Can Moodle do what I need to support PD?

Can Moodle do what I need to support PD?

by Barbara Masters -
Number of replies: 5

I am a member of a team that provides f2f and online/f2f PD courses for 45,000 in our k-12 district.

For the last few years I have used a management portal called CTAPOnline.  That  arrangement is coming to a close for lots of reasons. We have been in discussion withour another team developing online content for a k-12 virtual academy who are using Moodle, on July 1, 2005 for HS courses.

As I look through Moodle I see mamy features that can duplicate the usability of CTAPOnline, however there are things it does not seem to have.  When that occurs, what can one do?

Who can develop code for what I don't see in Moodle?  Do others have these "add-ons" or enhancements that I can use? Do I hire someone to build them using coding (is that a moodle word?) or what.

Speciifcally we need :

A lesson plan builder that can be flexible enough to start a lesson at the assessment (backwards planning), or with the lesson title, or with one actitivy and build out from that. Also it need a way to drop state, ISTE, or teacher preparation standards into the lessons automatically

We need a way tohave a searchable web library teacher recommendations and with commentary for use by all the teachers in the system

We need to be able to have instructors make groups within groups so that every course and class can have a separte group in which to collaborate.

We need a file sharing system that is searchable so teachers can find lessons, projects and other materals by standards, grade level, textbook, units, subjects ,and anything else someone would want]

I also need  a collaborative project building tool that any instructor or participant or group could use to build webquests, websites and any other type of collaborative work they wish to do.

In other words, as we see a need to make new tools and more flexibility in the system, we can get, make or buy  those features and Moodle will keep on running even with several hundred courses, thousands of classes and thousands of people using the system.

Any body want to help with any or all of these ideas? Or know some one (s) who could help or at least talk to me about the scope Iwe need?

Barbara Masters

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In reply to Barbara Masters

Re: Can Moodle do what I need to support PD?

by Chris Puttick -
I haven't the foggiest idea what PD is, or a number of other abbreviations you've used, however I think I can still answer your questions...

Moodle is open source (or friendly licencing!) and as a result developing rapidly. Where there are features that are missing, anyone can modify or adapt the code, subject to making the new code available under the same licence, and many do, hence the speed of development (code: programmers term for the underlying language that makes the program work hence coding is developing or modifying  that code).

A lot of modules already exist, either as part of the released version of the Moodle or as separate downloads (see http://moodle.org/download/modules/ ). Some of these seem to be able to achieve elements of your requirements with a change of terminology (e.g. the groups within groups, searchable resources and the lesson/class/course system are all pretty flexible).

Where the functionality does not exist that you need, you can retain a developer or company to develop it (they would need PHP, SQL and Javascript expertise, preferably in a Linux or open source context). There are already Moodle partners available for this, or you can contact the core development team directly via http://moodle.com.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Chris
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In reply to Chris Puttick

Re: Can Moodle do what I need to support PD?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
PD = Professional Development = Short-term education for adults
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In reply to Barbara Masters

Re: Can Moodle do what I need to support PD?

by Bryan Williams -
Barbara,

There are Moodle Partners that specialize in this, and I believe one of them also handles BNP (bulbous nose problems). big grin
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In reply to Barbara Masters

Re: Can Moodle do what I need to support PD?

by Michael Penney -
Hi Barbara, some of these tasks are along the lines of code we've written ore are planning to write. Not exactly the same, but we've created a lesson adminstration system for employee diversity training, some of which may be applicable.

We've also developed the MyFiles filesharing block, which is going to see some major improvements in the next few months. Searchability would be a greate feature to addsmile.

Some of the other things you are talking about seem to echo some Postnuke modules one of our colleagues, Andy Alm has worked on searchable/commentable resource library --based on Scout and Postnuke but Scout (now CWIS) could be 'moodleized' and a curriculum development module that accepts state standards (though I have to talk to Andy to see how far along this is).

Anyway, if you are interested in talking more, drop me a linesmile.
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In reply to Barbara Masters

Re: Can Moodle do what I need to support PD?

by Mark Stevens -

Hi, just a couple of small points to discuss:

We need to be able to have instructors make groups within groups so that every course and class can have a separate group in which to collaborate


I think this is available in Moodle's teacher forum that is automatically created with every new course.

We need a way to have a searchable weblibrary teacher recommendations and with commentary for use by all theteachers in the system

Unless you feel you have a special module written, I think Moodle's glossary would work quite well.  It's searchable, has comments, and could be part of a teacher's course.
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