General developer forum

Here's an idea that popped into my head. This would be good for a student who also has an interest in history or the teaching of history. This would be to create a couple Moodle modules/add-ons that would be useful for history teachers. One could be a timeline maker. It would allow a teacher (or student) to input some dates and events and it would produce a timeline from them. Such a module also would possibly be useful beyond the teaching of history and could be used to create GANTT charts for projects etc. The second thing that would be nice would to be create a module for producing family trees (compatible with the GEDCOM format) useful in the teaching of history as well, but also could be used for science classes as well perhaps teaching genetics.

The reason I suggest something like this (besides I would use these tools) is that while there has been a lot of work done on tools for math teachers (a natural since math is so close to cs), little attention has been paid to tools for teachers of other subjects a bit further removed from cs. Working on a project like this would give students experience in putting their programming skills to work in a field outside that of their colleagues.

As far I know, although you can download the grades of the students and use them in a spread sheet or so ever, there is no way in Moodle to upload the result of those computations. It is a simple task, but is a task demanded by many teachers of the university where I work for.

We think it may me achieved through the use of assignments. A module that uploads the grades to any existing assignments o creates a new assignment (offline assignment) to upload them.

Here are a few projects I'd like to see (just not sure how difficult they would be!)

1. Open Start Date - Basically a course format that would be similiar to the weeks format but without a set start date.  The system would recalculate assignments, quizzes, etc., based on when the student enrolls. 

Let's say I set up an 8 week course on January 1 and I set up all the activities to open and close on certain dates.  If a student comes in on February 1, all those dates would be changed relative to that entry date.  Same for a student coming in at any other time, as long as the course is open.  The point is that it wouldn't matter when you start the course - you have x weeks to finish it and Moodle would assign due dates for the activities accordingly.  May need a way for teachers to override a due date on an individual basis, in case the due date fell on a holiday or something along those lines.  Possibly some sort of page for teachers that would show where everyone is/should be in the course and the override could be done from that view.

2. IEP (Individual Education Plan) - Most K-12 educators here in the states probably know what this is, but I don't know if anyone else does anything along these lines.  Basically an interface where you can input information from an IEP (ie, student takes twice as long to complete the course so due dates for activities would be extended, time limits an quizzes (if applicable) would be doubled, etc.).  This information would then be applied to the course (or courses) automatically.

3. Student Status page - one page where an instructor (or the student themselves) can look at a student and see where that student is at in all of the courses that the instructor teaches.  The instructor wouldn't be able to see the status of other courses the student is enrolled in - just the ones they teach.  Kind of like the gradebook is for courses, but for a student instead. The capability to easily determine if the student is on track, ahead, or behind would be appreciated.  Probably as a tab on the user profile page.  This may be similiar to what was asked here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=52605

Just some thoughts.

Thanks,
Matt

Dear Hao Chuang,

The Project Module (versions 1.4 - 1.6) has been built by student teams and we are always looking for more teams to develop its interface and features.  We would love if SFSU student engineers would like to take on a portion of the version 1.7 roadmap.  Here is the list of tasks and projects that are ready for work on for this fall (September through December).

1. Publish Sub-module:  (planned but not yet implemented)
   

• Auto-generation of a public webpage to display and search through projects

Course Blocks for community building:  (postponed from 1.6)

• Best 10 Voted Projects,
  
• Project Status Block
  
• Best Projects from Last Year

Rearrangement of Tasks after initial setup
Student-created assessment criteria (currently teacher-designed)Integration with new 1.7 features (flexible roles especially)Repository of ProjectsInterface improvements

• after user testing in September/October

Project topic selection--new voting feature
Security testing and proofingUser manual-feature list page I am coordinating this development effort along with Tom Robb and we are working heavily with Jussi of TAMK in Finland, and Brian of UMR in USA and their teams.  However, we are always welcoming new help.  We have extensive documentation built up and are in the process of setting up a merging system at Sourceforge to facilitate multiple teams working on the code.

Hi Wen,

Glad to see the CS dept back in the Moodle game. Dina did some great work and some of the other students had promising starts. I still like Maria's gradebook (even if Michael Penny doesn't like the coding).

I've got two projects I think would be useful although we're not building them here at the OU:

1) Reading assingment: Since most students spend a lot of time reading, I think it would be useful to support them in this task. There are a few methodologies out there (SQ3R (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_02.htm) for example) to help students actively read a chapter and create useful study materials for later.

