Just want to share some news: https://moodle.com/cloud/
"With MoodleCloud you can get your own Moodle site in minutes, for free."
This has got to be one of the biggest Moodle hosting advancements in recent times!
Looks like Martin gave a talk about it at the ongoing MoodleMoot in Melbourne. Some tweets: https://twitter.com/search?q=moodlecloud&src=typd
Well, it's quite limited (50 users and 200MB of data) but it's great to (finally) be able to point people somewhere to give Moodle a try or to run very small sites.
The plan of course (it's no secret) is to nudge users towards Moodle Partners for larger hosting once you have established Moodle is right for you.
Looks like you get a 6 user Big Blue Button account for video conferencing as well, which is nice.
Sounds like a good thing overall. I'm all for people being guided
towards support from Moodle Partners after an easy start. I think often
people get trapped in a contract with an IT vendor with no
Moodle experience because such a company will give them an affordable
and basic site quickly and won't 'bother' them with in-depth questions
about their plans for using Moodle or try to be a real partner. With
MoodleCloud those who just want a small site can remain independent and
those who want to grow will hopefully understand the value of Moodle
specialists.
I just tried to create a Moodlecloud account and at one point it asks for your location. You have the choice of the USA, Australia or Ireland. I guess I could have fibbed but I thought it might be to do with the SMS authentication thing? Anyone know?. If it is the SMS thing, is there a way around it.? Will there be some sort of forum to support it. I think adverts are perfectly acceptable to support this service (though I haven't seen them yet)
I was thinking that Moodle partners could be set up to host a specific MoodlCloud+ (or plus) where you paid for a similar or identical product without the user limitation/adverts or whatever. This would give a nice standard Moodle product to be referred to because at the moment there isn't a recognisable single product to go for when looking for Moodle hosting, and I suspect some people retire defeated just because of the range of choices available. Just some thoughts (I'm rather excited by the whole idea)
MG
Marcus, you're not the first person to ask about the location.
We'll be making it clearer soon, but in the meantime, please note that the sentence above applies to the location field: "select your location (this is where your site will be hosted, so we recommend a location closest to you and your students)".
" please note that the sentence above applies to the location field: " , Duh, nobody reads anything, but I was quite excited at the time. I shall pick Ireland, close and lovely.
Where is the support forum where we can ask for a discount off the current price?
Oh My Goodness read the start of the terms and conditions.....
Our hosting service costs us money to run. To protect the system for the majority from a minority who might abuse it we have created strict rules and have put systems in place to enforce them.
You’re staying in our private house in the clouds which we made so you can try Moodle, teach students what you know and create some magic learning experiences. We assume you’re a cool person who we’d like to hang out with."
Beautiful move on part of Moodle HQ !
Though I am still waiting for my SMS code to come (for a few hours, now) hope it solves soon
I got my SMS and my account is set up, did you get yours?. I think the delay is because Martin D types them all in on an old Nokia
Here is a link to the terms and conditions which are well worth reading even if you are not getting yourself an account.
https://moodle.com/cloud/terms-of-service/
I would like to pass on my congratulations to the author of that document, not just because of the summary but because of the brevity and concise nature of the rest of the document.
We are hearing about some delays particularly for the UK. No idea why, they leave us instantly. It's somewhere in the UK phone system.
Glad you like the ToS.
Tried another two times, and did not get any SMS yet (after more than an hour)
Please see if I am entering my phone number correctly.
Hi Nadav,
If you're still encountering issues, we can create your site manually. We're following up the SMS failures we're setting with our message provider (Twilio). As Martin says, messages are leaving our system and being marked by our provider as having sent, and I do see some for Israel marked as having been delivered, but one phone number is not.
If you send me a direct message with your phone number and desired domain, I'll manually create your site.
Best wishes,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I have been trying to install moodle cloud but am not able to go beyond the step of confirmation code, which is to come through SMS. I tried it on 16.07.15 (in U.K) and after that have tried it umpteen number of times in Delhi (from 22.07.15 onward). Kindly help in this regards, as I plan to use moodle cloud for flipped classes.
Thanks for the info. I have written an email just now (after reading your message). Let's see what happ
I had the same problem, no SMS message. My mistake was not to type the whole telephone number, whereas in most cases I would omit the 9 for international numbers. There was no error message, simply wait for confirmation of a pin number of which never arrived.
Ensure you type all numbers of your telephone. If you receive no message on your phone, it probably means you didn't give the number to their satisfaction.
I tried it, very soon I received a security call back supposedly with a pin number, but I couldn't read it. I had a message saying my phone was out of memory. After trying again, I received no answer. I tried again with another phone number, and still no answer. What's going on? I'll try again with my wife's phone number and another email.
