Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
Number of replies: 28
This may have been done before, but I needed to learn how to create activities for Moodle, and we might need a blog before 1.6 comes out.  So I created this activity for the current version of Moodle.  I haven't been able to test it extensively, but it does work on my site.  If you use it and find a bug, let me know and I will try to fix it. smile

This is a fairly simple blog - hence the name.  It is designed for instructors to be able to post to a blog and allow students to reply.  Any blog created can be edited by any teacher. There can also be multiple blogs.

The comments section will use a discussion forum for comments.  This allows for comments to be graded, if desired.  It is best to create the forum for comments first, but it can be added later.  When adding a blog entry, users are given the option to create a thread for comments or not.  Links are inserted to take readers back and forth between blog and comments.  The number of comments for each entry is also tracked.

This blog also keeps track of archives.  The author can set how many entries are viewed on the blog page, but all entries can be viewed through the archives.

I am planning on using this to create a podcast-like function that allows teachers to upload an mp3, and then students can quote parts of the audio using a Flash program called Quoteplay.  I also want to see if I can find a service that allows teachers to record stuff totally online.

There are a lot of features that could easily be added to this, but I was going to wait for 1.6.
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Art Lader -
Thank you for sharing this, Matt! It looks very cool. smile

If you do, indeed, find an online recording solution, please post that, too!

Regards,
Art
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In reply to Art Lader

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
Thanks!

I've started to work on something audio-recording-ish in Flash.  But it may not happen without something like Flash Server.  But I think I may post what I get when I get stumped and see who else could fill in the missing pieces.
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Art Lader -
Recording from the browser would be VERY cool, Matt. Hope it works out.

-- Art
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Eric Fino -
I know you can publish FLV and probably audio too using the "publish" method of the netStream Class. I'm pretty sure it only works if you have a Flash Media server though ... which is very expensive. You might want to check out Red5 or Wowza for a cheaper alternative.

good luck!
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Josep M. Fontana -
So, if I understand you correctly, students cannot have their own blocs, only instructors can. Right?

Josep M.
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In reply to Josep M. Fontana

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
For this one, it is only for the instructors.  I think 1.6 is going to have that feature, so this activity was just a hold-over until that comes out.  But I might dig in to it and see how easily that function could happen.
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Josep M. Fontana -
OK, thanks. I meant to write 'blog' instead of 'bloc', but I guess that was clear.

Josep M.
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Jeff Hague -
Hey Matt - thanks for the module. I am getting this error after installing simplblog when I log in as admin.
- Module "simpleblog" is not readable - check permissions
Moodle is installed on Windows. Any ideas?
Thanks!
 
Jeff
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In reply to Jeff Hague

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
Hmmm.... no immediate ideas.  I don't know about that Moodle error.  I use this module as an admin, but I know that my server isn't windows.  All that I know about "check permissions" is the chmod type - making sure that it has the correct permissions.... usually 644.  But I don't know Moodle errors.

What page do you get this error on?
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Jeff Hague -

I found that when I went in to the configuration page, the error changed and said that it couldnt read mods/simplblog/version.php which didnt exist so I copied it from a different mod and the error went away. I still dont see the blog activity show up anywhere though. Is there more that I need to do?

Thanks!

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In reply to Jeff Hague

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Jeff Hague -

Now I finally saw the mysql statements run indicating the tables had been set up and it now appears as an activity but complains when you try to add it that there is no simpleblog/mod.htm - and its right, theres not.

Jeff

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In reply to Jeff Hague

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Jeff Hague -

Fixed!big grin

Somehow Winzip didnt completely unzip everything so a few files were missing. I dont think Ive ever seen that before without errors. ANyway, I deleted the first try, unzipped again and the blog module seems to be working well.

Thanks for your patience!

