I’ve finished the book, Moodle Administration, by Alex Büchner! It was a very easy book to read and I read it surprisingly fast considering how busy I have been lately.

Overview & Thoughts

This book started off giving an overview, a rationale for using Moodle and it explained the uses of Moodle. From there, it took you all the way through the installation of Moodle to more advanced features like Moodle Networking and Third-Party Add-ons. You can view the complete table of contents here.

What I liked about this book, which I have already mentioned, is that it’s easy to read. It does not overload your brain with so much text and information that you forget it two seconds later. Also, the chapters and topics covered were very well organized. Already being in the position of a Moodle administrator for our district for a year, I was impressed with the topics covered because during my first year working with Moodle those topics and issues were exactly what I had encountered. The book did a good job of explaining how to do things on different platforms. I found the instructions and explanations easy to follow and very concise. However, I had already done a lot of the processes before, so I may have been more aware than a user learning about it for the first time.

After the main chapters there is a nifty little “Moodle Health Check” and “Configuration Settings Reference” section. I am going through the Health Check now with our site. The Configuration Settings Reference section is great! It describes the different settings in the config.php file that can change the look and functionality of Moodle. Now I just need to get read/write permissions on the config.php file!

Overall, this book did a great job of explaining a lot of different topics and issues that I know from personal experience you will run into while implementing Moodle. Being a nerd, I do wish it was slightly more technical and talked more about the code and manipulation of code. The book also failed to have have a “themes” section, which I think would been beneficial to users.

Who is this book for?

Well, like the book title says.. I would say it’s for Moodle administrators : ) You don’t have to be a techy nerd to understand most concepts in this book. You don’t need to know all about networking and servers. This book is perfect for the person who will be maintaining your Moodle site and who will be taking questions about Moodle’s functionality and customization.

I would also suggest this book for your networking person (if they are willing to read it!). The reason being, just like any other software, there are settings and ways of doing things that are specific to Moodle. If your network admin can understand how Moodle operates I think it can really help you and your network admin to get things done. For example, I do not know much about networking so there are some things in Moodle I am unsure about. When I ask our network admin he is not familiar with Moodle so it’s hard to get on the same page. If your network department has a basic understanding of Moodle (which this book gives) I think it would help a lot.

In Conclusion

After reading this book I would highly recommend it. I really wish I would have read this book before we implemented Moodle. The topics covered in the book were exactly the topics we ran into and spent hours researching about. I think this book would have helped me out tremendously. However, even reading it after working with Moodle for a year was beneficial in that it really reinforced the important concepts and confirmed to myself that the correct settings were set (or not set!). Towards the end of the book the topics got a little more advanced. I learned a lot about the Moodle Networking piece and I’m excited to try it out. I’m also excited to try the Mahara/Moodle integration. I didn’t realize that the integration was so popular. So, in conclusion.. I would recommend this book to any type of future or present Moodle administrator.

What’s coming next!

I will be reviewing the book, Moodle Course Conversion: Beginner’s Guide, written by Ian Wild. I’m eager to read this book because it looks like it will cover more “teacher” stuff. I love the technical part of Moodle but I need to learn more about the teacher side of things. If I don’t know the teacher perspective of things it would be pretty hard for me to make Moodle the best it can be for the teachers. Keep an eye out for my review.

Related Links:
Buy Moodle Administration
Packt Publishing Moodle Books

Moodle Meet is a Moodle community, started by Laurie Korte, that I joined awhile ago. It’s a great place to meet and collaborate with other Moodle users.

Come join other Moodlers to network, share, work, collaborate, ask questions, get ideas, learn, make discoveries, etc.

Moodle Meet is a Ning community that gives Moodle users a place which brings together sharing, learning, resources, tools, ideas and people. There are currently 710 members of this community and they would love to see more! This community provides Moodle resources like videos, links, forums, event information and more.

I have always wondered why there are not more Moodle communities like this one. Maybe it’s because of the great resources on Moodle.org. Anyways, if you haven’t checked out Moodle Meet yet, do so now!

Summer is here! Before I leave town for the weekend I decided to pop in and give a few links.

We are doing some Moodle trainings for our district this week and today we have a couple of math teachers. I forgot the link to the Latex math equation editor for Moodle, but a few people helped me out via Twitter (@SirMelman, @ronhoutman, @markkings314, @jenn_nelson).

The links are: http://www.sitmo.com/latex/ and http://thornahawk.unitedti.org/equationeditor/equationeditor.php

Those links display a WYSIWYG equation editor using Latex. You can pick the symbols and it adds the code where you can copy and paste into Moodle. To allow this certain code to work you must have it set up right. Having the capability to use symbols in math makes using Moodle as a math teacher a lot more useful : ) . This afternoon I will be showing the teachers this tool and hopefully get some (good and bad) feedback about the usefulness of this tool.

Unless I find out anymore awesome news today, I will be back next week! Coming next week is my full review on the book, Moodle Administration. If anyone has any good math tools, resources or tips please comment!