An SQ3R module would be a combination of database module, quiz and maybe blog. A student would have a reading assignment, be asked a series of general questions for the survey. They would then be able to write their own questions for the Q stage. As they read the chapter, they answer their questions. This creates a bank of questions they can use in the Recall and Review stages.

What would be interesting is to then allow students to compare their Survey answers with other people, and take a quiz based on other students questions for review.

2) Case study builder: Again, a combination of tools. This would include a database preset combined with other tools (quiz, forum, wiki). The database would be preset to contain evidence for the case study, then the other tools would provide students with the ability to engage in the case study activity. It would be useful to be able to display the data and the current activity in the same page.

Jason

Thanks all for your reply, I will get in touch with each one of you to sort out more on project management issues once we have those CS students signed up for these projects. Thanks again for all those wonderful ideas, really appreciate that!

Hi Wen ( I hope it is your first name ) ,

     a similar question was asked by Samuli last year. Let me reorganise and actualise some of my old posts here

I take my chance to the SFSU power programming lottery

I think we need a versatile block or module that will ( in IMS terminology )
2.7 Reduce Content in Learning Path Based upon Learner Profile and do 2.10 Adaptive Learning Delivery .

We need also to don't overcomplexify the authoring process.

To address these two issues at same time, I have imagined and started to create and test a knowledge based material repository that will permit from simple authoring to generate a lesson with many branches that should deliver adaptive learning.

The knowledge is based on a modified ( 13 levels ) Bloom's Taxonomy.



The challenges are:

• testing the correctness and completeness of the 13 knowledge levels
  
• programming interlevel correspondance to support students when they will have problems with higher levels concepts the system will route them to a lower level auto-evaluation exercices until they mastered that level.
• generating a socratic dialog  to support student.
  
• choosing the most appropriate form(s) of the generated material:
  • lesson module
  • and/or the SCORM
  • and/or IMS LD
    
  • and/or the Reload editor
  • ...
    
• choosing the most appropriate way to generate the material:
  • Moodle php module
  • outside Moodle stand alone application
  • modifying the Reload editor
    
  • Excel macro
  • ...
    

Here are some posts illustrating my words: 1, 2, 3.

That kind of tool should differentiate Moodle from others LMS.

All others Moodle functionnalities must be available and untouched by that add-on.

I hope I got the winning ticket

If you find the idea interesting I will be pleased to elaborate more on it and even to support it developpement.
 
Thanks for the offer to the Moodle community and good luck with your projects,

Bernard

Wen Hao,

It may be too late to make suggestions, but I would like the ability to add a tag cloud block for activities besides blogs--specifically discussion fora and wikis.  This will give all users an at-a-glance sense of how much material has been developed in key areas of a course, and can help students see where perhaps more effort is needed.

Thanks and good luck.

For a simple but useful project. High tec teachers may come to Moodle from BB, but there is even a larger group that comes to Moodle with their lesson summarized in an MS or OO presentations.  We do not make it easy to grab the content from these legacy programs.  

We currently have ImportPPT but it is trying to do too much (mixing objects and text correctly is hard), plus Microsoft is driving us nuts by changing its export web file folder content between all its versions. 

There are at least 3 options that come to mind. I would let OO translate the various versions of PPT.  How about an ImportOOI for lesson?  Or import a series of  image files (jpg,gif,etc) into a lesson that are from a zipfolder.  And/or import text from either a series of files or an MS or OO document in outline format  into a lesson.

My goal would be that a teacher can insert a series of imported pages at any point in the logical order of a lesson.  

Good Luck on any project(s) you select !

I am looking into using Moodle to store my son's homeschooling records, so my requests are related to that area:

