Some ideas

Some ideas

by Germán Matías -
Number of replies: 17

Hello. My name is Germán and I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have been working with Moodle for 1 year for personal use and mainly for the Universidad del Salvador, one of the most important universities in Argentina. There, I implemented Moodle in its newly Campus.

I´ve been working with PHP for many years so I´m interested in modifying certain things of the Moodle activities code in order to make it fit our actual needs and of course proposing them to the community. But before that, I´d like to comment some of them so you can help me in the right way.

I hope you can tell me what you think about these suggestions, if i should work on them in my actual version (1.4.3) or wait for a new one and if they are already considered. I´m beginning with moodle.org but I`d like to contribute with these and some other things.

1. Glossary module. My teachers complain about the fact that in resources all the terms are highlighted everywhere many times. They´d like that for one unique paragraph, repeated terms are only highlighted the first occurencies, not every word.

2. Assigment module. It would be very useful for us to have assigment with no date. Also, with the possibiliy of having a texbox where students can write their assignment, in addition to uploading a file.

3. A new module where each course teacher can calificate students and write comments about them. So teacher can have a centralized unique place inside the course, where they can share (only among teachers) their comments about students. It could have a "hidden" options to allow or not the students to see it.

If this is not the right place to post this, my apologies, please tell me where the right forum is.

Thank you very much.

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In reply to Germán Matías

Re: Some ideas

by Darren Smith -
Regarding your thoughts on a teacher area. Have you noticed that every course has a teacher forum as default or are you looking at further functionality?

The assignment idea is one I am very interested in. A text box where students can leave comments to support their submission would be great. It could be used for a simple 'I'm sorry it's late because ...' entry to a self assessment submission in support of the main piece.

Darren
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In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Some ideas

by Germán Matías -

They use the teacher forum but what they really want is to assign some comments on each student. A kind of 'teachers sheet' so every teacher enter this area and see what other teachers have commented and the students califications they have assigned.

To achieve this I have been using a hidden assignment so they can set a calification on each student. Not very intuitive to the teachers but works mixed

With the assignment idea, how´s the usual way taken? should I open a bug item or after discussing it here some older developer takes it?

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In reply to Germán Matías

Re: Some ideas

by Josep M. Fontana -
German, having a space where students can write in the assignment module is a good idea. While it is not implemented, though, your teachers could use the journal module. I've used it for that purpose and it kind of works.

Josep M.
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In reply to Josep M. Fontana

Re: Some ideas

by Germán Matías -

Yes, that´s a good solution I implemented (although teachers didn´t like much the word "Journal" associated with assignments or excersices.)

Thanks.

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In reply to Germán Matías

Re: Some ideas

by N Hansen -
Your request number 1 has been implemented, I believe it is available in 1.4.4
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In reply to N Hansen

Re: Some ideas

by Ger Tielemans -

Our teachers use a book with the eye closed for your third wish. They used it in two ways:

  • One page per student, the page grows
  • One page per day: this is in situations when more then one teachers guides a group of students and they have to share information when they hand-over the group. (Teacher forum is less handy for that)
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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Some ideas

by Germán Matías -

Excelent idea. I tried it out and I will implement it in some courses. The University has other courses where teachers don´t have edit permissions inside the course, so there I can´t use the book activity since they couldn´t edit the chapters content.

However, I think that it would be very useful to have a private area not related to activities where only teachers can leave comments and califications about students.

Thanks.

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In reply to Germán Matías

Re: Some ideas

by Darren Smith -
Sorry if I'm being a bit dim but what does calification mean? thoughtful It's kinda strange when people from other countries use English word I've never heard of blush surprise
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In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Some ideas

by Germán Matías -

How did you realise that I don´t speak native english ?? approve

I´m really sorry !! I actually wanted to stay Grades. It would be very useful a private section for teachers where they can assign grades and comments about each student. Like a students history, a students sheet where teachers can associate relevant information. Ie: about their progress in the course, which teacher has corrected this or that excersice, a general concept each teacher has about the student, etc. Of course, with a per student layout, that´s why a forum wouldn´t be enough. What do you think?

Again, i´m sorry for my poor english. shy

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In reply to Germán Matías

Re: Some ideas

by Darren Smith -
Hello

I briefly considered it was a word which may have become mixed in translation but I did genuinely think it was an English word I hadn't come across.

Thanks for explaining it further.I think such an area is a great idea. What we do is set up another separate courses where only teachers are enrolled to discuss such things but it would be nice if this was linked to the student course. In fact, it would be nice if the course format was different to accommodate that but I don't know how!

Oh, don't apologise for your use of the English language - it's far better than my Argentine (?) / Spanish (?) shyshyshyshyshyshyshyshy

Regards

Darren
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In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Some ideas

by Germán Matías -

Neither do I know still exactly how but that´s a very important functionality for us so late or soon I´ll have to develope something. 

I think the best way is a block so each course can have one. What do you think? I have been doing a few tests with blocks so if I dare next weekend I´ll start programming.

Any ideas are welcome !

Saludos.

(try writing something in spanish if you dare to wink)

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In reply to Germán Matías

Re: Some ideas

by Rebecca Barrington -

Just going to add my thoughts to this.  I am very new to Moodle and am just looking through the forums to see if there are any features in Moodle to add extra grades and comments for learners!  Obviously there isn't anything as yet but I think your ideas are excellent.  It would be nice for teachers to be able to add any relevant columns to the grade area in their course.  For example columns for entry grade, coursework grade, final grade, attendance on course etc.  These details could then be exported / downloaded to create a report for parents, other colleges, inspectors etc.

I'm afraid I am not a 'techie' so would have no idea where to begin on developing this but I think it would be a very useful tool to take learning management systems to the future.

Becky

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In reply to Rebecca Barrington

Re: Some ideas

by Michael Penney -
Hi Becky, this would mostly be accomplished by adding assignments, add one and name it 'coursework grade', and it will be added to your gradebook.

In 1.5, you can put a collection of items into a category and give that category a weight, so you could create a 'coursework' category and then have the grade be the total of the items in that category.

Also, in 1.5 you can assign a grade letter to a numerical range for the final grade (eg 90%+ gets an A, or 51%+ gets a Pass, etc.).

The way Moodle presently works, the gradebook collects the grades of the various graded modules and presents them for weighting, totalling, curving, etc. you don't add grades directly in the gradebook (though that could be done with some work).
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In reply to Rebecca Barrington

Re: Some ideas

by Germán Matías -

Rebecca, that´s exactly what I´ve been thinking of. I was starting to think that nobody was interested in something like this. mixed

I haven´t got in touch with 1.5 yet. If, like Michael says, there´s a possibility of developing such in 1.5, I´ll be for sure  developing it in a few weeks. My teachers are asking me it desperately.

Meanwhile, if you agree, we could create a new discussion topic (where could it be here in moodle.org?) where we can discuss more in detail what this new tool should include. (if you can stand with my bad english thoughtful)

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In reply to Germán Matías

Re: Some ideas

by Peter Newman -

This is exactly what I am looking for as well.  I am implementing this in a non profit after school type of environment, and I want to be able to share grades or comments about our students with both their regular school teachers and their parents. 

Optimally, the functionality would include the ability to follow each student over the course of many years and also track their progress in respect to specific standards. 

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In reply to Germán Matías

Re: Some ideas

by Michael Penney -

assign grades

Hmm, maybe a new assignment type--using the new assignment plug-in architecture in 1.5-- with comment fields that are only viewable by teachers?
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