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.

Google Apps Education Edition is coming to an open source learning management system near you. Moodlerooms, a Moodle partner, is launching a new enhancement to the open source LMS in collaboration with search giant Google to provide access to the application suite using a single sign-on. [read more]

This really excites me! Our district has been looking into student email possibilities and a way for students to collaborate. Google Apps Education Edition seems to be a top choice for secondary students. This would be an awesome integration for us! In the article, I think this is the most important reason why I like the idea of a Moodle/Google App integration:

“This greatly simplifies the task of implementing a collaborative suite, as well as enables institutions to leverage the work they’ve already done integrating their platforms with their other systems. From a teacher’s perspective, this provides an easy way to assign students to collaborative tasks without having to worry about the students having different operating systems or incompatible software or being unable to access an online system. From an IT staffer or CIO’s perspective, this provides an integration tested with large-scale data loads and built on industry standard SAML 2.0 and OAuth protocols for secure single sign on and information transfer.” [read more]

Easy integration, fewer logins and “places” to go seem to be very important for teachers. If our district does decide to go with Google Apps this is something really look into.

Source: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/02/20/google-collaborates-on-moodle-integration.aspx