Jeff

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In reply to Jeff Hague

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
Well... sure... but I don't think I really did anything smile

I have occasionally ran into that problem with WinZip, so I understand completely.
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Michael Tranchellini -
Hi Matt!
Thanks for this helpful Simple Blog module. It makes it easier to wait for the 1.6 version...
I installed it on our  Moodle 1.5.2 + (2005060222) server. We can create entries as long as we check the 'Create a forum post for comments' box. If we don't we get an error message telling that 'Could not insert a new blog entry'. There is a forum for the blog.
Btw, is there a way to delete a post?
The simpleblog.php that is in this message is a french language version that goes into the 'lang/fr/' folder.

Moodler's regards.

Michael

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In reply to Michael Tranchellini

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
Thanks for the French version.  The easiest way is to delete the post out of the database table.  You could always Edit the post and change it to something completely different.

I really wasn't able to figure out how to delete the forum post that goes along with the blog, or any posts that might be that forum.  So I decided to leave the delete function alone.
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Michael Tranchellini -
You're welcome.
But did you have a look at the little bug about the unchecked forum box? Sometimes you just don't want any comments...
Thank again!

Michael
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In reply to Michael Tranchellini

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
Ahh.... yes.  I see that.  I think I forgot to put some null variables in there.  Not that hard to fix - I'll try to get that fix soon....

Thanks for the report
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In reply to Michael Tranchellini

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
I posted the update for this in a new discussion thread:

Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3 update - student blogs
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Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Mark Little -

Hi

Has anybody got SimpleBlogs working in 1.6?

 

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Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Juvenal Sahiri -
Just installed simple blog 1.5.3 on moodle 1.7 and it doesn't work. Simply, nothing happens compared to normal module installation where there is sequence of successes.

Guess it was not meant to work with more recent versions of moodle: 1.6 and above. When is the next version of simple blog coming?
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In reply to Juvenal Sahiri

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
Simple blog was only meant to tide me over until 1.6 came out. With blogs being in 1.6, I didn't see the need to keep working on it. It works on my current installation of 1.6, but I haven't gotten a chance to see how it works on 1.7.
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Juvenal Sahiri -
Matt,
Are you saying that there is no need to install simple blog in moodle version after 1.5 as the incorporated blog has the features of simple blog?

if that's the case, the moodle plugin page relating to simple blog should reflect that. Assume this applies to more than just this module.
Juvenal.
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In reply to Juvenal Sahiri

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
"Are you saying that there is no need to install simple blog in moodle version after 1.5 as the incorporated blog has the features of simple blog?"

Well, no, I didn't say that. I really just said "Simple blog was only meant to tide me over until 1.6 came out. With blogs being in 1.6, I didn't see the need to keep working on it."

Simple Blog is just different than the incorporated blogs. The teachers where I work have found that students reply better on blogs than on discussion boards, so I designed a blog-like feature that works on the class level, for class-specific blogging that would not be need to carry over site-wide. If people really want to be able to use it in 1.6 or 1.7, I could look into seeing if I can make it work still.

I wasn't aware that there was a plug-in page for it. I can't find it - do you have a link?
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by C R -

This doesn't work with 1.6 : http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=57402

If you could start the dev again for it to work in 1.6/1.7 it would be much appreciated. Our tutors / students prefferred simple blog to the moodle blog.

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In reply to C R

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
Well, I just tested it fully in 1.6, and it was working fine for me. Do you know any more about the error you are getting?

I know that it won't work with 1.7 because of the it relied on the 'user_students' and 'user_teachers' tables which were removed due to the new (pretty cool) roles system. I know the fix - I just need to get on it.

I've also considered changing the name to remove the word blog in it, so that users can call it what ever they want - blog, journal, etc. Maybe just call it something like "publish." And add some AJAX stuff to it. Better get working and stop yapping.
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In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by C R -

We had it installed on 1.5 before then upgraded to 1.6 and it stopped working.

Which zip file did you try? can you attach or show me? and i will reapply it to 1.6 and see if it works.

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In reply to C R

Re: Simple Blog Activity for Moodle 1.5.3

by Matt Crosslin -
I use the most recent zip file, 0.3, from the more recent thread on simpleblog here.
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