Enhanced forum features for CSCL

Enhanced forum features for CSCL

- Antonio Fini の投稿
返信数: 32

Related to the relation showed at Mini-Maxi 笑顔 MoodleMot in Rome on 13/6, we here make available a paper (to be published in Je-LKS - Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society, www.Je-lks.it) 

Our work, under the research project "New technologies for lifelong learning and networks in the italian socio-economic system" with a number of italian universities, is directed to obtain a greater integration between the CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning) world and Moodle.

We first tried to detect the most important features required and now we are working for implementing those not already available in Moodle as additional modules (the first pieces of code are to be released very soon).

As you can read, the most significant proposals of new features are related to the forum module, so we choose to post our work in this thematic forum.

The full paper is downloadable from http://guendalin.itd.ge.cnr.it/documenti/moodle_CSCL.pdf

Of course, we very well welcome any comments or queries you may have!

Antonio Fini
LTE - Educational Technology Laboratory - Università di Firenze - Italy

Full Project site: http://guendalin.itd.ge.cnr.it

評点平均:Useful (1)
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Enhanced forum features for CSCL

- Mike Churchward の投稿
画像 Core developers 画像 Plugin developers 画像 Testers
Hi Antonio -

This sounds exciting. You mention that you will release code soon. Where are you in the development process? Can you share your design documents?

mike
評点平均: -
Mike Churchward への返信

Re: Enhanced forum features for CSCL

- Antonio Fini の投稿

Mike, thank you for your interest.

Just little patience 笑顔

In few days we are going to release a beta of the first module, including the "forum plus" features (thinking types, collapse-expand, readings trackings, advanced search..) and related docs.

Stay tuned..

anto

評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Enhanced forum features for CSCL

- Don Hinkelman の投稿
画像 Particularly helpful Moodlers 画像 Plugin developers
Dear Antonio,

Great to see you have been so busy working on the future of Moodle. I briefly scanned your paper and really like the directions you propose. As you know, in the LD Book Study, we recently completed a group document, and let me tell you, it was soooo hard. dead All seven of us are exasperated. 笑顔 The forum is a great tool, and Moodle has the best kind of forums that I have worked with, but they are so clumsy for making summaries of book chapters and doing corporate writing. The wiki was just as difficult for various reasons (hopefully the new wiki will improve this?)

Here are some ideas we came up with. Maybe you have covered these already in your paper, or maybe some can add to it.
  • wiki-forums: a group editable document on half the screen, and a forum commenting on it, on the other half
  • poll-forums: combined poll and forum, like in phpBB.  Answer the poll, then give your reasons or comments
  • moderater-edited forums: where a moderator can build and re-edit the initial posting, as input comes in through comments
  • summarisable forums: a way to summarise the various postings in forum
  • sticky-forums: an important topic can be designated "sticky", so it sticks to the beginning of the topic list.
  • group document building tool: something that can handle longer documents (more than 2000 words)
  • color highlighter mode for editing: simple like in MS Word
In general, I imagine the development strategy would be to create a variety of forum types. I don't know if these would be separate activity modules or just configuration options on the current forum module.
評点平均:Useful (1)
Don Hinkelman への返信

Re: Enhanced forum features for CSCL

- Antonio Fini の投稿

Hi Don,

I know very well your excellent work on LD Book Study course, that I attended mostly as a..lurker 悲しい I regret for not being able to much more collaborate.

Really, collaboratively writing a text is a hard task. However, in our courses and in our work, we are trying to focus more on a methodology than on tools. For example, we found that thinking types can help to create a structure in the discussion and also to assign a "role" to single posts. So, messages can be seen as "oriented to ...something". Users are fostered to reflect in advance on the "sense" of their contributions. Moreover, using explicit roles for users can help to assign responsabilities, for example in the synthesis phase the coordinator is in charge of summarize and head to the final goal.
Of course, we need also effective TOOLS! 
Our work is a first step and your suggestions are very impressive, specially considering that they are coming from a person with strong field experience on these issues!!
I'm afraid there is still a lot of work ..TO BE DONE!

評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Enhanced forum features for CSCL

- Silvana Pirruccello の投稿

I'm happy to know that we are going to have some good methodological tools to enhance the forum.

I've been using it with the attept to mix some suggestions from Morin and Bono, something between the thinking hats and the thought labels.

It worked in my blended courses...

Silvana 笑顔

評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Enhanced forum features for CSCL

- Gustav W Delius の投稿
Enhancements to the forum module would be very welcome, see for example the discussion of enhancements that would allow classification of forum discussions which would not only be interesting in an educational environment but also for collaboration, e.g., for use as an issue tracker.
評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Add-on module "Forum Plus"

- Antonio Fini の投稿

Better late than ever!

At last, we are ready: in attachment you can find the first add-on module, named "Forum Plus". It provides enhancements to the Moodle standard Forum to improve collaborative working and learning.