• Keep attendance - track if a particulair student is present or absent.
• Storing school year info (school vacation days, holidays, etc.)
• Display a report card (Summary of grades for a term or year)
• Display a transcript (Summary of grades for several grade levels, elementary, high school, etc.)
• Skills check list for a student with date of accomplishment (optional start date).   These are not associated with a class, just a student.  The info is kept from year to year.
  • Math
    • Single digit addition
    • Double digit addition
    • Single digit subtraction
    • Double digit subtraction
    • Telling time hours
    • Telling time half hour
  • Reading
    • CVC
    • Beginning sounds (pl, tr, gr, etc.)
    • Ending sounds (nt, ing, etc.)
    • Middle vowel sounds
    • Dolch word list
    • compound words
• Multiple categories for classes.  If the user adds another course called "Ancient Egypt" for 3rd grade, the system would automatically recognize that it is a different course and provide a different number.
  • Course: Ancient Egypt
  • Grade: 1st Grade
  • Subject: History
• Auto generate short name descriptions based on a naming convention <<subject>>-<<grade / level>>-<<short name/number>>
• Keywords for classes that show up in a master index:
  • Somebody wants to know when the child took or plans to take "Ancient Egypt".  This can be looked up in a master index.
  • Somebody wants to know what the child learned in 1st grade.  They can look up 1st grade in the master index.
• Unit Studies (sub-classes)
  • In 1 st grade the student is learning "Ancient Egypt", "Modern Mexico", and "Early American History".  These three sub classes comprise the main class "history" for the "1st grade".  This info needs to be accessbile by looking up "history", "1st Grade", and/or "Ancient Egypt" (or one of the other units).
  • Then if the student takes more than one course in Ancient Egypt, they can look up this information in one viewing with 1st grade in one topic and 3rd grade in a second topic.  This would also allow "Ancient Egypt Art" to be in the view as well as "Bible Stories" to be in the view.
• Student Glossary / Wiki (wikipedia) that the student keeps throughout their education (and possible life).  It should be a standard Media Wiki format.
• Ability to mass upload a whole list of "vocabulary" into a student's personal Glossary / Wiki.  Basically I am following the Core Knowledge sequence.  There is a book called "The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What every American Should Know". 
  • Add the knowledge words and assicate them with the student's record.  Over the course of the student's education, they will fill in these definitions and add additional ones as the student or the teacher desires. 
  • To know where the keyword came from.  (eg. Core Knowledge, Jewish Core Knowledge, State standards, teacher, or student). 
  • To classify the definition.  (eg. Abraham Lincoln would have the categories "America President" and "US History"). 
  • To mark which words the student should have completed during a course, so I can do a report of this info. 
• Student Portfolio
  • For assignments / projects / tests, the child and/or teacher can mark that an item should be put into the working portfolio or the final portfolio.
  • Report cards and transcripts should be allowed to be added to the portfolio.
  • Have the ability to publish the portfolio to a web page and/or PDF.  Have the ability for the published portfolio to be able to be burned to CD or accessible as a web page.
  • For web page portfolio's there needs to be security to indicate who can view the portfolio (world, group, or specific individuals -- eg. mentor or school board offical).
  • Have the ability to have more than one portfolio. (working, final, submit to officals).
  • Portfolios can either be cumulative, by category / subject / keywords, or separated.
• Second vote for history timeline feature, but there should be an option for it to be student associated and cumulative (not associated with a particulair course).
• Student planner (eg. student will learn "ancient Egypt" in 1st grade and "Ancient Greece" in 2nd grade, etc.)
• Ability to link standards / skills / cumulative knowledge with a course (or more than one course).  For example, learning to tie shoes would be associated with life skills in 1st grade.  Here is another example, many standards are age ranges.  They say something along the lines of "the student will accomplish such and such skills by the end of 3rd grade" and then they give a list.  The parent / teacher needs to somehow show / keep track that the student mastered these skills during those three grades.
• Ability to import standards or skills.  These should be a published format for supplying the standards.  Maybe provide a way to store this information in a database instead of WORD or PDF files as is currently done.  Then provide a way that individuals can export / import this information.
• Provide standards for textbook / workbook companies to publish their "lesson" and/or table of contents.  Users could then export these (to share with others) or import data provided by the book publisher.
• If the company does a whole curriculum (eg. "Core Knowledge", "Amblerside Online", "Sonlight", "Tanglewood Eduction") that has book selections as well as recommended reading lists for multiple grades, there should be an easy way for them to create a datafile which an end user could automatically import to automatically create the courses, topics, lessons, and assignments.
• A central database where users could share "courses" with lessons and assignments.  Either they could just submit them for free or a donation system, or a fee system.

That is all that I can think of at the current time.  Some of these items are irrelavent to adult education.

Melissa      

Implement a template system similair to PHPBB's templates where the display of the code is completely separate from the processing of the data.

Integrate PHPBB forums within the system.

One nice and simple project is to create .djvu resource type in the Moodle.

Another one is to add quotation support to the forum module. The most effective quotation system was created in FIDOnet and shows it effectiveness on very large scale networks and forums (echo conferencions in the FIDO therminology) with several hundreds of daily posts.

When you reply to the message with quoting, system automaticaly quotate parent message adding first letters of its sender's first name and surname and > sign. Any existing quotations get additional > signs.

Original text, even level quotation (2,4,6) and noneven level quotations (1,3,5) will be shown in different colors (or some look italic for example).