Moodlerific.org » Integration

More on Mobile Moodle

melissa — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:32:42 +0000

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!

Exciting possibilities with Mobile Moodle!

melissa — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:15:33 +0000

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/

“Successfully Integrating Google Apps in Education”

melissa — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:49:01 +0000

The past two days I attended the TIES 2009 Education Technology Conference and co-presented “Successfully Integrating Google Apps in Education” with some of our tech people. The presentation is about Google Apps but it also includes using the Moodle-Googleapps SSO plugin. We had a good turn out as a lot of school districts are either looking into using Google Apps or are having issues implementing it. Below is the description of our session.

Come see how Osseo Area Schools have begun to leverage the power of Google Apps for Education. Participants will learn reasons for using Google Apps, tips for successfully implementing Google Apps, questions you should answer before going forward, and see some examples of how Osseo is using Google Apps for both instruction and improving productivity.

TIES provided each session with a wiki so they could post links and resources from their presentations. Here’s our wiki with a link to the presentation and to our delicious account with links we used while implementing Google Apps. You can also check out other sessions and links to their presentations and resources – there were some great presentations this year!

Microsoft Integrates Live@edu with Moodle

melissa — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:05:15 +0000

Microsoft is bridging the gap between their Live@edu collaboration suite and Moodle. Microsoft Live@edu is a suite for education which gives students email, online storage and collaboration tools. It is highly compared with Google Apps Education Edition.

Microsoft is bridging the gap with a new plug-in that will allow Moodle users to integrate the Live@edu tools.

“It’s a free download that helps address the needs of interoperability and flexible technology choices in education,” explained L. Michael Golden, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s Education Products Group, in a telephone interview. “Quite easily, with one Live@edu login, [users will] be able to utilize all of the flexibility that Moodle presents as a learning management system, along with the collaboration/communication capabilities of Live@edu.” [source]

Further information about the plug-in

Microsoft Live Services Plug-in for Moodle

Moodle site administrators can now include Microsoft Live Services in the list of features provided to teachers and students through Moodle. With the Microsoft Live Services Plug-in for Moodle, students and teachers can use their Windows Live IDs to sign in to Moodle and access Live Services, such as e-mail, instant messenger, and calendar without leaving Moodle.” [read more]

To learn more about this plug-in, discuss it or download it visit the Microsoft Education Labs site.

Along with the announcement of the Live@edu plug-in to Moodle, Microsoft has introduced their Education Labs site. Educations Labs will focus on software and resources for the education world.

I think these new developments by Microsoft is a good thing for the education world. The more “competition” and the more programs out there for the classroom is good for everyone because it forces other companies to keep up and create quality programs.

Our district actually compared Google Apps Education Edition with Microsoft’s Live@edu product last year for student emails and collaboration tools. We ended up going with Google Apps because we thought Google would integrate better with other programs in the future. Also, I believe we would have had to pay for the large number of accounts to be created or imported (I’m not sure exactly what the fee was for).

Although our district will not be using it, I think in Microsoft’s efforts to “join” the open-source world, or to maybe take advantage of it, is mostly a positive thing. However, I do think that Microsoft is thinking more about how to win the Microsoft/Google battle rather than how they can help the education world. It is a business after all, but I’m just saying I won’t be changing my opinion on Microsoft and their willingness to play nice with others anytime soon. I wonder if we will see any reaction from Google Apps? There is already a plug-in for Google Apps and Moodle (Killer App).

Moodle for the iPhone

melissa — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:40:25 +0000

Lewis Carr explains how he turned his Moodle site into a nice layout and format for the iPhone without having to change the core theme. Take a look at his slides showing this.

His hack is for his site only and would be useless to just copy and paste in yours. He replies to a comment:

The stylesheet I use is a modified CSS of my current theme, it would be useless for any other theme. The hack relies on you modifiying your existing css to add the code. However, I am createing a stand-alone iPhone theme to work on.. -Read more

Lewis Carr has many great Moodle developments, check out his (best I’ve ever seen) http://moodle.parklane.ac.uk/. You can also follow him on Twitter or take a look at his site.