Another disappointment is that I had a nice name, now it's apparently taken. By me of course, but I can't have it.
John, I'm a bit confused by your mention of a security call back. I received an SMS with the activation code, but perhaps you're not using a mobile phone?
If you particularly want the name you chose, how about emailing support@moodlecloud.com about it (as mentioned in https://moodle.com/cloud/faq/).
Hello Helen, I meant receiving an sms, excuse my terminology. I received a call obviously intended to give me the activation code, but it didn't show. Perhaps I was unlucky and I my phone lost memory due to too many previous sms calls. So when I tried again and again I didn't receive any more return sms calls with activation code. I'll try again later, and if have no luck I'll try that link you gave me.
Maybe there's a problem with me being in Russia, or perhaps it's a problem with Ireland. Should I try USA?
Have you got your sms code yet, Nadav. I haven't got mine yet, and it's been almost 24 hours.
Hi Marcus - I also got a little confused at that stage. I live in India. I chose US and I could put in my Indian phone number on the next page. Looks like all countries are supported.
This free moodle cloud hosting seems a great idea for starters. What happens when we exceed say 50 students, are there any optoions to upgrade? And how does it compare to being hosted by Bluehost for example?
What's the difference of Moodle as to https://www.gnomio.com/ ?? Apart from the fact that Gnomio is so much faster and easier to register. And has bigbluebutton already installed.
Very useful to learn about Gnomio. In a way it seems more attractive because you can have unlimited users and courses. But they also say "If you have large needs we recommend you to contact an official Moodle Partner." What does "large needs" mean?
"Your MoodleCloud site will always be running the very latest release of Moodle". What about Gnomio?
Gnomio: "Faster
email sending every 15 minutes. Non donor sites run that task every two
hours." I just made a test post in a forum on my MoodleCloud site and got the email copy in 1 minute. Definitely better than 2 hours!
Yes Ravi, I've just started something in Gnomio.com and it's off to a great start. I've got together with three other other ESOL teachers from Facebook , and were having a whale of a time exploring moodle and planning to build courses together. The teachers are absolute newbies for moodle or any other LMS. All this activity, and it's only been two days since we started. Once we're ready we'll bring in the student. If we ever get big, of course we will consider a moodle partner.
At the moment it's only an experiment, and a learning process.
John, have you looked into the Learn Moodle MOOC that HQ hosts every 6 months? It's a great way to discover how activities, resources and teaching can operate in a Moodle site.
Next MOOC begins Aug 9 and you can sign up here or read more about what goes on during the 4 week course https://learn.moodle.net/
Hi John - from the email I got when I signed up on MoodleCloud: "You can delete unwanted users in the Site Administration to make room for more." I don't know if there ever will be an option to upgrade on MoodleCloud. As Howard said earlier in this thread, I guess such users are ideally expected to scale up with the help of a Moodle Partner.
Perhaps moodlecloud should make it a bit bigger, as we are not likely to make enough money with one admin, 3 teachers and 46 students to pay for the costs of a moodle partner.
"Perhaps moodlecloud should make it a bit bigge"
My assumption is that it is mainly a "taster" service. I assume the idea is that you get used to it and then migrate over to something hosted elsewhere, but at the same time you can stay with it if you can live with the limitations.
The resources made available are fine for one teacher to teach a class or two and get used to what you can do with Moodle. It would have suited me in my last job apart from my love of plugins.
Yes it appears all countries are accepted. That includes Russia. I used the Irish line.
Congratulations! Finally I was able to use MoodlCloud in exploring the features. I was able to build all the wonderful courses and quizes without concerning servers and ports stuff. Love it.
I would like to upscale the courses and making them accessible to > 50 users without having to migrate to another platform.
A paid plan for customers exceeding the current limitation will encourage people to sign up without having to worrying about what to do next.
I have been using open source cloud to build website for a few years now. Starting with a free trail plan, like many others I am now a fully committed paid customer with them.
Does MoodleCloud have any plan allowing upscale paying customers without going to partners?
What's your objection to signing up with a Moodle Partner? That's really the plan with the Cloud service
Not an objection at all. It's an alternative.
You can edit the Cloud theme but not the More or Clean theme (we'll make this clearer soon) As far as I am aware you can't increase the max file upload size.
Hi Mary... Thanks for this. I did think it strange. The Moodle lets you go through the motions of changing the theme and upload size but doesnt save them.
