Educating the masses with Moodle

Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -
Number of replies: 30

We came up with an idea some time ago about providing a free way to share educational material with the masses.  By chance we stumbled across Moodle, which seems like a great tool to accomplish the goals that we had set out to achieve.  The goal was to not only enable schools and non profits to share educational material, but to help push students to jump on the bandwagon of self education.

To make a long story short, we downloaded Moodle and put it up on a dedicated server with a dedicated line.  A couple of friends contributed some great writeups describing our project which you will see on the site.  I have schools and non profits in India "sold" on the idea of using the system once I get it up and running, but at this point it is not ready to present to the masses.  I am posting here in an attempt to find volunteers (or paid techies if needed) to help bring the site to a presentable state by not only modifying the UI (css, etc), but by customizing the functionality (eg. forcing every course to be public).  My training and development background is C++, Java, and .NET, but I have not yet learned php (though I hear it should be a smooth transition) so I unable to do this myself.

At this point, I would like to get your thoughts on a few questions:

Is something like this already being done?  If so, I would like to find a way to contribute my time to help their project instead of reinventing the wheel.

Is there anyone out there that can help with these customizations?

The current site is at www.asteio.org.  Keep in mind that the .org mail server is not up yet, but hopefully we can have that up within the week.

I am located in the US and anyone that would like to speak with me about thoughts or ideas regarding this project can post here or email me at milanmalkani@gmail.com.  I would prefer for you to post here so that you can share your thoughts with others.

I look forward to speaking with you and enjoy the holidays.

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Art Lader -
Hi, Milan,

What a noble project! One thought: I think that it might help if you would say a little more about the kind of customiztion you need. Maybe be a little more specific.

Just a friendly suggestion, of course.

Best regrads,
Art Lader
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In reply to Art Lader

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Art,

From the UI perspective, I would like to make the site a little more engaging.  Right now I am using standard templates, but it has no energy.  We are trying to target this at schools, NGO's, and other non profits, but at the end of the day, students are the ones that make this project come to life.  I think that the writeups on the site give a good idea of the tone we are trying to convey.  The UI should be along the same lines.

The functionality is another ball game.  Off of the top of my head, here are the most important customizations needed:

  • Force every course to be public and open to guests.  Completely take that option off of the form.
  • When a user signs up, they should automatically be given permissions to upload their own content.  I believe this is the Creator role, correct?
  • Have a student rating on each course that is shown to the public along with a counter displayed next to the course showing how many students have enrolled.  I know that there are some rating plugins already available, if anyone can recommend one, I'll get it installed.

Of these the first two are by far the most important, and with a decent enough UI design we should have enough to start promoting the site.

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Some quick thoughts....

  • Every course public - a very simple customisation to the new course form (make the input fields hidden with an appropriate value)
  • Every user a teacher, or similar. Can this be done with appropriate role tweaking in 1.7?
  • Student ratings. I would probably write a block to do this - the "rate this course" block. Shouldn't be too hard to develop a custom block if none exists already.
  • I think you would need to be much more specific about your requirements for the UI. The themes system gives you quite a lot of options for customisation but beyond a certain point it is not necessarily easy to do and requires quite a lot of testing for different browsers. I would spend some time finding an existing theme that is as close as possible to your requirements and go from there.
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In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Howard,

#1 I was thinking along the same lines.  Would we just change the page where you create/edit a course?

#2 When the user creates an account, I thought it should be customized to make a couple more database calls to add that user as a part of the other roles.  This should be the same call made from the admin form where the admin approves a user to be a creator.  I am assuming it's going to be simple.

#3 I would think a block already exists for something like this.  How long would this type of functionality take to write if one does not exist?  #1 and #2 are definitely higher priority.

#4 The UI requirements that I have all pertain to colors - not layout.  I just want someone creative to hand me a new set of css files that make the site more attractive.  I have looked through the current themes a little bit, and I will take a look at them again.  If I find one that works (and I'm trying not to be picky), I'll just cross this one off the list of todo's.  I don't really have a particular image in mind for how I want the site to look, so I would need them to use some creative license.  If there is any specific information that you want about the UI, please let me know.

Milan Indru Malkani

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In reply to Art Lader

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Bob Gettings -
Hi!

I'm one of the folks just starting to work with Don Hinkleman on a repository project. Milan, I like your general concept but I don't have a clear idea about the organization of educational resorces on your site.

Will people just log in and create new activities to share? Will there be a searchable database so that users can find the things they need or want to study?

I'm wondering if the structure of Moodle -- based on creating discrete classes -- is user friendly enough for someone who just wants to download materials for their lesson or to study for a class.

What's your concept of the user interface for searching for information or downloadable media, activities, etc.?
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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Bob,

That is a good question.  My initial thoughts were to use the standard courseware search (since it's already provided) along with a page that has the categories broken down like the Yahoo Yellow pages (http://yp.yahoo.com/).