It can be installed over 1.4.x or 1.5 versions of Moodle and comes with English and Italian language pack.
Please read the enclosed "Technical Notes" for details and installation hints.

We are waiting for comments and suggestions!

Cheers!!

Antonio Fini
LTE - Educational Technology Laboratory - Università di Firenze - Italy

Full Project site: http://guendalin.itd.ge.cnr.it

評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus"

- Antonio Fini の投稿
A new release of Forum Plus module, including Planner and Reflection Board additional features, is available from Modules and plugins in the main moodle.org site.

Antonio Fini
LTE - Educational Technology Laboratory - Università di Firenze - Italy

評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus"

- Stefania Spina の投稿
Has anybody already tried Forum plus with Moodle 1.6? The installation seems to fail...
Thank you for your help

Stefania Spina
Università per Stranieri - Perugia
評点平均: -
Stefania Spina への返信

Me, too.

- Mark Penny の投稿

I've been having trouble, too. I've managed to install, and I can even insert a Forum Plus forum, but when I go to add a discussion, I get an error. When I check the error log, I see problems with a number of files, all php, and all because they are writable by others.

There are also some missing files: 500.shtml and 404.shtml.

It's all Italian to me.

Speaking of which, I haven't been able to find any technical notes in English, have you?

評点平均: -
Mark Penny への返信

Re: Me, too.

- Antonio Fini の投稿
Here some technical notes in English, even if not very up to date...only an introduction.
About your problems, in which Moodle version are you trying to install?
anto
評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Once more into the breach

- Mark Penny の投稿
Long time, no see, Antonio.

I'm using 1.5.4. A PHP 5.0.5 issue keeps me from upgrading to 1.6.

I've just tried installing Forum Plus again today. Still won't let me do anything but stick a forum into a course.

Here are the errors from the server error log. The Moodle installation reported no errors.

[2006-08-20 06:04:43]: error: file is writable by others: (/home/targetei/public_html/courseportal/mod/forumtt/view.php)
[2006-08-20 06:04:27]: error: file is writable by others: (/home/targetei/public_html/courseportal/mod/forumtt/view.php)
[2006-08-20 06:04:12]: error: file is writable by others: (/home/targetei/public_html/courseportal/mod/forumtt/index.php)
[2006-08-20 06:03:06]: error: file is writable by others: (/home/targetei/public_html/courseportal/mod/forumtt/ttset.php)
[2006-08-20 06:02:38]: error: file is writable by others: (/home/targetei/public_html/courseportal/mod/forumtt/view.php)
[Sun Aug 20 06:04:43 2006] [error] Premature end of script headers: /home/targetei/public_html/courseportal/mod/forumtt/view.php

Permissions for all files in the forumtt root are set at 0666. Permissions for all folders in the forumtt root are set at 777.

According to the installation report, everything installed successfully, even though I uploaded to and unzipped in the mod folder rather than the root directory. I moved all files to their assigned locations.
評点平均: -
Mark Penny への返信

And yet again once more into the breach

- Mark Penny の投稿
Tried uploading into the root. Accidentally moved the unzipped folder to blocks, but moved it back to the root and then to mod. Same results.
評点平均: -
Stefania Spina への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus"

- Antonio Fini の投稿
Sorry, but at present Forum Plus is not yet compatible with 1.6. It works well with 1.4 thru 1.5.x.
Antonio
評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus"

- marco farfan の投稿
Hi Antonio, i just like to ask you if you can tell me how can I print your interesting paper spacer.gifRisorsa Introductory paper on Forum Plus (English) on http://62.149.230.165/moodle/course/view.php?id=9&username=guest.
It seems that this file is procted.
Also i like to know if when do you expect to get ready the new version of Forum Plus for Moodle 1.6
thanks in advance
Marco
評点平均: -
marco farfan への返信

Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Antonio Fini の投稿
A new version of Forum Plus for Moodle 1.6.x is now available! Additional info (mostly in Italian) here.
評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Jim McGregor の投稿

Thanks for this Antonio, we have some users keen to make use of this.

However the [planner] section has been left out of the English version of lang/en/forumtt.php. We have been enterprising and done our best to produce the attached (with some help from Babel Fish), but some of it is still pretty clunky-looking. Is there someone there who could improve on it?
Grazie molto!

評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Alain Lasserre の投稿
Hi Antonio,

i just installed the Forum Plus packacke on my 1.63 moodle.
Installation finished with no error.

Under activities i found modulname but no "Forum Plus".

I copied also the language files to ../lang/en_utf8, but no result.

Can someone tell me what i am doing wrong ?

