Martin Dougiamas recently posted on Moodle Announcements that latest stable releases of 1.8.x and 1.9.x are now available.

There are many small bug fixes and some new features in each release, but the main two things you need to know about are the gradebook interface changes in 1.9.5 and some important security issues. – Read more

Related Links:
Release notes for Moodle 1.9.5
Release notes for Moodle 1.8.9
Moodle 1.9.5 and Moodle 1.8.9 are now available – Martin Dougiamas post

Have you ever wished there was a way for students to draw or paint in Moodle? If so, you’ll be pleased to hear that one of our GSOC 2009 projects is a paint tool for Moodle.. read more

This is a bit late (first posted on Moodle.org on May 8th) but Helen Foster posted a Moodle Announcement about a paint tool being developed. Read more about it.

• Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org: Moodle and Twitter
• Helen Foster’s blog: Moodle 1.9.5 release coming soon!

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)

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

I have created a Twitter account for Moodlerific. Although I do post some Moodle related news and information on my personal Twitter account, this account will be everything Moodle and Moodlerific information. Follow Moodlerific!

Check out Helen Foster’s latest Moodle Announcement about Moodle taking part in the Google Summer of Code.

It looks like the original “Moodle” account has graciously given it to Martin Dougiamas and Moodle. Moodle’s lastest tweet reads:

Thanks Charlene for giving us your “moodle” twitter account! The plan is to use it for official news about Moodle software and community.

Follow Moodle now!

Check out the Moodle Moots coming up in the next few months via Moodle Announcements.

My co-worker and I have been looking into attending a Moodle Moot. Our district has an idea of putting on our own Moodle Moot, or Moodle Workshop (on a smaller scale), in the future and attending an actual Moot would greatly benefit us. We have been looking into the Canada one or perhaps one in Oklahoma or San Francisco. Check out the main Moodle Moot page.

Have you any ideas how Moodle navigation (including blocks, layout and themes) can be improved? [read more]

From Moodle.org, Helen Foster writes a post about the navigation in Moodle 2.0. Read more and see what Martin Dougiamas says about solutions.