It would be cool to have a larger file upload size as, working for Jisc advising work based learning;- providers, I would like to use it to show how to use SCORM objects and 10mb is a bit small. But I do understand that it is free
The upload limit is now 100MB per file, with the same 200MB limit per site
Ok, this is probably a really stupid question, but I have just created my own moodlecloud site to test and try (I have NEVER tried Moodle before and in the discovery stage here). Now that I have my site, how and where do I go to do all those admin things? (customize, upload courses, etc.
Darlene - you should have a course there on your site called "Introduction to Moodle" which gives you a basic overview of what is there. It also links to the docs Guide for new administrators which is a good starting place (and our free beginners course in August Learn Moodle https://learn.moodle.net/ )
Hi Darlene,
A few options to get started depending on how you like to learn:
1. Tinker and experiment. Click the "Moodle Docs for this page" link at the bottom of any page in your Moodle to see context-specific help as you go along.
2. Read Moodle Docs in a systematic way (https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Main_page). You can for example start here: https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/Guide_for_new_administrators
3. Have a question about how to do something specific? Search on Google! You'll probably see links to some Moodle Docs pages, Moodle community forums, and external sites. You can also use the Google custom search: https://moodle.org/public/search/. If you don't find an answer, make a post in the relevant community forum: https://moodle.org/course/
Hope this helps,
Ravi
Can't sign up for cloud without cell phone. We use internet phones.
As there are nearly as many mobile phones in the world as there are people, and they are very cheap in most parts of the world, you can probably get to use one for the one off period between filling in the form and receiving the text.
Welcome to Moodle.org Dick.
I'd suggest you ask a teenager for a loan of their number.
-Derek
Thank you for the information. I have a smart phone, but we don't give out the number because we don't like to receive junk texts.
I teach Math and Computer Science at the University level and I was evaluating a number of products.
It looks like I won't be including Moodle.
Hi Dick,
Sorry to hear that - Moodle is likely a great fit with your use-case as we have several tools aimed at Math spread liberally throughout Moodle, and there are many case studies and examples of successful University implementations of Moodle.
Just to clarify: We only use phone numbers for identity verification and to prevent abuse of our system. We do not sell the information provided.
I'll see if I can get Martin to expand upon the Terms and Conditions to clarify this.
Beset wishes,
Andrew
It is interesting you use cell phones for identity verification. One person suggested I get a throw away phone and the other suggested I borrow a teenagers phone.
Dick, cell phone verification is now quite common for all sorts of services. Emails can be spoofed so easily. The third suggestion we made to you was to use your own cell phone on the basis we can absolutely trust Martin not to spam you with texts.
Actually if you really are stuck Dick, and you really want a review of Moodle, you still can't get a cell access, or don't want to use the NZ based Free Moodle or the others that are around, and demo.moodle is not enough, send me a PM and I'll use one of my cell phones to help you get a cloud.moodle account. This does not violate the ToS.
With regards
-Derek
Thank you for the offer. We also tried installing Moodle on a Fedora 22 (linux) server. We were not able to get Moodle to run.
The Apache web server is up and running.
The MariaDB server is up and running.
We posted a request for help on the "Installation help Forum" with no response.
"Authentication plugin cas not found"
We are concerned with the support of Moodle.
"We are concerned with the support of Moodle."
Could you expand on your concern.
If you want Moodle support, you will probably need to set up with a Moodle partner. The forums are normally very good however and everyone strives to provide help where they can. If you did not get a response, perhaps you did not give enough information.
On your install...
I would check permission and ownership on the Moodle folder - on Debian Linux I use 755 permissions and ownership should belong to the webserver user (www:data on debian.) Did 'p you create the moodledata folder as well?
If permissions are correct, I would try redownloading the moodle code and trying again - perhaps a faulty download..
I am hoping someone might be able to help me - I am needing to make my Moodle Cloud site public, but I am having difficulty navigating just how to do that. I find directions on how to do it, but just isn't working.
Thank you for your help,
Jen
What do you mean by making it public, what directions have you been reading?
Hi everyone.
Not sure if this is the right place to ask this but can;t seem to find anywhere else.
I can login to the moodle cloud portal but can't log into the associated course using the same details. Any ideas whats going on?
https://abbvieanz.moodlecloud.com/login/index.php
I've tried resetting my password but no email arrives at any of my email addresses.
Thanks
Thanks so Much Helen. That solved it, you are a life saver.
Hi,
I would like to install the HotPot plugin on my MoodleCloud site, but I can't see a plugin-install function. Can anyone tell me if it's possible to add extra plugins at all to MoodleCloud?
Thanks,
Susanna
Hello Susanna. No, it isn't possible - please see the MoodleCloud FAQ.
Hi,
I see;. Thank you for the useful FAQ link. I'll enjoy exploring and testing Moodle thanks to MoodleCloud: it's a great idea.
Susanna
