Moodle in English: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Mike Churchward - Thursday, 16 February 2006, 2:50 AM

Check out this press release.

Note that Moodle is mentioned twice as a potential target system, and first in the list!

mike

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Chardelle Busch - Thursday, 16 February 2006, 4:27 AM

Did you know they had a representative at Savannah? I talked to him briefly.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Martin Dougiamas - Thursday, 16 February 2006, 5:09 AM

Hmm, no, I didn't.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Art Lader - Thursday, 16 February 2006, 5:57 AM

I saw his name and affiliation on the list of participants but never met him.

-- Art

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Michael Tuminello - Friday, 17 February 2006, 6:20 AM

That would be me - it was very nice speaking to you Chardelle. I actually talked to Martin as well. As Art knows, we have just started using Moodle to run our beta testing effort, so I was one of the people who asked about getting the forums to support replies by incoming email.

Definitely enjoyed the conference - we have a good number of Moodle fans in the company, particularly in the UK office.

Drop me a line if you have any feedback on any of our products... I hope to see you all at a future Moodlemoot:

Michael (Tuminello)
Dir, Product Managment
Horizon Wimba
mtuminello@horizonwimba.com

- Michael

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Art Lader - Friday, 17 February 2006, 7:07 AM

Hi, Michael,

Looks like courseGenie 2.0 is terrific, by the way!

-- Art

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by James Phillips - Friday, 17 February 2006, 8:35 AM

The software is nice, but the price of upgrading (80% of the full price of the software) from 1.6 to 2.0 is ludicrous. That's like buying the same software twice. Very Microsoft-esque.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Chardelle Busch - Friday, 17 February 2006, 9:05 AM

Oh Hi Michael,

Like I mentioned to you, I demoed Course Genie awhile back and found it very user-friendly and I liked the format it produced. And the fact that you are involved in the Moodle community (Paul Lewis has been very helpful in the SCORM forum) is a plus. I recommend it (if you can afford the pricetag mixed

).

Chardelle

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Josep M. Fontana - Saturday, 18 February 2006, 6:10 AM

Yes, I hate to agree with you because Paul Lewis, Michael Tuminello and everybody in CourseGenie have always been extremely nice and helpful to me. But it is a bit true that their upgrade policy is not very nice to loyal customers. I purchased a license not so long ago and I don't think I'm going to upgrade any time soon at this price. Even though the improvements are considerable.

Josep M.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by werner mülders - Sunday, 19 February 2006, 3:52 AM

I made the same experiences trying solve some problems concerning the integration of coursegenie's SCORMS in moodle. It was a good experience to check things out with Paul Lewis

- something that one couldn't say about the german distributor... traurig

But 80% of the original price for the update is a bit too much..
BTW: We didn't get an update notice,neither from Wimba nor from the german distributor.

Werner

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Matt Wasowski - Friday, 17 March 2006, 12:00 AM

To all Course Genie 1.6 users:
I just want to let you know that we've amended our ways and are now offering an 80% discount off of the list price to upgrade to Course Genie 2.0.

Course Genie 1.6 users can now purchase Course Genie 2.0 for 80% off the normal license price by simply going to the appropriate link below, click 'Buy Now,' and type 'upgrade' in the Voucher box:

*UK and European customers:
http://www.horizonwimba.com/products/coursegenie/buy_uk.php

*US and Canadian customers:
http://www.horizonwimba.com/products/coursegenie/buy_us.php

*Rest of World customers:
http://www.horizonwimba.com/products/coursegenie/buy_world.php

Thanks!
Matt

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Josep M. Fontana - Friday, 17 March 2006, 7:45 AM

Good to know that you are listening, Matt!

It didn't make much sense that such good people with such a good product could have such a bad policy with their customers wink

.

Josep M.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Michael Tuminello - Friday, 17 February 2006, 10:38 PM

Thanks! We hope so. If you have any new suggestions feel free to contact me directly or send an email to feedback@horizonwimba.com.

Michael

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Thursday, 23 February 2006, 7:04 AM

Michael:

Would you be so kind as to add (or have your webmaster add) the word moodle where you have webCT and blackboard listed? If you're gonna target moodle, say it loudly!

If I understand correctly, these are components that you can drop in... so there's no additional integration, right?

d.i.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Martin Dougiamas - Monday, 6 March 2006, 11:47 PM

Michael, sorry I didn't remember talking to you!

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Monday, 20 February 2006, 2:25 PM

I talked to michael briefly in Savannah, and have communicated briefly about something I discussed with MD a while back - I'd really like to see a reply/feedback mechanism which would allow a direct record option (via flash) that would attach mp3 voice files within moodle.

Imagine you could simply click a "reply by voice" button on a forum and speak into your input device, click "stop and save as reply" and have the mp3 there in the forum reply. No imagine you've got that for all feedback (forums, assignments, etc..) and imagine you can allow participatns to SUBMIT that way as well.