• Practical Moodle Tips for Technology Administrators [6/10] – (Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org) : A bunch of great information in this post! There are admin tips and regular user tips. I’m going to take a look into removing certain header words on our Moodle site.
• Moodle Tip – Optimize Your MySQL Tables [6/3] – (Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org)
• Moodle Tip – The Value of Groups in Moodle Courses [6/3] – (Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org)
• Grow a Moodle – [6/9] – (Tomaz Lasic’s blog)
• Free Course – Digital Photography [6/9] – (Global Classroom)
• Moodle Stories (Moodle.org Using Moodle forum)
• AllisuneLearns.com (Blog with Moodle posts)

In a previous post I mentioned that I would be receiving the book, Moodle Administration, to read and review. I have read about 3/4th of the book and I have been overall pleased with the content and the way it is presented.

Below is a stream of thoughts I have so far about the book with a couple of random interesting facts I read in the book.

Initial thoughts after the first few chapters

The first few chapters consisted of mostly beginner information and a lot of it was review for me. However, even if some of it was review it outlined a lot of the important concepts of Moodle.

• Written in a non-technical way, but still covers techy concepts
• Well explained, concise information
• The book does not overload you with information
• Easy to understand
• Well-organized chapters and concepts

What I’m getting out of the book so far

• A good refresher in installing and getting Moodle started
• A good outline of the important concepts
• The “recommended” or standard way of doing with with Moodle

Interesting facts and tid bits

“Moodle states that once you are registered the Moodle Registration button will be removed, which is not the case. The fact that the button remains actually makes sense, as it is used to change any of your registration details at a later stage.” – Moodle Administration page 33

Yes, a silly fact but I made note of it because I have always wondered why that button is still on my Moodle site and thought I did something wrong. Now I know it’s okay : )

“Meta courses are courses which take their enrolment from other courses. They populate many courses from one enrolment or one course from many enrolments.” Moodle Administration page 75

I had always been confused with what Meta Courses were and when to use them, the book explains what they are very clearly.

“It is possible to rearrange the column order, but the feature is rarely used in Moodle.” Moodle Administration page 172

I really want to test this out on my development site. I can see a lot of possibilities with themes and this option.

That ends my short review and check in of Moodle Administration for the first part of the book. My next review will be a full review with a more complete summary and discussion. Stay tuned.

Related links:
Buy this book
Packt Publishing Moodle books

Moodle has many approved Modules & Plugins, but what are the best and most useful ones to try out? Depending on the type of Moodle site you run and how your users use Moodle can determine what is considered a useful module or plugin.

This blog post is just a working list on the best Moodle modules and plugins for a large K-12 school district which is used for student use at home, staff development and as a personal portal to store and show resources via a projector during the school day in the classroom.

Other modules

• Resource Type: Lightbox Gallery Resource – This is one I really want to take a look at this summer!
• Block: Birthday Block – Teachers may enjoy this block.
• Activity Module: OU blog – Our district is pushing a separate blog option (WPMU) but if you’re looking for a better blog option (with more options and comments) than the current blog in Moodle this is a great option.
• Activity Module: Dimdim Web Meeting Activity – I have not tried this out but if you use Dim Dim it looks to be great!
• Other: Moodle-GoogleApps Integration – Awesome plugin for Moodle sites who use Google Apps. We tried getting this to work on our site, unfortunately we could not get it working.

Depending on the type of Moodle site you run there will be a difference in what modules and plugins are the “best”. Some of the previously listed modules and plugins we currently use and some I plan to take a look at in the future. I know there are many I have missed, so please reply with your favorites. Also, if there are any other links to lists of “the best” Moodle modules please leave a comment.

Related Links:
Moodle Tip – Top Moodle Modules and Blocks (Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org)
Where is a list of the “best” moodle blocks/plugins? (Moodle.org discussion thread)
Moodle Modules & Plugins – Moodle.org
Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Projects

A few links to check out

• Moodle Tip – Timed Posts in the Forum (Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org)
• Interesting Moodle theme – http://learningspace.falmouth.ac.uk (via @dforge3)
• Moodle Photo Gallery – Awesome idea that I need to try! (via @sukhwantlota)
• Two Minute Moodles – This is a collection of 2 Minute Moodles – an attempt to simplify and show how to use a range of Moodle features to a busy teacher. (@lasic)

Edited 6-01-09 12:03 PM – Added another link

Hey all! I’ve been slacking on posts lately and keeping up with the Moodle news in general, but with good reason!

This week is our district’s last week of school and I can definitely feel the summer vibe. I’m an assistant coach this summer for a U14 girls club soccer team, which is now in full swing and taking up some of my time.

I have also received my review copy of Moodle Administration and have begun reading it. It’s been to quite a few places with me already – the gym, work, Chipotle, my car… So far so good (currently on Chapter 5 – page 115 to be exact). As I’ve read through some of the beginner content it seems to be clear and concise. A short review of the first half of the book will be coming shortly.

Here are a few links I’ve marked down recently:

Particularly Helpful Moodlers (Helen Foster/blog) 6-01-09

Moodle community get-togethers (Moodle Announcements) 5-29-09

Why I Love the Moodle Questionnaire module (via @sukhwantlota)

Real World Moodle – Unseen Resources (Global Classroom 5-28-09)

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