New location based GPS Course Format

New location based GPS Course Format

by Jürgen Kappus -
Number of replies: 3

We created a new GPS Course Format, that enables location based learning with Moodle. For example on events like a city rally, the learner walks between predefined locations using a smartphone or tablet PC.

We decided to support the Moodle Community by publishing it on Moodle.org.

Due to a actually much longer lasting approval process - Moodle 2.5 seems to need much attention - we decided that learners shouldn't wait until the end of summer on the northern hemisphere.

We decided to post an alternative (unofficial) plugin page to provide the format in a season where outside learning is a really great thing.

We keep away from posting unapproved Plugins and formats directly on moodle.org. You can benefit from this helpful course format if you go to our site with all information about the format and the downloadable package.

Don't forget to got read the moodle.org helpfiles to know how to install a course format:

http://blog.kamedia.de/index.php/2013/07/02/the-new-moodle-gps-course-format/

As soon as the format is published on moodle.org we strongly recomment to downlod it from here.

 

 

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In reply to Jürgen Kappus

Re: New location based GPS Course Format

by Jürgen Kappus -

I like to add that the development was done together with Barry Oosthuizen (a real helpful Moodler) - even if the format is an unsupported version he and me will respond to questions from time to time.

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In reply to Jürgen Kappus

Re: New location based GPS Course Format

by Gareth J Barnard -
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Dear Jürgen,

This looks like a really good and exciting new format.  I've downloaded it and will have a look.

Cheers,

Gareth

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In reply to Gareth J Barnard

Re: New location based GPS Course Format

by Ralf Krause -
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Hi Jürgen,

I tested the "GPS course format". Using GPS conditional access is a very good idea for a Moodle add-on but I found some problems.

1.
You only can use the course with a device that uses a gps receiver. So you can use the Moodle course with an iPhone, an iPad wifi+cellular and an Android with GPS. You can't see anything in the Moodle course if you try to access with a desktop pc, a notebook, an iPad wifi (without cellular) or any other device without GPS.

2.
The "GPS course format" hides complete topics in a course. Moodle conditional access should conditionally hide a topic but also every course activity separately.

3.
If you once added a position to a topic you can't delete the GPS condition anymore. So you can't decide later to show the topic to course students staying everywhere.

4.
You can't move topics in a course. If you try to do so the topic moves but the GPS condition stays on its old place.

5.
The backup and restore process looses all GPS access conditions so you can't duplicate such a course in the same Moodle or copy the course from one Moodle to another one.

 

You should try to get a better implementation of the GPS conditional access into Moodle.

A.
The Moodle course must work on every device. The GPS driven activity should be hidden if Moodle gets the wrong GPS location or no GPS location.

B.
The GPS condition should not be a course format. It should get an activity access condition same as "before date", "until date", "score less than", or "score higher than".

C.
The trainer must be able to set the location but he also must be able to delete it.

D.
If a trainer moves an activity with a GPS location then the activity must move together with the location. And if the topics has a GPS location the the topic must move together with the location.

E.
The backup process must save the course completely ... this means that it must also save the GPS conditions. And the restore process must recover the GPS conditions if the GPS add-on is installed also in the target platform.


I hope we will get a nice add-on for Moodle with GPS conditional access!

Best regards, Ralf

 

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