Granted, there are issues (like accessibility of voice files, for one) and needing some server-side processing - but boy, I sent in mp3 feedback for one week, and students loved it- but too many steps for 20 students times 5 assignments a week times 16 weeks. If it could be reduce to thes ame number of steps as a forum reply.. .then we're talking (literally!).

d.i.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Monday, 20 February 2006, 3:02 PM

Oh, found this related thread... http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=15378 Red5 was what MD had mentioned back when. I'd be open even to a commercial (if cheap) add-on for each instructor. You wouldn't want it on regular forums but for things like welcome messages, and quick feedback, very very useful and has a wow factor.

d.i.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Art Lader - Monday, 20 February 2006, 7:16 PM

d.i.,

That would be a GREAT thing for a language teacher. Our students are still using cassette tapes!

I kid you not...

-- Art

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Josep M. Fontana - Monday, 20 February 2006, 11:06 PM

Well, while we wait for Moodle to incorporate something like this, you can try this other thing. I've left a message for Art and D.I. here. It's called ODEO and I think it's going to be something very popular pretty soon.

Josep M.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Art Lader - Monday, 20 February 2006, 11:34 PM

Hi, Josep,

Actually, I am already a member, but have not posted anything sensible yet. And you are right, this is just what we need!

Don't know why I did not think of it! blush

(Oh yeah, it is blocked from my school, so it is not very useful to me.)

-- Art

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Josep M. Fontana - Tuesday, 21 February 2006, 12:10 AM

> it is blocked from my school, so it is not very useful to me.

Why do they block something like this?

Josep M.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Art Lader - Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 5:27 AM

Wish I could tell you that... As a matter of fact, though, it has been unblocked.

-- Art

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 5:43 AM

Woo Hoo!
http://odeo.com/a/8VZQr6x70jeZaS0Q82527oBK4JdV2opqEv046sTS

d.i.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 5:45 AM

Hmm.... how could we get it to show as the mp3 player within this forum, but seated on odeo's site? Can you put an mp3 extension on the URL? Leaving this site for that is sort of a non-starter...
d.i.

If this could be integrated, just what the doctor ordered. Imagine a button that defaulted to stop/save in one step, and then put the link right into your forum/assignment reply.

It's clear that this is coming soon... odeo seems like a great start! How can we take it to the next step? Art and I, being the non-geeks, will push the front end vision...

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Tony Hursh - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 5:57 AM

Odeo lets you get your audio out as an MP3 file. If you look in the upper right of the playback display, you should see a button that will take you to the raw MP3 file.

Let's see if it plays from a Moodle post:

I recorded a while ago.

Update: yep, seems to work fine.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 5:57 AM

OK- so the interface needs some tidying up... but i'm VERY excited by the potential- when replying, it seems the stop and reply buttons could be combined so you have pause, stop, and stop and save. I was able to email myself a message, but my admin system blocked it... but what bout emailing to anyone?

Not quite sure where sounds are attached, under my name, replies to others, etc... but again, the principle is sound (so to speak) and we really gotta move forward with this. I think that saving files to my PC locally is a non-starter given the steps to include in a course (files even worse than forum) whereas when on an external site- just a link... a media link even better.... ihope you can sense my excitement! @I can barely type! (though maybe it's because I"m doing this instead of owarking on all my other deadlines....)

d.i.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Paul 'Fire' Preibisch - Monday, 26 June 2006, 1:08 AM

wow - thanks for the tip on Odeo guys!

I have now made an Odeo account, and have used an iframe create a page where students can record voice messages for me!

This is a really rad feature! Now, I can create assignments, embed an iframe, and require my students to submit voice!

totally rad
Here is the code for my iframe:

<table width="100%" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="10" border="0" border-color="000000"><tbody><tr><td>
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="2" border-color="000000"><tbody><tr><td>
<div class="main"><div class="contentpane"><iframe width="700" scrolling="auto" height="500" frameborder="0" align="top" class="wrapper" src="http://odeo.com/sendmeamessage/PaulTeacher" name="iframe" id="blockrandom">This option will not work correctly. Unfortunately, your browser does not support Inline Frames        </iframe>

        </div>
                    <div class="back_button">
            <a href="javascript:history.go(-1)">
            [ Back ]            </a>
            </div>
                                  </div></td></tr></tbody></table>

here is a screenshot of my implementation:

Record

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Timothy Takemoto - Tuesday, 21 February 2006, 5:58 PM

Dear Art

You may also consider this free, easy to use, and easy to install client side mp3 recorder (which does not require LAME dll install, unlike Audacity. Just click the red button to record, and then "export to mp3").
http://www.mp3mymp3.com/mp3_my_mp3_recorder.html
Files thus recorded can be added to forums. I only wish that it had a brighter skin.

