Has anybody tried to integrate asynchronous and synchronous voiceboards into Moodle?
A few of us have got a little bit of funding in Dublin City University to do just that (to try it, that is). Rather than developing everything ourselves, we are thinking of trying to integrate something like the Gong Project (which is free as opposed to Wimba).
We will be starting in early April. At the moment, we are trying to organise ourselves (just recruited a programmer).
Any hint, comments, suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Françoise
Hi Francoise,
VERY interested in your project. IMHO synchronous audio is the way e-learning should be going, Moodle is seriously worrying BB and WebCT so I think you may be onto a potentially big thing.
Things you might like to look at:
Open University audio teaching system. IMHO developing good audio is more important that playing with video and this is what these guys have done. I preferred their earlier versions in layout - v simple rather than the later more complex ones. They might be interested in collaborating? Email me and I'll give you a contact
This is a comercial outfit who have fitted audio tools onto postNuke which is a CMS. This seems similar to what you're thinking of doing. They are after the chat room market rather than education
http://www.newfoundsystems.com/pnuke2/
Earlier threads here discussed using separate software for video conferencing
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=4518
I'd like to hear more details, could you email me? I certainly would like to hear how you progress.
Richard
Thanks Richard for this.
I know about Lyceum through the work of the OU Department of Languages with whom I have a lot of contacts (and I am trying to finish my PhD with the IET at the OU...). Do you think that the OU would be willing to cooperate? I am under the impression that lyceum was not really available to others, but I could be wrong.
The one system we are investigating at the moment is the GONG Project: http://www.cs.ust.hk/gong/
I have been talking to the developers a while ago (when we were applying for funding) and they were interested too. The main problem I can foresee is the fact that Gong requires "Java 2 Runtime Environment" and I am not too sure how easy it will be to integrate it with Moodle. I am not a techy person at all but colleagues from our School of Computing are involved in the project too to look at this side of things.
We are still in the very early stage of the project as we have just been told that we got the grant. So our initial idea is to try to get something up and running, perhaps outside moodle, and see how we could get the two platforms to talk to each other. In DCU, login into moodle pre-suppose that you have a Novell account and we do not want students to have to login again into a new platform.
Françoise
I know about Lyceum through the work of the OU Department of Languages with whom I have a lot of contacts (and I am trying to finish my PhD with the IET at the OU...). Do you think that the OU would be willing to cooperate? I am under the impression that lyceum was not really available to others, but I could be wrong.
The one system we are investigating at the moment is the GONG Project: http://www.cs.ust.hk/gong/
I have been talking to the developers a while ago (when we were applying for funding) and they were interested too. The main problem I can foresee is the fact that Gong requires "Java 2 Runtime Environment" and I am not too sure how easy it will be to integrate it with Moodle. I am not a techy person at all but colleagues from our School of Computing are involved in the project too to look at this side of things.
We are still in the very early stage of the project as we have just been told that we got the grant. So our initial idea is to try to get something up and running, perhaps outside moodle, and see how we could get the two platforms to talk to each other. In DCU, login into moodle pre-suppose that you have a Novell account and we do not want students to have to login again into a new platform.
Françoise
Hi Fancoise,
Sorry, didn't see your reply until now.
You can only try contacting the OU about Lyceum, I did some stuff with it while I was there - all the tough stuff worked fine but I constantly fell foul of the problem that I couldn't directly control access of people to my rooms - if you do interest them you want to be sure this is sorted.
KMI have just produced a cut down video conferencing tool (flashmeeting) that they might be interested in working with you on: http://kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/currentprojects.html
As I understand it VoIP needs separate severs to the kind that moodle and other asynchronous stuff runs on (someone jump in here if I'm wrong?) so I wouldn't be worried about needing java.
Richard
Thanks Richard.
We have a "trainee" programmer starting next week. I think we will start with two separate servers for a start and see if they can talk to each other without too much problem. Once we know a bit more about the issues, I will see about contacting the lyceum people and the KMI.
I will let you know what happens...
Françoise
We have a "trainee" programmer starting next week. I think we will start with two separate servers for a start and see if they can talk to each other without too much problem. Once we know a bit more about the issues, I will see about contacting the lyceum people and the KMI.
I will let you know what happens...
Françoise
Hi Franciose,
Would like to keep up with what you end up with.
BTW, are you thinking of doing and 'soft' investigation of VoIP? Its one of the bees in my bonnet that tech development always seems further than soft development and I can't find much literature on the subject.
Richard
Hi Richard,
Not too sure what you mean by "soft". My own personal real interest is not in the techy part but its use for teaching and learning and the processes involved. So our project team is divided into two sub-groups: the computer people are responsible for the techy part and the rest of us will try to develop pedagogical applications and ways of monitoring what is happening when learners use it. But both groups will be working together to make sure that we fully understand each other sides of the story (that's the plan anyway).
My own work is actually in the applications of Activity Theory for designing technology-rich learning environments promoting learner autonomy (more specifically in the area of language learning)... so I suppose this is quite 'soft'. But as for VoIP, I am just starting. Somebody is going to do a bit of research for me (also starting on Monday), so I'll let you know what we find...
Françoise
Not too sure what you mean by "soft". My own personal real interest is not in the techy part but its use for teaching and learning and the processes involved. So our project team is divided into two sub-groups: the computer people are responsible for the techy part and the rest of us will try to develop pedagogical applications and ways of monitoring what is happening when learners use it. But both groups will be working together to make sure that we fully understand each other sides of the story (that's the plan anyway).
My own work is actually in the applications of Activity Theory for designing technology-rich learning environments promoting learner autonomy (more specifically in the area of language learning)... so I suppose this is quite 'soft'. But as for VoIP, I am just starting. Somebody is going to do a bit of research for me (also starting on Monday), so I'll let you know what we find...
Françoise
Could say more about "activity theory"? I am starting a paper now on task design and definition, and would appreciate any links or projects you are working on. This is really off topic, so let's start one in a teaching forum. Thanks!
Would www.Skype.com be of any help? The developers of skype(Kazaa) say they have tripled the quality of Voice Over Internet (VOI) to where the quality of this is better than standard telephone. A big plus for it is that it is P2P, which means it wouldn't put any additional load on the Moodle server and it's free. It's downsides include that it is still in beta stage and doesn't have many features yet (such as teleconferencing, voice mail, or anything for group discussion). It's currently limited to windows 2000 and xp operating systems but they say other os's will be added soon.
Thanks for that, Robert. We will have a look.
Françoise
Françoise
On one the forums there is a discussion of similar use. The name is NEW an open source software having audio and video and ppt options