This is sort of a two part post…

I recently joined the Moodle Monthly team and started off by telling my experience of implementing Moodle into a school district.

Stopping on that note – I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about this great new site, Moodlemonthly.com. By now, most of you already know : ) but Joseph Thibault started up the site and it has multiple daily posts with up to date information, breaking news and resources. Check it out and follow @moodlenews (Moodle Monthly Twitter handle) on Twitter.

Okay, back to my series of blog posts that will be on Moodle Monthly about my experience with implementing Moodle – I’ll be breaking down the process into segments based on topics over the next few weeks. After I’m done I will probably collect the links and write up a post on Moodlerific to reference all of the posts in one place.

I’ve recently been asked to review the book Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques by William Rice and Susan Smith Nash published by Packt Publishing. This book is about “creative ways to build powerful and effective online courses”.

I’m especially excited to read this book and learn more about classroom applications. I know quite a bit from an admin/techy role, now what I need to learn more about is not how to use the features but how to integrate it into a lesson to create an effective activity for students.

Check back in a few weeks for my review!

To hold you over check out an extracted part of the book called “Instructional Material” for free!

In my last post mentioning some cool screenshots (posted by Moodlemonthly.com) of an iPhone app for Moodle it was brought to my attention there are several Mobile Moodle projects.

Ignatia/Inge de Waard commented

hi all, the screenshots made available are in fact screenshots from a collaboration between the Institute of Tropical Medicine Alexander von Humboldt (IMTAvH) in Lima and the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp. We were working on it with a Peruvian/Belgian team. I posted the team effort and project here:
http://tinyurl.com/yapp736

Check out  the blog post explaining effort!

Today Moodle Monthly wrote the blog post “Mobile Moodle is COMING (screen shots available)” which showed some awesome screenshots of Moodle on the iPhone and gave a link to the official Moodle site with a discussion about Mobile Moodle.

“Martin announced at the #imoot2010 that MoodleHQ will be working on an iphone app once Moodle2 is finished.” – (via @moodleman on twitter)

I feel as though Mobile Moodle will create tons of opportunities for classroom and student use. Just a few ideas off hand include student response systems (instant feedback), no need for checking out computer labs and 24/7 connection with Moodle courses (if using an iPhone, smartphone..) for teachers and students.. extending the school day is always a plus.

Check out the full post at Moodlemonthly.com or join the discussion at moodle.org!

Edit: There are several different Mobile Moodle projects, applications and discussions but the specific project mentioned and screenshots shown on moodlemonthly.com are from the site: http://www.bravenewcode.com/products/wptouch/

Are you like me, who either missed some iMoot 2010 sessions or you attended a session while another one you wanted to go to was going on? Check out the repeat session!

Posted at imoot.org by Julian Ridden:

Has this happened to you over the past 36 hours?

• A great session was on at 3am when you were in your right mind sleeping peacefully
• Two awesome sessions were on at the same time making you choose favourites.
• You were on Twitter and heard cool stuff about a session that you just didn’t think of attending.

If this is you then have we got just the right answer to perk you up again. In your program you may have noticed that all the previously live delivered sessions are now available in “Repeat” mode

Read the full post here!

Below are just some live blogging notes and my stream of thoughts. Not organized at all but I highlighted a few key items I found interesting. Sorry if I noted anything wrong as I was listening and typing.

Panel 1 – moodle.com

Presenters: Martin Dougiamas and others (I can’t remember their names)

Ask questions directly to the moodle HQ team in Perth. What are their development processes? Where does funding come from? Who is the best foosball player?

This was just a Q & A with Martin and others at the Moodle HQ. I noted a few questions. If you haven’t already checked out the replay check it out – if you’re registered!

Question I asked:

briefly exploring an installation of moodle 2.0 dev the navigation (docking) seems a bit different and something to get used to. have you done any user groups to see how “regular” teachers will react and adapt? as an admin i witness a lot of frustration with “change” after they get used to something..

Their Response: One of Tomaz Lasic’s first jobs will be testing/working with this. They rely on people like “me” and the Moodle Tracker to help them out.

My After Thoughts: “Techy” or people like me are different than regular teachers. Regular teachers won’t go on the tracker, they don’t even know what it is. It’s the lower techy users that I’m worried about. I’m worried it will turn them away, make them frustrated. Is there any user groups strictly with teachers who are not that tech savy, users who don’t even know about the Moodle.org!

Question I asked:

will the journal module be in the core and will it be gradeable?

Their Response: The journal module will not be in the Moodle 2.0 core but still available for download if it’s kept up. The online assignment will replace it.

