Happy to be here!

Happy to be here!

by Paul Jacobson -
Number of replies: 13

Hello my dear colleague! I'm so happy to be here after being thrown into the deep end of Moodle (as a policy initiative by my college). Like going through the "wardrobe" to Narnia, I have been bewildered by how things work and don't work; and how things are not quite as they seem in this magical land.

As a Teacher, I am creating topics but cannot access the student experience. I've been down blind alleys: to set up images in a topic with hyperlinks; but alas, I could only manage one link per topic per summary. I tried inserting HTML but something was amiss and I lost the edit function from that topic. Thus it was moved to the trash pile at the end where I turned off yet another "eye" and tried to ignore my mistakes. If only I could delete and start again.

Life's like that: drawing without an eraser. Cheers, Paul Jacobson.

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Re: Happy to be here!

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi Paul and welcome to MoodlesmileThis is the social forum so we are happy to chat about the ins and outs and pros and cons of Moodle  -when you have technical problems you'll get a quicker response in the Using Moodle area. I wonder when you say you are trying hyperlink to images and can only manage one link per image if you are using IE8? It's a known quirk - if you go into compatability mode (which basically returns it to IE7) or better, use Firefox, you should find you can do as many links as you want. In terms of "not accessing the student experience" I am not sure what you mean but at the top  there is a "switch role to" button where you can see the course as a student. As for deleting and starting again - if you have admin rights you can delete you course and start againsmile Re the html losing your edit function -that does happen at times if some code gets in and corrupts the section - if you do a search in the MoodleDocs there are instructions how to work around that. Happy Moodling smile

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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: Happy to be here!

by Paul Jacobson -
Thank you Mary for your informative reply. I'm slowly getting my head around it: like accessing Student View; and doing direct HTML access to back out of coding mistakes. There's a certain holism about Moddle where the technical "warp" is intimate with the "weft" of content. Kind Regards, Paul J.
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Re: Happy to be here!

by Garren Shannon -
Wow Paul... Maybe like Narnia you will find it to be a happy place in the end.

Till then, you have a bit of work to do... and some learning.

For the unprepared, Moodle can be a daunting experience. I don't let my teachers enter without some training. They attend a "boot camp" of sorts then I walk with them for a bit adding a little more. Shame the College can't work with you on this.

Do you know what version they are running? I hope it is 1.9 or higher.

First I would suggest some video training.

Try this site (lots of videos) smile

http://moodlecommons.org/course/view.php?id=7


I would also suggest a few books to help with. Here's a free one...

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Using_Moodle_book

I also highly recommend "Moodle Teaching Techniques" by William Rice

It's a good primer on the subject.

Hope that helps... and remember... we are Master Learners, not Master Teachers.

Cheers mate...
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Re: Happy to be here!

by iPhone Review -
So do I.

I love everything in here.

approve
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In reply to iPhone Review

Re: Happy to be here!

by Paul Jacobson -

Greetings to Bandung! One of my exchange students was from your respected city. As I mentioned in another post, I felt elated when I called my course up on the iPhone - it looked great; was easily navigable; and the You Tube videos played smoothly in full screen.

Of course, I have not yet reached the capability to tailor the APIs for optimal iPhone delivery; but this will come. I am studying iPhone 3D programming with OpenGL ES, knowing that this is how we will craft the interface of the future.

Regards, Paul J.

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Re: Happy to be here!

by iPhone Review -
Thanks for kind regards to us. Yes, my city is cool. Would be very nice if you can come to this place.

Of course iPhone is very helpful for such that thing. Same happen to us.

Best Regards,
iPhoneRevBlog
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Re: Happy to be here!

by Paul Jacobson -
I hear you - hope to visit some day! Cheers, Paul J.
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Re: Happy to be here!

by Graham Clark -

Hi Paul

I saw something you recently posted on Julian Ridden’s The Moodleman Blog about wanting conditional activities in Moodle 2.0 that “... trigger automatic SMSs to a student who hasn’t started a unit within 7 days of enrolment; or alert a teacher to phone a student who has been inactive for more than a week.” This is also what I’m looking to do in Moodle 2.0. Were you able to achieve this?

Regards, Graham Clark.

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The NULL Conditional Trigger

by Paul Jacobson -
Hola Graham! . . . immersed in this marvellous Moodle global environment.

One of my colleagues has installed Ver 2.0 "downstairs" and we will investigate the NULL conditional trigger. Actually we have a team of boffins working externally on code to do just that (as well as any proactive support internally from Martin & Co).

Our problem with many of our online students is participation. They enroll and then blank ??? Don't know why because they are coming out of nowhere, wanting to be students but somehow dropping out. Some of them get so far and then seem to lose interest in a qualification. So we want a variety of strategies in place with a new Moodle design to engage them from the beginning; induct them into a pleasant learning experience; and introduce them to a supportive community of teachers and peers.

We figure that the only way is to trigger an SMS or eMail if they are not progressing at an average rate through their course. Then we can make contact and offer support. We're working on it and I can keep you posted if you like.

Regards, Paul Jacobson.
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Re: The NULL Conditional Trigger

by Graham Clark -
Hi Paul

Thanks for getting back to me. I do hope your "team of boffins" or "Martin & Co" are able to come up with some way of triggering an automatic email and/or SMS. This feature would be invaluable to a large number of Moodlers, myself included. Please do keep me posted.

Regards, Graham Clark.
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In reply to Graham Clark

Conditional Triggers

by Paul Jacobson -

I've discovered that the the guys over in the Canary Islands have been working on a Moodle Plug-In (for 1.9) that holds great promise: http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=2401

It seems that they can target every activity and resource with a "have or have not" condition. Of course, the Moodle 2.0 release has similar capacity, focussing on grade, date or completion.

Cheers, PJ.

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Re: Conditional Triggers

by Graham Clark -

Hi Paul

Thanks for the heads up regarding the CICEI conditional activities plugin. It certainly looks promising. At this stage, many of the triggers they list don't interest me. However, I'm particularly interested in the following:

  • the time passed (in days) since participant's first click in the course
  • the time passed (in days) since course start date, and
  • the time passed (in days) since determined date

Anyhow, I'd appreciate it if you could keep me posted with regards to any new developments both now and in the future.

Thanks again.

Regards, Graham Clark.

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In reply to Garren Shannon

Re: Happy to be here!

by Paul Jacobson -

Hi Gareen Shannon - I feel better already! What a wonderful name you have.

My mentor's have been Matt Riornan and the tutors at http://moodle.njit.edu/tutorials/faculty/ with their Camtasia.

The development is coming along fine (my own frustration and impatience has been like a passing headache). Things will start sparking when we all get together after this Semester break - the boffins who are integrating the site and me on the learning development.

You know, I felt such a surge of elation when I brought up my course on the iPhone. Regards, Paul J.

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