Hello there,
as I said, really useful, thanks for this.
My response now follows:
1. You
don't need more PHP developers you need more designers:
-I think this is already in place: Stuart L is with Moodle at the mo........
'If
Moodle takes the advice of a similar UX designer they will be able to produce a
highly usable Moodle that works for all sectors of the community'.
-What does this mean? Learners aged across the
age-range of education or just HE?....does this include primary/secondary
schools/FE?Having generic management system
expertise is great-what about knowledge of the epistemological, ontological and
contextual differences for L&T across educational age-groups that use
Moodle globally? Sounds a bit narrow to
me. Perhaps see (just one example of many) what others
in the community (share) are up to too:
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=226791
2. Follow
the Market leaders of social media
Social
media is adopted by people because it is easy and enjoyable to use. Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ are used because they have the user interface
right.
-Certainly
not an ignored factor, on all fronts (dev/L&T/and so on). Agree with
Marcus-yep inspirational stuff, but student data must always be a core
consideration and related privacy issues, see an example of just some of the related
threads from the Moodle.org community:
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=255236
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=197229
Our
tutors deserve an interface that is intuitive so that they can focus on
teaching and not Moodle course administration.
-Agree,
and I like the admin separation idea. How this is translated across global educational
practices remains to be outlined in more detail for it to work for me. Reason
being, could run risk of an infrastructure where hierarchical powers end up
dominating L&T instead of learner needs.
3. Focus
on Moodle core functionality
Moodle
core needs to be consolidated because the core of Moodle still isn't as good as
it should be, including many of the "social constructivist” activity modules.
-Eh? Can
you unpick this a bit more please? I get the consolidation bit...of course
(perhaps a number of items could become hybridised into the one feature-and I have
told HQ about this-linked with their Tracker system, but the educational-philosophical/pedagogical
design of Moodle needs to be 'applied' during L&T...this kit doesn't do it
for you and I am sure that text-book teaching and learning whether face-to-face
or 'bespoke online' (not sure I get the difference between the book feature
already in place, imho) will always run risk of a didactic approach-whether we
like it or not-the students will lead that pathway for sure. And, there is
nothing worse than students churning out regurgitated efforts-with the odd word
change from such texts, which in turn reflects a complete lack of understanding
and application of knowledge.
It should
not spend time focusing on non-core features such as messaging and further
integrations.
Fair point,
how things are prioritised? I know Moodle HQ juggle that-all the time and rely
on the community at Moodle.org, Conferences, Moots and research to inform decisions
too...(hope you manage to spread the word there at Sussex, about the gradebook
survey ;).
Remember,
the core Moodle function for the core of Moodle adopters is to make it easy for
non-technical teachers to create online content and activities from which
students can learn.
-I am
sorry Paolo, do forgive me here, tongue in cheek: 'ya don't say?' :0)
4.
Consider Moodle courses as a bespoke textbook
At all
levels of education, teachers refer to textbooks. The strength of systems like
Moodle is that the non-technical teachers can create their own online
textbooks, specifically for the curriculum they intend to cover.
Textbooks
usually include activities to complete at the end of the chapter. In VLEs like
Moodle, the activities they set can be varied, social and dynamic - more so
than activities in a traditional textbook.
Martin
D commented that our Moodle courses were just like the Book module. My
reply is:
"Yes,
and this is no surprise - we consider Moodle courses to be online textbooks
tailored to the needs of the course's curriculum”
-I can
only conclude this is context bound....not come across this before...and I am
sure Martin would have said so otherwise (He gets to hear a lot about Moodle (LOL!).But nice ideas if they work, of course can
only praise your innovation.
5.
Navigation needs to be clear and clean
See my response for 4.
I am inclined to say this is all context bound, mind
you we have colleagues here from Glasgow, OU, Wales, England and
Ireland.....they might disagree with me in terms of the UK slant I am
presenting here.
6. Stop
the proliferation of configuration variables
However,
until Moodle is really an industry standard VLE/LMS, we need to keep focused on
the core functionality and core user groups.
-Yes, I would agree with the need for more of a
focus on accessibility in core, but I disagree that Moodle is not
an educational- industry LMS, and standardising it too much defeats the object,
sounds like you are talking about BB, in my experience of using both.
7. Moodle
course administration needs to be improved
See my response for 2.
8. Make
it easy to make content
We changed the interface in line with social
media platforms so teachers intuitively create content-rich courses for their
students.
-Nice
touch, like and agree with all this section for 8.
9. Have
notifications
Ditto, nice touch for section 9.
10.
Create a Moodle Lite
Again, really lovely ideas here, which sound
effective.
with my kind regards,
Dawn