And one day, if you vote for this bug, forum attachments may be linked to the Flash audioplayer, like this

except automatically.

That would make Moodle Forums into an effective asychronous audio forum.

I take Martin/Richard's point that audio isn't searchable but audio would be very nice for language teachers, eh.

Tim

oneday.mp3

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Josep M. Fontana - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 1:26 AM

While we are on the topic of audio recording. Does anyone know how one can record a Skype conversation? I have tried using programs such as the one Tim recommends (also Audacity) but they seem to only allow you to record one of the voices: your own or your interlocutor's, but not both. So if you choose the option 'What U hear', only the other voice is recorded. If you choose Line-in/Mic-in, only your own voice is recorded.

Josep M.

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Svar: Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Anders Berggren - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 1:43 AM

Try Pamela and Gizmo

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Re: Svar: Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Josep M. Fontana - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 2:18 AM

Thanks Anders! I'll try that. Pamela seems to be able to do what I want. Gizmo, if I understand it correctly, is an alternative to Skype, right? That's what it looks like in its main page. It doesn't say anything about being able to record a conversation.

Josep M.

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Re: Svar: Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Tony Hursh - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 2:47 AM

Gizmo has a record button right in the UI, which is great. Unfortunately, it's not quite as flexible about working through firewalls/NAT/filters as Skype, or at least it wasn't the last time I checked (several months ago).

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Recording conversations in Skype

by Josep M. Fontana - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 3:56 AM

Can you use Gizmo to talk with Skype users? Because then the other unfortunate thing is that you cannot call most of the people you know because they are on Skype

.

I've checked the other application Anders recommended, Pamela, and you have to pay for the professional version in order to record conversations. I still don't understand why it is that you cannot record conversations with an application like Audacity. In theory they record any sound that goes through the sound card, so both ongoing and ingoing audio should be recorded.

Josep M.

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Re: Recording conversations in Skype

by Tony Hursh - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 4:16 AM

Can you use Gizmo to talk with Skype users?

I don't think so, alas.

I notice that the Google Talk audio API is available now, so maybe some enterprising coder will create something we can all use from that.

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Re: Recording conversations in Skype

by FLeok zra - Tuesday, 9 December 2008, 3:09 AM

You can try Scype Call Recorder, it's free , simple and WORKING.

Their site is http://voipcallrecording.com/

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Josep M. Fontana - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 2:20 AM

By the way, Tim. There is something a little strange about the software you recommended. It doesn't seem to allow you to uninstall it. At least I don't see anywhere where I can uninstall any application called MP3myMP3.

Josep M.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Timothy Takemoto - Monday, 20 March 2006, 6:15 PM

Sorry about that. I don't see a way of uninstalling it either.
Tim

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 6:01 AM

I've voted for this. It seems like on the dev side this ought to be cake (since it already works for external mp3's) but i'm clueless as to what that involves. Anybody know? Is just a question of a few bucks to do a few lines of code, or is there a much bigger issue here? I know that forum files are stored in their respective numbered (user?) folders, and are less obvious to look thru...

d.i.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Chardelle Busch - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 8:51 AM

Your random nonsense sounds great Tony!!! Yes, this is exciting DI. Do you think you guys could maybe start a new discussion on this--maybe in the GD forum or Activity Modules (where podcasting has been discussed) forum?

Thx
Chardelle

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Tony Hursh - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 2:44 PM

For some value of great.

Actually, I think I might have had a cold that day.

I do like the fact that even though Odeo is clearly using Flash Communication Server for the front end, they've developed some method of getting the audio out as an MP3 file. The closed nature of FCS was what made it a non-starter for us, so I'd give a pretty penny to learn how Odeo has managed the trick. The issue is that FCS uses a non-standard audio format that can only be played back by FCS. I did a fair amount of web searching to try to find out how to get the audio out, but had no luck. Of course, it's possible that they've simply licensed the same proprietary codec that Macromedia uses, in which case "pretty penny" is probably an accurate description.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Thursday, 23 February 2006, 6:56 AM

Can we get an administrator to split this discussion over there... and then post a final link from the end of one to the beginning of the other (actually, that'd be a cool add-on to the split functionality, wouldn't it... hmmm.....).

I've played with it a bit more and for mass usage (like in a course) it's gonna need some streamlining... still too many steps to do anything... needs to really be one or two max. You get a link, it starts playing. Currently see a list on a link, then pick the itme, then click play... too many steps.

d.i.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Tony Hursh - Thursday, 23 February 2006, 8:15 AM

Did you see my earlier post where I linked a raw MP3 file from Odeo? It plays just fine in the standard Moodle embedded audio player.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Tuesday, 28 February 2006, 4:49 AM

I was trying to do that myself... I guess the problem is that it currently involves the following (once you're logged in):

click record
speak
click stop
click save and then wait
click edit
edit
save

Only then do you have a useful mp3 link, and you still have to embed it over on the moodle side, like

Now imagine if the player had a stop n save button that opened up the edit page so you could name the file all in one step, so

click record
speak
click stop n save
type notes
save

2 steps seems trivial, but it starts to add up... for the longest time I couldn't even figure out how to get the mp3 created (or the link to it) and thru trial and error realized it only seems to be there when you've given the file your own name of some sort... not sure why.

d.i.

