now include Android phones as well as iPhones. New code is due shortly. Limiting smart phone development to iPhone and Android seems a reasonable compromise, until there is more HTML5 standard support on smart phones.
Julian pointed out that a link to the Moodle content could be placed on the Apple iPhone front page, so it looks just like an App, without needing to develop an app. One issue the
presentation raised was that it can be assumed there is "Flash" on all devices, except Apple iPhones and iPads. Given that Apple devices are so popular, there will need to be a way to support them. Moodle4iphone uses th clever workaround of replacing the flash video file extension with a mpeg4 one automatically if the user has an Apple iPad or iPhone. This
just requires the content creator to remember to provide a version of their video in both flash and Mpeg 4 formats (should be possible with configure video creation systems to do this automatically). I did wonder if a simpler solution was not to use Flash in the first place.
My takeaway message from this was not to worry about software for mobile devices, just worry about suitable course design for mobile users and assume Moodle will be able to support them. This still raises issues about how a student is likely to use a mobile device in a course compared to a desktop computer. This has implications for course design.
One issue I raised in my presentation and not addressed by the other speakers, was what to do about offline access. An app (or even a printed book) has the advanatge that once you have it you do not need Internet access. As discussed in my presentation HTML5 has an option for off-line access. It should be feasible to easily enable this for mobile and other browsers. HTML5 seems to be progressing much quicker than I was expecting, and, as an example, my conference presentation was done using HTML5, not Powerpoint.
An interesting unrelated comment was that Moodle 2 is taking up a lot of the time of Moodle developers.
Wold first Moodle Moot HTML5 Presentation
Greetings from Moodle Moot Au 2010 at the award-winning Melbourne Convention Centre. My talk on professional e-learning went okay. There were some anxious minutes when in the well equipped (and staffed) speaker's preparation room I found my Slidy based presentation was not compatible with the Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 being used. Instead of carefully crafted web slides, I got a blank blue screen. With a quick update to HTML Slidy, I got this to work. As my web page was using HTML5 (a hot topic at the conference) I am claiming this as a world first for a Moodle Moot presentation. My presentation was in the mobile Moodle session and there seemed to be broad agreement that the way to go was with HTML5 tweaked slightly for Apple iPhone/iPad and Google Android, not using "Apps". More on that in the next post.
By the way during my talk I mentioned how I saw US Marines doing "mobile computing" on a warship: they used gaffer (duct) tape to hold their laptops in place. After the talk I bought a coffee at the convention centre cafe (just to the left as you enter from the main door). As well as coffee, the shop sells items for people setting up exhibition standards., including duct tape, which I took as a good omen.
By the way during my talk I mentioned how I saw US Marines doing "mobile computing" on a warship: they used gaffer (duct) tape to hold their laptops in place. After the talk I bought a coffee at the convention centre cafe (just to the left as you enter from the main door). As well as coffee, the shop sells items for people setting up exhibition standards., including duct tape, which I took as a good omen.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Learning Language Online
Greetings from Melbourne, where I have arrived for Moodle Moot Au 2010. As well as speaking on Monday, I am chairing the Language Learning session Wednesday morning. Learning language online sounds an interesting topic, but one I know little about (apart from once advising on if Moodle would work with ancient Hebrew). But the chairing should not be too hard as there are only two speakers:
- Moodle Enhanced Language Learning: Our journey with Embassy Smart Express and Moodle by Neil McRudden, Gareth Hughes (Study Group)
-
Moodle and the flexible delivery of small enrolment languages, by McComas Taylor (The Australian National University).
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Canberra Presentations at Moodle Moot AU 2010
There are 12 presentation from Canberra at Moodle Moot AU 2010 from educators, researchers, developers and administrators on using the Moodle Learning Management System in vocational and higher education :
- The eLearn project – redefining learning at CIT (part 1),
Margaret O'Connell, Jaci Ganendran, Aaron Pont (Canberra Institute of Technology) - The eLearn project – redefining learning at CIT (part 2), Margaret O'Connell, Jaci Ganendran, Aaron Pont (Canberra Institute of Technology)
- EQUELLA and Moodle Panel Session, Dr Andy Syson (Coventry University), Jaci Ganendran, Margaret O'Connell (Canberra Institute of Technology), Dan McFadyen (The Learning Edge International)
- Developing a Unit Outline Repository linked through Moodle , Helen Carter, Shane Nuessler (University of Canberra)
- Managing a non-vanilla Enterprise Moodle – Pushing the Limits while Minimising the Risks, Alan Arnold (University of Canberra), James Strong (NetSpot)
- Using Moodle for Postgraduate Professional Education with eBooks and Smartphones by Tom Worthington (ANU)
- Moodle for Opera Singers by Grazia Scotellaro, Grazia Micciche' (ANU)
- Moving in- and out-of-role: Safe & unsafe spaces in online simulation learning, by Aliya Steed, Margie Rowe (ANU)
- Crash, or Crash Through - Moving to Moodle in Two Weeks by Marianne Dickie, Ilona Van Galen (ANU)
- Project Governance: keeping the Good Ship Moodle on course by Karen Visser (ANU)
- Translating Learning Outcomes in Moodle by Srinivas Chemboli, Lynette Johns-Boast, Lauren Kane (ANU)
- Moodle and the flexible delivery of small enrolment languages by McComas Taylor (ANU)
Friday, July 09, 2010
ANU Presentations at Moodle Moot AU 2010
There are seven presentation from the Australian National University at Moodle Moot AU 2010 from educators, researchers, developers and administrators on using the Moodle Learning Management System for everything from engineering to opera:
- Using Moodle for Postgraduate Professional Education with eBooks and Smartphones by Tom Worthington
- Moodle for Opera Singers by Grazia Scotellaro, Grazia Micciche'
- Moving in- and out-of-role: Safe & unsafe spaces in online simulation learning, by Aliya Steed, Margie Rowe
- Crash, or Crash Through - Moving to Moodle in Two Weeks by Marianne Dickie, Ilona Van Galen
- Project Governance: keeping the Good Ship Moodle on course by Karen Visser
- Translating Learning Outcomes in Moodle by Srinivas Chemboli, Lynette Johns-Boast, Lauren Kane
- Moodle and the flexible delivery of small enrolment languages by McComas Taylor
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