Messaging: Instant messaging concept

Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Martin Dougiamas -
Number of replies: 28
Imachen de Core developers Imachen de Documentation writers Imachen de Moodle HQ Imachen de Particularly helpful Moodlers Imachen de Plugin developers Imachen de Testers
Here is a summary of the vision I've got for the first version of the instant messaging feature.

Most of the interaction takes place in a small window that looks like an IM window (of course you can expand it to whatever size you like). It contains several tabs let you switch between messaging a user, searching for users and reading archived messages.

It pops up (or to the front) whenever:
  • you click on a name in the online users list
  • you click on a link on any participants page
  • you click on a general link in the participants block
  • you have a new message sent to you (achieved by a bit of javascript inserted into any Moodle page from the header)

Users have preferences to
  • allow the window to pop up or not
  • allow their own comments to be logged
  • choose a forwarding destination (email, Jabber, other IM etc)
  • choose a forwarding preference
    • forward messages always
    • forward messages only when "away"
    • forward messages never

If two users are on at the same time:
  • the messaging window (tab) looks like a private chat
  • others can be invited to the little chat

The extent to which this can be integrated with the chat code has not been determined yet.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Art Lader -
If I could find a way to keep students more or less on-topic, this could be great for my language classes. My students LOVE to IM.

-- Art
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Julian Whitehead -
Instant messaging would be a really great feature to have in Moodle, especially as the way our firewall works at school forbids any kind of e-mail other than very limited web-mail. IM is a real no no according to our Network manager.

I think the following features would be useful:
  • Teacher able to turn off Messaging for a particular class if required.
  • Ability for messaging to operate like it does in Xoops, so each student could have an inbox within Moodle, and each time they log on, they can see if they have any messages.
This last feature would be fantastic for communication between staff.

Really looking forward to this exciting new development within Moodle.
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In reply to Julian Whitehead

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Art Lader -
- Teacher able to turn off Messaging for a particular class if required.
- Ability for messaging to operate like it does in Xoops, so each student could have an inbox within Moodle, and each time they log on, they can see if they have any messages.

Yes, these would be very useful features.

-- Art
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Martín Langhoff -
Martin,

we are keen on working on this feature. We are trying to lay out the structure and UI, and it would be very valuable to get more of an idea of how you see the implementation happening.

What is your availability for a more interactive conversation (chat, IP phone, videoconference, phone), so we can iron out the details?

cheers,





martin
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Martin Dougiamas -
Imachen de Core developers Imachen de Documentation writers Imachen de Moodle HQ Imachen de Particularly helpful Moodlers Imachen de Plugin developers Imachen de Testers
Sure, would love to!!  You can Skype me if you like and if I can't talk right then we can set a time for a longer chat.  My id is "moodler".
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Julian Whitehead -
I'm just a poor Moodle user - very limited coding experience - but would love to be involved if possible.
My Skype is jools_bone
Cheers
Jools
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Penny Leach -
Skype is going to be too tricky with the office firewall. How about ICQ or AIM?
Ha, or we could use moodle chat.
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In reply to Penny Leach

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Martin Dougiamas -
Imachen de Core developers Imachen de Documentation writers Imachen de Moodle HQ Imachen de Particularly helpful Moodlers Imachen de Plugin developers Imachen de Testers
Skype is usually very good with firewalls, but no matter.  Please email me (privately) with your phone number at the office and some good times and I'll give you a call.
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In reply to Martín Langhoff

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Martin Dougiamas -
Imachen de Core developers Imachen de Documentation writers Imachen de Moodle HQ Imachen de Particularly helpful Moodlers Imachen de Plugin developers Imachen de Testers
Martin or Penny, has there been any progress on these plans?
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Penny Leach -
Hi Martin,

We've got a couple of things on the go at the moment for custom deployments of moodle - we've got a wiki page for our development roadmap at http://eduforge.org/wiki/wiki/nzvle/wiki?pagename=MoodleRoadmap

At the moment I'm currently focussed on some changes to one of the assignment type modules (which I'll be posting a lot of questions about sometime today), so the answer is sort of yes and no. I don't have anything to show you, but the IM feature is still very much part of our plans.

Cheers
Penny
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de patrick d -
Hi

I am in the search of a solution e-learning. I test Moodle in this moment which appears to me very rich and flexible. The majority of the solutions are asynchronous.

I intended to add with that I would install a module of synchronous conversation. I thought of carrying it out as follows :
  1. The teacher installs the TeamSpeak server in his computer.
  2. The teacher and the pupils install the TeamSpeak client on their computer.
  3. The teacher posts a url toward his server Teamspeak to Moodle for his class
  4. All the members of the class click on the url  and return in audio communication.
The bandwidth is 24kbits/s for one taking part to and from teacher server.

I thought for the visual part of including a whiteboard via Coccinella / Jabber.  The teacher can present slides in the forms of image "png" and modify them on line.

Is this feature an alternative of that on which you discuss or is this completely different ?

What think of the interest and the feasibility of that ?

Excuse me for my English level, I am useful myself of the translator of google.

Thank you
Patrick.
 
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In reply to patrick d

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Martin Dougiamas -
Imachen de Core developers Imachen de Documentation writers Imachen de Moodle HQ Imachen de Particularly helpful Moodlers Imachen de Plugin developers Imachen de Testers
Hi, Patrick.

