I hope I'm posting this type of question in the right place.
I'm relatively new to Moodle administration and course design.
But I'm coming to this with many years of visual design, ui design and webdesign.
To help me get my head around Moodle I was hoping to find some published workflows and design standards. I'm noticing on other areas of Moodle.org there is a lot of confusion from people coming to the site with huge differences in understanding of Moodle and technology in general. I think it would be a great benefit if the focus of Moodle.org's "foums" were augmented by all the other aspects of Moodle. Where are the tutorials using Moodle's own systems? Lessons, Wiki's etc.
That said there is a terrific energy and movement here, I'm not putting anyone or anything down. I feel strongly as a designer that the more "lost souls" you have wandering the halls the more you need to keep evaluating your presentation and archetecture.
-Thanks
Mark
Hi Mark,
Welcome! There is a debate/discussion that sometimes gets lost in the breadth of various Moodle forums. It boils down to the "tell me how to do what I want" group and the "give me some examples group"
Big surprise, different learning styles.
I could not agree with you more about lost souls. I feel a moral obligation to put links to Moodle documentation (this is a link to MoodleDocs) in every post. And to point out one or more of the various examples of courses that have been donated to Moodle.org in the last 2 years. The original course being the Moodle Features Demo they can find at demo.moodle.net, plus some others and then there was the course contest in the last year etc etc. Then there are free books, search engines if you MoodleSpeak and I could go on.
I can not really speak about design standards and workflows as a developer. One of my soapboxes is that the past and current developers of Moodle (open source remember) had and have no idea of all the ways it is used as a tool. I tend to deal with the UI based solutions, not code. I know in Moodle, "users" covers a range of types. This is sort of demonstrated in Moodle Docs, where Teacher documentation, Administrator documentation, Developer documentation each have a very different flavor when it comes to style and information.
On a granular level, consider the notion that every teacher is really a web designer. What are the common elements of a completely asynchronous self directed 24 hour/365 day Moodle course and a highly interactive one that involves deadlines and integrates with face to face time? One of the reasons I love Moodle is the complexity of the user base and the goal of making the UI simple
I probably should have used this time for testing Moodle 2.0 but I do hope this serves as a friendly Welcome to Moodle.
Chris
Welcome! There is a debate/discussion that sometimes gets lost in the breadth of various Moodle forums. It boils down to the "tell me how to do what I want" group and the "give me some examples group"
I could not agree with you more about lost souls. I feel a moral obligation to put links to Moodle documentation (this is a link to MoodleDocs) in every post. And to point out one or more of the various examples of courses that have been donated to Moodle.org in the last 2 years. The original course being the Moodle Features Demo they can find at demo.moodle.net, plus some others and then there was the course contest in the last year etc etc. Then there are free books, search engines if you MoodleSpeak and I could go on.
I can not really speak about design standards and workflows as a developer. One of my soapboxes is that the past and current developers of Moodle (open source remember) had and have no idea of all the ways it is used as a tool. I tend to deal with the UI based solutions, not code. I know in Moodle, "users" covers a range of types. This is sort of demonstrated in Moodle Docs, where Teacher documentation, Administrator documentation, Developer documentation each have a very different flavor when it comes to style and information.
On a granular level, consider the notion that every teacher is really a web designer. What are the common elements of a completely asynchronous self directed 24 hour/365 day Moodle course and a highly interactive one that involves deadlines and integrates with face to face time? One of the reasons I love Moodle is the complexity of the user base and the goal of making the UI simple
I probably should have used this time for testing Moodle 2.0 but I do hope this serves as a friendly Welcome to Moodle.
Chris
Thanks for taking the time Chris, its appreciated.
"On a granular level, consider the notion that every teacher is really a web designer. What are the common elements of a completely asynchronous self directed 24 hour/365 day Moodle course and a highly interactive one that involves deadlines and integrates with face to face time? One of the reasons I love Moodle is the complexity of the user base and the goal of making the UI simple"
I love this idea too, but my real life experience is that most people don't understand the basics of web publishing (the medium, not just the technology) and the nature of hypermedia (as in authoring rich interactive experiences). My soapbox is we don't teach technology, least of all creative use of technology, we train people in process, not context. I'd love to help any way I can.
Hi Mark,
I still like to stay on the UI side as the perputual newbie since 2006 (as I bill myself). I will support you on your soapbox!
Smiling, I remember, back in my early Moodle days, suggesting things for people to change in Moodle Docs because they were wrong or akward. After a couple of months Helen Foster noticed my timid but consistant comments along these lines. In her gentle way she said "you can make them, be sensitive about others and collaborate with us. Welcome!"
Who would have thought that I would be collaborating so long with program that is guided by a "social constructionist" Pedagogy, when my job pulls me in about the opposite direction Well most everybody had a good sense of humor on the SCP side which helps me balance.
So in the immortal words that Helen never said "We are what you do, have at it and enjoy!"
Chris
PS that psuedo quote sure looks like some Social Constructionist propoganda dribbling out of my keyboard. Yikes, I have been brainwashed by association.
Great feedback, thanks Mark. We can certainly improve moodle.org a lot as the place to come and learn about Moodle. Once Moodle 2 is out this is something I'd like us to focus on.