• Moodle Course Conversion (Book Review)
• Buddy2 – Resource Central (Mood Tutorials Blog)
• Moodle Use Increasing – How About For You? (Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org)
• Moodle Girl’s Blog (A Moodle Blog)

An e-mail from Martin Dougiamas to Moodle admins:

Hi,

Two things you should know about as a registered Moodle admin:

Firstly, a reminder to keep your Moodle sites upgraded to prevent security issues.  Using recent weekly versions such as 1.9.4+
(http://download.moodle.org/) will help ensure your site is protected.
Some recent security announcements are at http://moodle.org/security and there is documentation about upgrading Moodle here:  http://docs.moodle.org/en/Upgrading

Secondly, please note that some Moodle interface changes are planned to arrive in stable CVS in a week or two, so be warned that the Gradebook may have a new (and we hope you agree it’s better!) appearance.  This sort of change is a very rare occurrence in a stable branch as we take stability seriously.  In this case, however, there were several important usability and calculation issues raised by the community and the benefits of these fixes are large enough to justify the change in 1.9.5 (and 2.0 of course).  Please make sure your teachers are all aware of this change before you upgrade, and make sure you are prepared for it.  Avoid upgrading during a busy assessment period, for example.

Exact details about the Gradebook changes (Stage 1) are on this page:

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Gradebook_improvements_in_Moodle_1.9.5

and you can read Helen’s recent announcement here:

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=120167

If you have any issues about the gradebook interface changes PLEASE let us know as soon as possible:

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=119925

If you have any questions about upgrading or general Moodle issues please start with http://moodle.org/support.

(Please don’t respond to this email – I get more email than I can handle already)

Cheers,
Martin Dougiamas (Lead Developer)

Blog Posts:

• VLEs, costs, features and why I’ve fallen for Moodle
• TxDLA09 – Using Moodle to Create and Foster a Learning Community

This post is inspired by me finally getting read/write permissions to our Moodle server! Since last summer when we installed Moodle we have wanted to add themes, plug-ins, modules, edit the php, etc. Yesterday, that day came. Today, I am searching for recommended modules, plug-ins, course formats, themes and other small tips to make our Moodle site look good. I’ve added Book and Tab Display modules from Moodle.org. Now, I want to ramp up our Moodle site theme and layout. We force our users to use their My Moodle page, so I will also try and make that page look good.

Please give me your favorite Moodle themes, modules and tips! Comment on this post or Tweet me!

Related Links:
Moodle.org: Modules and plugins
Moodle.org: Themes
Moodleman Blog: Creating a custom Moodle Theme – LIVE!!
Moodleman Blog: Getting the most out of course design
NewSchool Learning (Moodle themes – some free, mostly paid for)
Taming Moodle: Ugly category names on front page? Pimp it!
The Moodle Playpen

I received this email last night:

Hi Moodle Admins,

A serious problem with the TeX and algebra filters (used for mathematics notation in Moodle) has been found which could allow attackers to access server files.

If you don’t use TeX and algebra notation in your site then you should:

A) Simple disable the TeX and algebra filters completely for now:

Admin > Modules > Filters > Manage Filters

Otherwise you should:

B) Update your Moodle site to the latest weekly version from this week, or
C) Copy the latest files from filter/tex/* into your current install.

The full copy of the security notice MSA-09-0009 is shown below – this will be added to http://moodle.org/security to inform the wider Moodle community sometime next week.

Disclosure Link: http://packetstormsecurity.org/0903-exploits/moodle-disclose.txt

From Moodle.org:

• Proposed Moodle 1.9.5 gradebook usability improvements (Moodle Announcements)
• Requesting feedback from the Moodle community (Planet Moodle)
• Moodle 2.0 surprise(Planet Moodle)

Interesting Links:

• The Killer App: Google Apps and Moodle Integration?
• Moodle in the Classroom (Updated)
• Moodle Hosting | Key To School (Cool free Moodle hosting site I recently found)