What you are describing (a place where a bunch of people can all go and talk to each other easily and at the same time) is something a lot of us want but it's a different tool to this instant messaging functionality.

The instant messaging could, as you say, be used to bring everyone into the audio chat environment.

Also, unfortunately, TeamSpeak is not open source and has a charge for commercial use.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Jason Cole -
Why not integrate Jabber into Moodle? I know it's another package to install, but it's pretty simple and gives you a lot of power. I've got it running on  a Linux box and my OS X laptop. I know there is a GPL Windows version as well.

We have a Flash jabber client (I'll upload it here as soon as I can)  and some perl scripts that can take enrollment data from a flat file and populate Jabber buddy lists with your classmates. I'm sure these will be easy to change to PHP and to read from the enrollment database in Moodle.

IM within Moodle would then involve passing an authentications string to the Jabber server and opening up the Flash client. You would see all of your classmates in your buddy lists and could have single or group chat.

A user could also pick their client. With the enrollment integration, we could also use the Moodle authentication as well. So you could use any desktop Jabber client and we don't have to reinvent the wheel here.



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In reply to Jason Cole

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Martin Dougiamas -
Imachen de Core developers Imachen de Documentation writers Imachen de Moodle HQ Imachen de Particularly helpful Moodlers Imachen de Plugin developers Imachen de Testers
Jabber is on the plans above and I agree it would be nice to have some compatibility, but it can't be a requirement, since too many people would then have NO instant messaging.

Really, there's nothing stopping anyone setting up a completely separate system now if they want to (I always used ICQ in my classes)  - I don't think adding a Flash interface inside Moodle really adds a lot to that experience.

What I was planning was that once a basic default internal system is operating, then individual users can specify an external system to hook up to, and we could have optional gateways to and from external systems. So, if the admin had set up a Jabber gateway, then users could specify a Jabber ID to connect to. I've not set up a Jabber server myself and have no idea about the details of how this would work ... do you have some details on how Moodle could send and receive messages via a Jabber server?
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Julian Whitehead -
I have no idea what Jabber is or looks like (will have a look though), but as long as the messaging operates in a similar way to the Xoops internal system and has an option maybe for a more formal instant messaging service then all will be happy.
Our current firewall will not allow any kind of instant messaging, but is quite happy to service Xoops internal mail.
Cheers
Jools
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Jorge Martin -

What do you mean with gateway to an external IM system? I would be like a text field with the name of the application and the course users using it , or an application launcher and the admin is the one that has to take care about users identification distribution etc ?

Have a nice day  smile

Jorge Martin

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In reply to Jorge Martin

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Martin Dougiamas -
Imachen de Core developers Imachen de Documentation writers Imachen de Moodle HQ Imachen de Particularly helpful Moodlers Imachen de Plugin developers Imachen de Testers
What I was thinking was to provide a way for users to specify a destination to forward messages to.

For example, you might specify 'jorgey@martin.com' on the jabber network, or '32434343' on the ICQ network, and any new internal Moodle messages would be immediately forwarded to those destinations.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Where are the lists

de Jolinda Stephens -

Hi,

I'm just setting up a moodle for a specialized application. Where do the lists of people online appear - home page or course page? Do you have to do something when doing the setup to enable the lists? I would like the list to be available at both the home page and the course page. Is this possible?

Jolinda

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In reply to Jolinda Stephens

Re: Where are the lists

de Steve Hyndman -
Jolinda,

These are blocks that you can add to the homepage and to each course. For the frontpage, you will need to be logged in as administrator and you can add the Online Users block there...an admin or teacher can add this block to each course.

Steve
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In reply to Steve Hyndman

Re: messaging feature

de Genner Cerna -
  • contact ingroups
  • sorting of contacts
  • mass sending of message (admin only)
  • mass teacher sending of message (admin only)
  • mass creator sending of message (admin only)
  • mass students sending of message (admin only)
  • able to send message per group basis

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Deb Burdick-Hinton -
I love the concept Martin but it is not working that way for me.  My co-instructor and myself have been testing this because we would like our students to use it but when I message her there is no popup window and there is none for me and I am not getting any pop-up blocks messages either. You mentioned users being able to adjust the settings...where can you do this?

Thanks to anyone for some help.
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In reply to Deb Burdick-Hinton

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Steve Hyndman -

Same issue here...no popups for the messages and I'm sure it's not a pop-up blocker issue. I've just decided it's not really an "instant" message application, but rather a private message application...at least that's the way it seems to work on my sites and that's how I explain it to my students.

Steve

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Matthew Whelpton -
Hi Martin,

I´d be very interested to have an update on the status of the chat/instant messaging feature and any intentions to link it with audtio (or video features)...

Thanks,
Matthew.
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Messaging: Instant messaging concept

de Wen Hao Chuang -

Just curious, is there anyone working on this right now? A recent "real world" situation that happened here @ SFSU was that one of our instructors who invited a guest speaker who happen to be on a remote site, so the class (roughly about 30 students) was trying to use the build-in chat module in Moodle to chat with this guest speaker, but as all of you know that chat is a HOG so the whole site just slowed down dramatically... so we really need to find a solution to this..

I hope that I will have some time to solve this in the near future, but to avoid any duplicated efforts, if anyone here is already working on this, please let me know. Thanks!

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