I figured I had better write up a quick post before I leave town for Chicago, then New York for a week! Below are a few links I recently gathered up through Twitter, Google Alerts and my Google Reader.

• Creating Wimba pod and vcasts in Moodle [July 1st]
• Community feedback needed on development specs [June 26th] (Moodle Announcements)
• Rating useful forum posts [June 29th] (Helen Foster blog)
• MoodleMoot hash tags [June 30th] (Helen Foster blog)
• Mahoodle SSO Configuration [June 24th] (Dan Marsden blog)

When I get back I will be doing a Part II of my previous blog post, Best Moodle Modules & Plugins. There was a section in the book, Moodle Administration, all about modules and I wanted to write a little more on the topic. I also saw a few other suggestions that people have recommended. If you have anything to add on the subject please comment on the first post about Modules.

I am also planning to write a review on the book, Moodle Course Conversion: Beginner’s Guide. I’m only a few chapters in but I am pleasantly surprised so far.

I hope everyone has a great 4th of July – be back in a week!

Helen Foster posts a blog about My Moodle in Moodle 2.0 :

Great news for My Moodle users: Mike Churchward is planning major improvements in Moodle 2.0 (MDL-19124). Please join..  read more

Sweet! I love the My Moodle feature and I think it has much potential! Take a look at Lewis Carr’s My Moodle development.

• 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)

Brought to you by the Moodleman Blog, The Moodle Playpen is a demonstration Moodle site that allows users to explore Moodle’s possiblities. There are demos of standard features, advanced features, layout examples and discussions.

This site has been around for awhile and is maintained by Julian Ridden (follow him on Twitter!). Whether you’re looking for a new look or a way to spice up the functionality of your Moodle site, The Moodle Playpen is a great place to get ideas for your own Moodle site. One of my favorite demos is the Accordion Course Format layout! Check out The Moodle Playpen for more ideas!

Links:
The Moodleman Blog
The Moodle Playpen
The Moodle Playpen – 2.0 Alpha
Using Moodle: Accordion Discussion

On the ICT Guy blog, he posts about a Web 2.0 Moodle course for teachers professional development.

The aim was simply to be an introduction to the world of web2.0 and how it might impact on the classroom.

As a way of giving back to the open-source world he is offering to give the course away as a download, check it out!

I was looking through the U of M Moodle link and I ran across a link to an old interview with Martin Dougiamas by my current boss! So I asked him (he was right next to me in his office at the time), “Hey, Tim! you interviewed Dougiamas?!” He came out and said yeah had! Download the podcast interview on his blog, The Savvy Technologist. I have not listened to it yet but I plan to listen this afternoon. It was back in 2005, so it will be interesting to hear Martin’s thoughts and see if it corresponds to what Moodle is now.

Other links

• Patrick Malley – The Future of Moodle Templates
• Moodle Blog – Moodleblog.org

Are you interested in Moodle developer news and finding out what we’re currently working on? If so, please visit and/or subscribe to Planet Moodle. [from Moodle.org Announcements - Read More]

Blog posts from The Global Classroom

• 10+ Ideas: What to do with a Moodle classroom
  
• Scales and the Moodle Gradebook

Other

• A reliable and straightforward guide to using Moodle 1.9 – A blog post and review of the book, Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development. I have not read this book, I may have to take a look at it–but will a lot change once Moodle 2.0 comes out?
• Introducing Anomaly for Beta Release – A new theme from New School Learning.
• Moodle Journal – A blog about Moodle and E-Learning (added to my Moodle Blogs links).

The Moodleman Blog has recently posted a sneak peak at conditional activities in Moodle 2.0. Before I read the post I was not sure what this even meant but Moodleman writes

“Conditional activities now say that if a student has “completed” an activity/resource (or range of activities/resources) they can then see the newly created one.”

I never really thought of this concept but it makes complete sense and it could make a teacher’s life a lot easier! Moodle.org even has a forum dedicated to this type of thing. In earlier versions you will need a hack but it looks like it will be in the core of Moodle.org (I believe).

For more information take a look at Moodle.org Docs on Conditional Activities. Read more about the feature and watch a video walkthrough on Moodleman’s blog post: Moodle 2.0 Sneak Peak – Conditional Activities.

Realizing this ability in Moodle 2.0 makes me excited to show our users (in the way future..) that this is possible. I believe this will save teachers’ time by allowing them to do more at one time. For instance, instead of having a student complete an activity, then having the teacher go back to unlock or create a quiz and directing the student to complete it–a teacher is able to do everything at once instead of editing the course twice. I think this will also work great with motivating students to complete their work. Knowing they have the power to see or reach the next activity may motivate them–like a game.

I just wonder how easy this feature is to set up in Moodle 2.0. I might focus some attention on this on my dev site and post on it in the future.

Any thoughts?