Moodle Installation in Rural Area

Re: Moodle Installation in Rural Area

by James Steerpike -
Number of replies: 9

I have set up a Raspberry Pi and it was a great way to learn to install an OS,  LAMP stack and Moodle from scratch. It was perfectly functional and with a tiny router powered by a USB Powerbank,  made a portable solution I could just about carry in my pocket. I loved being able to set it up, then wipe it and start all over. I could see it being used where there was no power, no internet but the students had mobile phones.

But a PI is really an under-powered beast with 1 gig of RAM, a not very powerful CPU and uses a SD card for writes which has a limited life. With the number of students, something a bit more powerful would be  required and these days many obsolete and discarded computers would have far better specs. Cheapest solution might even be a laptop with a dud screen.

I think unless extreme portability is essential for a small number of students, a Moopi is not a practical production server.

As for the rural school - my advice is suck it and see. The server is a good start and is what you have. Set it up with a LAMP stack (if you can - Windows is not considered  optimal for Moodle) , install Moodle and get started - perhaps with one course at first. Don't underestimate the time required to create course material and for teachers to become familiar with the system. I think the best way to learn Moodle is from running it.

But I do wonder - when will the students use the system? If it is independent of the internet and based around a server and wifi, how will they access it without being in wifi range?


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In reply to James Steerpike

Re: Moodle Installation in Rural Area

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
I know that this reply is late. Still adding a few comments for those who find this discussion in the web.

> I have set up a Raspberry Pi and it was a great way to learn to install an OS, LAMP stack and Moodle from scratch. It was perfectly functional and with a tiny router powered by a USB Powerbank, made a portable solution I could just about carry in my pocket.

Raspberry Pi 3 contains a wireless interface. Therefore it can act as the router too, making an external router unnecessary. That is what the https://moodlebox.net/ does. BTW, the laptop of the teacher could power the Raspberry Pi - no USB power banks necessary.

> But a PI is really an under-powered beast with 1 gig of RAM, a not very powerful CPU and uses a SD card for writes which has a limited life.

True as a general statement, Pi can not be compared to a full blown computer. But for one, Pi 3 Model B has four cores and 2 GB RAM. And secondly, solutions like the MoodleBox doesn't have the standard LAMP stack, it is highly optimized. I don't know how the limited life time of the SD card going to threatens its operation. I use a MoodleBox sporadically. So far nothing happened.

> With the number of students, something a bit more powerful would be required

Yes, it is a matter of the number of _simultaneous_ students and what exactly they are doing simultaneously. I have done a competitive "active quiz" https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_activequiz with time to answer in the range of 10 to 20 seconds in class of 25 participants. Only once the MoodleBox became unresponsive.

> and these days many obsolete and discarded computers would have far better specs. Cheapest solution might even be a laptop with a dud screen.

Have the disadvantage of requiring a power supply and much heavier than a Pi.

> I think unless extreme portability is essential for a small number of students, a Moopi is not a practical production server.

Yes, we are talking about portability (for a rural setup).

> But I do wonder - when will the students use the system? If it is independent of the internet and based around a server and wifi, how will they access it without being in wifi range?

Simple. Technology does not replace the teacher! I am talking about a (rural) class around a _teacher_, who carries a portable LMS.
wink

Edit: Here is another scenario: "Only Quiz for take Exam" https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=358788.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle Installation in Rural Area

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

The thing about the pi is that you know the OS will work with the networking chip. If you go down the old laptop route there tends to be an issue of will Linux support whatever network/wifi chipset it has. I have been trying to identify a good way of getting usb wifi adapters that are likely to reliably work with Linexen. 

Part of the MoodleBox magic is that it uses Ngnx instead of Apache for the server which has performance advantages, particularly with low hardware spec. Hooray for Nicolas Martignoni, hmm what about getting a performance boost by chaining two together, one with the db and one with the server hmmmmmm

A good solution would be a more rugged case than the standard pi and some type of relatively integrated USB style battery. I suspect that using the types of sd cards that are used in surveillance systems might extend the predicted life. 

With reference to when will they use it, in class is the answer smile. It ought to be possible to link up MoodleBox with the RACHEL content....

http://rachelfriends.org/rachel-pi-howto.html


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In reply to Marcus Green

Re: Moodle Installation in Rural Area

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi Marcus

Thanks for all the pointers, especially on RACHEL http://rachelfriends.org/. Very ambitious. Classroom without the Internet has another advantage: it avoids the all distractions of the net. The technology one needs to add RACHEL to a MoodleBox is simple. If I got it right, RACHEL is just static web content. One doesn't need microSD for that, any USB media would do. OK, then one also needs to think of a better power supply. Presently, I power the MoodleBox from my netbook.

Now to the topic of this forum, the performance. I am not convinced whether the complications of a Pi duo are worth what they improve. microSD is inherently slow. So most of the things need to happen in RAM. And as I said in my previous post, I conducted a competitive Active Quiz with 25 participants. Only once the MoodleBox became unresponsive.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle Installation in Rural Area

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Yes, I think RACHEL is just static content, though I also believe there is some magic for updating when it is possible to contact the full internet. The PI will take a straight up standard USB drive so perhaps there is promise there.

I agree that a Pi duo is probably over complicating things, but it would be interesting to see what difference it makes. I missed your comment about Active quiz, which I believe gives better performance with a trade off in features. There is also a dedicated intel style RACHEL box

https://worldpossible.org/rachel/

But that is about $US,500 so in a different league to the cost of PI's or repurposed laptops.


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In reply to Marcus Green

RACHEL off-line content

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
I had a second look. RACHEL is not strictly static, it is obviously script and database driven. It has "modules" which need registration and comes even with Moodle pre-installed! Check RACHEL Plus Overview t=8m16s
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Moodle Installation in Rural Area

by Marcus Green -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Yes, I think RACHEL is just static content, though I also believe there is some magic for updating when it is possible to contact the full internet. The PI will take a straight up standard USB drive so perhaps there is promise there.

I agree that a Pi duo is probably over complicating things, but it would be interesting to see what difference it makes. I missed your comment about Active quiz, which I believe gives better performance with a trade off in features. There is also a dedicated intel style RACHEL box

https://worldpossible.org/rachel/

But that is about $US,500 so in a different league to the cost of PI's or repurposed laptops.


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