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Timothy Takemoto - Monday, 20 March 2006, 6:23 PM

Dear D.I. von Briesen
I think that it should be pretty easy. Also, there is a setting in the config.php of moodle called
// Turning this on will make Moodle filter more than usual, including
// forum subjects, activity names and so on (in ADDITION to the normal
// texts like forum postings, journals etc). This is mostly only useful
// when using the multilang filter. This feature may not be complete.
// $CFG->filterall = true;
Which if turned on, may mean that the filters filter attached files too.

TIm

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Timothy Takemoto - Monday, 20 March 2006, 10:40 PM

I have just been informed that the filters now work on attachment file names in 1.6! So it will be easy to play attachments.

All the more reason to upgrade to 1.6 and to upgrade mysql.

Tim

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Re: Moodle - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie HELP REQUESTED

by Bhupinder Singh - Sunday, 5 March 2006, 11:10 PM

Hi All,

I am a newbie and would like your help.

I have MP3 Files that I would like ot link to my lessons. I have tried to link MP3 files loade both unzipped and zipped.

But they do not show up and do not play.

Can you help me where am I going wrong. I have searched the forums but could not reach any link for a solution.

Looking for your help.

Thanks in Advance.

Garry

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Re: Moodle - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie HELP REQUESTED

by Art Lader - Monday, 6 March 2006, 3:03 AM

Hi, Garry,

You are including the MP3 files in courseGenie, and they are not showing up after you upload your course to Moodle? But they are fine before you upload? Is that correct?

Regards,
Art

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Re: Moodle - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie HELP REQUESTED

by Bhupinder Singh - Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 4:02 PM

Hi Art,

I am running the files and they play outside moodle.

When I load or link to them in Moodle they do not show up.

I am using a link resource to connect to the MP3 File.

I have not used the course genie to generate the output. It was an exisitng MP 3 That I was wanting to test.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Garry

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Re: Moodle - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie HELP REQUESTED

by Timothy Takemoto - Monday, 20 March 2006, 6:28 PM

Dear Garry (Bhupinder Singh)
Have you turned on the multimedia filter in the filters section of admin?
Tim

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Re: Moodle - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie HELP REQUESTED

by Bhupinder Singh - Wednesday, 22 March 2006, 2:45 AM

Hello Tim,

Yes the filters are active.

Garry

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Re: Moodle - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie HELP REQUESTED

by Bhupinder Singh - Friday, 10 March 2006, 1:45 PM

Hi Art,

Any suggestions how to load MP3 Files and play them in Moodle courses.??

Your help requested.

Garry

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Art Lader - Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 5:31 AM

I have downloaded the mp3 encoder and it works like a charm. Thanks, Tim.

And I have voted for your feature request, too.

audio would be very nice for language teachers
It sure would.

-- Art

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by Richard Treves - Tuesday, 21 February 2006, 4:54 PM

I love the idea of verbal feedback for students on their work, a video showing them the bits in their work which you are talking about would be even better but lets not get ahead of ourselves.

However, I think audio files in a forum raises difficulties. I think Martin made the point somewhere that audio isn't searchable (at the moment, someone at Southampton Uni is working on it now) and I see difficulties in keeping track if people are swapping between media in a discussion.

So should we be developing it as a feedback tool first and then think of extending it to be something wider later?

Rich

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Re: Moodle in the News - Horizon Wimba Coursegenie Press Release

by D.I. von Briesen - Wednesday, 22 February 2006, 5:41 AM

The reason I'm less worried about the search/scan option is I use forums a LOT as public assignments- that is, they are just like assignment, but I want other students to see the turned in work and my feedback (mostly java and webpage coding). So if they want to see the feedback, they can listen, and if they don't, they don't. It's not really meant to be a DISCUSSION so much as a public one student/teacher interaction (each student posts once). So far the only discussion on these is the ocassional resubmit- which works better than in the assignments module, as it doesn't have any record of what happened. I've posted a related discussion on the forums forum comparing assignments to forums, and proposing that they could be one and the same with just a few more settings.

If I want to give detailed feedback on 20 programming points in a 2-page bit of code, it really does get hard on the fingers to do all that typing, and cut and pasting of the code. If instead I can see, look at line 20, how you've done such and such... it makes my feedback more personal, faster, and easier. If it's easier and faster, I'll give more better (grin) feedback.

d.i.

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