I've been toying with Moodle for our School [a physical not virtual one]. Teachers want to increase their web-presence but have little to no web-skills. I was impressed with the ease courses can be created, assignments and resources can be added, and course events can be created in a calendar. The display of departments, and courses is really very good.
My problem is that most of the use will be as a one-way delivery system. Except for a few special department (like computer studies), we won't be loading / adding students, enrolling, having forums, etc. Now while I could probably hack my way to embedding a dummy user into the php, and deleting unwanted features, am I forcing a square peg into a round hole? Is there a simpler learning management system? Or has this been done before with Moodle?
Thanks for any insight or help you might have to offer.
Well, I am curious. Do you see this one-way
delivery system as being a permanent state, or as phase I of something
that is likely to grow more interactive over time?
I think that a lot of us would say that the initial use of a course management system tends to be "repository" in nature, but many faculty members get interested in branching out after they have become familiar with the process of providing electronic handouts and such.
I think you could set moodle up to be entirely open to guests--there is a setting in the admin section that allows autologinguests free access to courses if you set it to "yes". This might be fairly close to a content management system.
If, for example, you will have copyrighted materials as part of courses, you will need to have students log in. This could be as simple as magazine or newspaper articles that your instructors have downloaded and then added to a moodle course. This means that you have to enroll, create accounts, etc. Same for any kind of tracking--tracking of logs, of grades, of activities, etc.
If you truly do not care about any of those things, but you might in the future, then I would see if the autologinguests will work for you. You can even go into the admin settings (both modules and blocks) and selectively turn off things you do not want to make available on the system. I do not believe you can turn off the forums, but you can certainly disable almost everything! Your instructors can do the rest.
Later on, if you want to get into the more interactive Moodle applications, you simply turn it all back on. Your faculty will already be familiar with much in the system and receptive to learning a few more tools.
Think about it, anyway, and experiment with a few of those settings. See if you can get something you think will work!
Good luck to you--
atw
I think that a lot of us would say that the initial use of a course management system tends to be "repository" in nature, but many faculty members get interested in branching out after they have become familiar with the process of providing electronic handouts and such.
I think you could set moodle up to be entirely open to guests--there is a setting in the admin section that allows autologinguests free access to courses if you set it to "yes". This might be fairly close to a content management system.
If, for example, you will have copyrighted materials as part of courses, you will need to have students log in. This could be as simple as magazine or newspaper articles that your instructors have downloaded and then added to a moodle course. This means that you have to enroll, create accounts, etc. Same for any kind of tracking--tracking of logs, of grades, of activities, etc.
If you truly do not care about any of those things, but you might in the future, then I would see if the autologinguests will work for you. You can even go into the admin settings (both modules and blocks) and selectively turn off things you do not want to make available on the system. I do not believe you can turn off the forums, but you can certainly disable almost everything! Your instructors can do the rest.
Later on, if you want to get into the more interactive Moodle applications, you simply turn it all back on. Your faculty will already be familiar with much in the system and receptive to learning a few more tools.
Think about it, anyway, and experiment with a few of those settings. See if you can get something you think will work!
Good luck to you--
atw
In terms of interactive stuff, just disable modules and blocks you don't want to use. OTOH, if you don't want to load / add students -- then just use a plain CMS.
Yep, in fact we use a "Moodle Light" for interactive web pages (on a very limited support budget we don't want to support separate CMS systems if possible
). You can remove modules and blocks you don't want to use from the install files, or just disable them in the Modules and Blocks configuration in the Administration screen.
Even better, in 1.6, you can restrict mods and blocks on a course level, so you can easily enable them for advanced users when they complain that this Moodle Light thing doesn't have a Quiz module
.
). You can remove modules and blocks you don't want to use from the install files, or just disable them in the Modules and Blocks configuration in the Administration screen.Even better, in 1.6, you can restrict mods and blocks on a course level, so you can easily enable them for advanced users when they complain that this Moodle Light thing doesn't have a Quiz module
> you can restrict mods and blocks on a course level
That is exactly what I have begun doing in some of my training sessions. The plan is to enable a new mod each time we meet. We'll see how it works out.
-- Art
That is exactly what I have begun doing in some of my training sessions. The plan is to enable a new mod each time we meet. We'll see how it works out.
-- Art
Thanks!!
A good list of ideas. At least I know that Moodle is the right software. I'll just continue my due dilligence and learn all of the admin features available.
Thanks again!
A good list of ideas. At least I know that Moodle is the right software. I'll just continue my due dilligence and learn all of the admin features available.
Thanks again!