Best reagrds
Alain
評点平均: -
Alain Lasserre への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Jim McGregor の投稿

Hi Alain,

Entries in double brackets have a language translation problem.  See my post above about a missing section in the php files, I think this is likely the problem

Ciao

評点平均: -
Jim McGregor への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Luke MacKinney の投稿
I'm having the exact same problem, anyone have a clue when a fix will be released? Or are we supposed to replace the file with the one you created Jim?
評点平均: -
Luke MacKinney への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Jim McGregor の投稿
What I've posted is only our best attempt at a translation. My Italian knowledge extends to music terms and 'cappuccino'. It's not the whole file, just paste the contents into the appropriate php files. Otherwise we're waiting for anybody who can to improve them...
評点平均: -
Jim McGregor への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Luke MacKinney の投稿
But does it work to replace it with your file?
評点平均: -
Luke MacKinney への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Jim McGregor の投稿

Absolutely not.

My txt file is just a convenient way of posting our attempted translation here - it is additional translations to the original php file.

You have to open lang/en-utf8/forumtt-rule_forum.php and replace the line beginning "$string['info'] = " with the first bit from the txt file.

Then open lang/en-utf8/forumtt.php and paste in the rest into the [PLANNER] section.

評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: Add-on module "Forum Plus" now available for Moodle 1.6.x

- Juvenal Sahiri の投稿
Hi Antonio,
Installed Forum Plus on Moodle 1.7 after inserting the additional text (planner etc) in the relevant forumtt files for the english file with no problem.

I still have to play around with the concepts of collaboration that make forum plus unique.

I ran into one problem though: when I attach a file (using the browse button at the bottom of the html editor or using the html editor add image or file functions, I don't see the file attached or the image.

These Browse button work for the moodle regular forum. How is one supposed to attach a file to a forum posting?
Thanks
Juvenal
評点平均: -
Juvenal Sahiri への返信

"Forum Plus" Stats, Reflection Board and Search problem

- David Banach の投稿
I've installed this module for 1.6 and it seems to work fine.

I love the extra capabilities it has.

The show history function does not work nor do any of the search functions or the user histories onthe Reflection board.

WhenI turn on Php errors I get the following error:
Notice: Undefined variable: etre in /home/moodle/mod/forumtt/lib.php on line 1901
Seminar 2: F 1/19 		f2.jpg David Banach
Notice: Undefined variable: etre in /home/moodle/mod/forumtt/lib.php on line 1918

Has anyone run into these types of problems.

I love this module and it would be gret to be able to use all the features!

David
評点平均: -
David Banach への返信

Re: "Forum Plus" Stats, Reflection Board and Search problem

- Antonio Fini の投稿
David, in attachment to this post you can find the fixes for this error, for both 1.6 and 1.7 versions.
Sorry for the delay ..
Antonio
評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: "Forum Plus" Stats, Reflection Board and Search problem

- David Banach の投稿
Hi Antonio

Thanks for the reply!

The individual messages now load without error when viewing the new discuss.php file, but, unfortunately after uploading the new discuss.php file. I still get the undefined variable error for etre
Notice: Undefined variable: etre in /moodle/course/mod/forumtt/lib.php on line 1901
Seminar 4: F 2/9 		f2.jpg David Banach
Notice: Undefined variable: etre in /home/dbanach/public_html/course/mod/forumtt/lib.php on line 1918
when viewing the
moodle/course/mod/forumtt/view.php file

I also get a undefined variable error on the search.php page

Notice: Undefined variable: th in /home/dbanach/public_html/course/mod/forumtt/search.php on line 93

And I also get the following MYSQL error
SELECT * FROM mdl_forumtt_discussions WHERE forum = '2' LIMIT 100

Found more than one record in get_record_sql !


When I view/moodle/course/mod/forumtt/index.php

I get a series of errors like this one:
Unknown column 'forumtt' in 'where clause'

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mdl_forumtt_discussions WHERE forumtt = '1'


Thank you for your help.

Again, this module is working very well in my classes and I hope to be able to use all its features!

David


評点平均: -
David Banach への返信

Re: "Forum Plus" Stats, Reflection Board and Search problem

- Antonio Fini の投稿
David, here you find a postfix that I hope can correct your problem.
It has been tested only on Moodle 1.7 but it should work on 1.6 too..
On 1.6 and 1.7 there are still problems with search... we are trying to fix them.
This patch should fix the download problem reported by Juvenal Sahiri too.
All the best!
Antonio

評点平均: -
Antonio Fini への返信

Re: "Forum Plus" Stats, Reflection Board and Search problem

- Jay Sherman の投稿
I've had a lot of problems with forums plus. One of the big bugs is that it will not show me the amount of discussions in each forum. It shows the number under discussions (next to "Subscribe") yet their are postings in the forums. How do I fix this?
評点平均: -
Jay Sherman への返信

Re: "Forum Plus" Stats, Reflection Board and Search problem

- Roland vanOostveen の投稿
Is your group continuing the development of this module? I am currently running Knowledge Forum v. 4.7 as a separate platform for my courses but I'd love to include it's type of functionality as a module into Moodle v. 1.8/1.9 that we are also currently running. As far as I can tell, Forum Plus was the closest to this type of implementation.
評点平均: -