My After Thoughts: Isn’t there a difference between journal and online assignment? I think there are a few differences that a teacher would want in journal that isn’t in online assignment – like repeated journaling – not having a “one and done” assignment – something ongoing. I’ll have to look at this.

Question I asked:

are there major upgrades in blogs? will there be comments on blogs? also will there be an option to make the blogs a course module instead of everyone with shared courses seeing each others – lots of complaints about seeing user blog enteries they don’t care about

Their Response: There are comments on blogs already. RSS external blogs into blogs (like Wordpress). They said blogs = forums pretty much. There is a new forum type called blog forum type which looks more like a blog. Sounds interesting!

Question Asked:

In Forums: Is there any way to set a default for all users to not be subscribed to forums automatically? On that note, will Moodle 2.0 have a central place for users to control emails they get from a Moodle site? At the moment there are subscriptions (forums), message settings and settings in the profile.

Their Response: This is available at modules | forum | default you can change that.

My After Thoughts: I either heard wrong and they didn’t mean this or it will be in Moodle 2.0. I’m not sure, but I couldn’t find this in my Moodle 1.9.7 version.

Other Notes:

The Feedback module will NOT be in the Moodle 2.0 core which was planned before. They also talked about how the Questionnaire and Feedback module will somehow work together and merge into something new called “Survey”. This will combine the best features and allow Questionnaires and Feedback to transfer into a “Survey”.

I’m not sure if “Survey” will totally replace both modules and if so I’m not sure when.

B-04: Making Moodle Funky by Bending the Code!

Presenter: Lewis Carr

AWESOME session!

• quick edit – turn editing on – change weeks/topics, short code, more settings on the course homepage instead of having to go into the Course Settings – not on moodle.org plugins/modules – hard coded.
• Sweet Moodle user and course ajax search – very useful for admins – I would use this every day.
• Course Format: no weeks or topic number — “clear format” – modified weekly topics format and told it not to display the numbers
• moodle bar (like on the iMoote site) – will be publicly available soon – go to moodle tracker and his website
• iphone theme – iphone theme in own folder “We detected an iphone theme would you like to switch to iphone theme?
• iphone app/mobile will include all features..like quiz… use it as a “student response system”.. YES
• user agent switch – test in different browsers

Just a quick note to remind everyone to sign up for the first ever Moodle Moot online – iMoot 2010! Read more about it or register here!

For those of you already attending follow iMoot2010 on Twitter and use the Twitter hash tag #imoot2010.

I haven’t done one of these for awhile so I’ll try and gather up all my saved links from the past weeks!

Moodle Monthly – An awesome new site by Joseph Thibault

Moodle Monthly is a collaborative project bringing order to news and information pertaining to the open source project and learning management system called Moodle.

First look at Moodle 2.0: html editor – From Moodle Monthly

Posts from Helen Foster

• New Moodle QA testing site (1-20-10)
• More Moodle twitter accounts (1-22-10)
• YouTube block update (1-26-10)

Moodle Moots coming up!

• Register for the 2010 iMoot! The schedule is now up.
• Midwest Moodle Moot – July 26-28th in Indiana – Martin Dougiamas will be attending and will be the key note speaker!

Check out the 2010 Midwest Moodle Moot site for information about the upcoming Moot on July 26th through the 28th. Martin Dougiamas will attend and present the keynote (awesome!).

Conference presenters will receive a 40% discount off of the early bird registration conference rate and workshop leaders will receive free conference registration plus a stipend. The deadline for proposals will be March 26th.

I would love to  be able to attend a Moodle Moot and this seems like a great one to attend – it’s not too far away from me, it’s in the summer and Martin will be there! I think it’d be a great experience and if I were able to put together a decent proposal and actually have it approved it would be a great work experience for me. However, the funds are not really there for me right now : ) That’s why I’m excited I can “attend” the 2010 iMoot which is a $45 fee and online!

But for those who can make it work I highly suggest taking a look at the 2010 Midwest Moodle Moot site for more information!

Just a quick reminder to register for iMoot 2010! What’s iMoot 2010, you ask?

iMoot2010 is the first time the Moot has been brought together on a gobal scale. In the past localised Moots have been held all around the world with brilliant speakers from each region. iMoot will bring them together for the first time in one event for an online e-conference with a difference. read more

I think this is an awesome idea especially for Moodle because it’s so global. From what I understand there will be live sessions throughout the day and they will be replayed two more times with Q & A sessions after. Obviously, Moodlers are in all different timezones so replaying the sessions will allow Moodlers to attend the sessions they want.

iMoot2010 is February 4th-7th

Registration Cost: $45

Follow iMoot2010 on Twitter

Visit iMoot2010 now to learn more and register today!