"Will people just log in and create new activities to share?" - Yes.  Everyone that creates an account would be a course creator automatically.

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Mark Burnet -
I have been working in a similar way. Our current project is simply to channel textbooks into the creative commons in electronic format. This is too assist in directing government funds towards creating shareable learning resources for primary and secondary schools. We have attempted to seek help in integrating an object repository with learning standard search capability. Metatags will help with this too, but where I am (also US) there is a taxonomy (not folksomony) of learning standards and it is huge in size. I see the development track of Moodle going in this direction and I am anxious to support this part of Moodle's development. I would be interested in what thoughts you had about modifying the UI that you mention. www.voef.org - Happy Holidays


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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Mark,

I took a look at your site and I think that you and I are thinking along the same line.  The only difference is that I would like to mass market this to all countries with a special emphasis on poor but growing nations where there are plenty of people willing to learn, but there is a complete lack of educational resources.  With these types of countries, there is still a growth of internet exposure and with that we can start to get these new internet users targeted a more "useful" resource online.  That is not to say that I would miss out on the students here in the US.  Infact, I think that US students would be faster to adopt a system like this.

Did you do any type of functional customizations to your site?  If so, what did you have done?

As far as the UI design goes, please take a look at the response that I sent to Art.

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Mark Burnet -
At this point, we have only added the DOOR repository to version 1.7. We are still reviewing repository options and the most effective way to recall learning objects. While our approach is not intended to be broadly focused, the materials are to be in the Creative Commons and will therefore be available for all.
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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
Dear Milan and Mark,

Over in Moodle for Language Teaching, a number of us have been talking for almost two years now of how to make a repository of free and open content for language learners and teachers. It is very similar to the thoughts both of you have shared--and I am excited to hear your initiatives. By the way, I have worked for many years in supposedly "poor" countries doing teacher training and find the educational needs there quite similar to those of "rich" countries, so I don't think the issues of designing this repository are particularly unique for the Third World.

We already offer a English language placement test and a English for Global Issues textbook as open content. However, for this to grow explosively like Youtube, Flickr, or Wikipedia did, we need incentives and a delightful, fun interface as you have mentioned. Initially we thought that we should wait until an official repository or community hub from moodle comes out--but it appears this has been delayed for a year or at least not in version 1.8. So, recently we had a meeting with two other universities and decided we would create a repository database and interface, primarily for language teaching resources, but also could grow as a model for all fields and topics. It sounds like we could at least share ideas and see how to collaborate if there are joint aims here. We are thinkingnot to modify current Moodle as a quasi-repository, but to create something new that would eventually integrate with an official moodle respository tool. Some key strategies we have thought of...

Composition/Decomposition of learning resources
  • should include both sharing micro-objects (.jpg files, video files, document files) and macro-objects of lessons, units, whole courses that can be rearranged and adapted
  • needs a versioning system, so multiple versions/adaptations can be included (different levels, different languages, different situations)
Ratings and Moderation
  • should combine user ratings and moderator ratings on the quality and usability of objects/resources
  • top ratings would be ones that have passed reviews by both users and moderators on copyright and quality. Whole courses and lessons would need extensive teaching notes to get top ratings.
Metatags & Standards
  • should follow as many learning standards as possible, ie: IMS
  • should follow moodle developments in repositories as close as possible
Incentives
  • a virtual economy of "points" would encourage teachers and schools to contribute materials. There is a huge reluctance to donate materials unless clear benefits, immediate rewards are given
  • community members would not be able to download until they have contributed and thus earn "points"
  • uploaded files would receive some points immediately, but more points would be awarded for popular, usable, valuable files--ones that are most downloaded.
  • moderators and reviewers would receive points for contributing their time
Interface
  • lots of community-building information, highest rated/most popular blocks as part of the interface
  • we would want a language learning community page as well as other fields which actually enter the same database
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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Don,

Thanks for all the info.  This is exactly the type of information I am seeking.  I am open for all ideas and I think some of those are great.  I agree that incentives would be nice to have, however I don't understand the part about "community members would not be able to download until they have contributed and thus earn 'points'".  Does that mean that a student or school could not use the material until they upload enough material?  I am hoping that we can survive on those in society that are willing to give without necessarily getting anything back (I'm an optimist).

The rest of the list that you have compiled is definitely worth customizing for.  We are going to pursue this in phases so for now we want to identify the must haves to get going.  In your opinion, besides the changes that I have identified in this message board, ratings, and community pages, what do you feel are the most important pieces for a "Phase 1"?  Once the requirements for Phase 1 are identified, we will move forward with the customizations ASAP.  From what I understand in talking to other developers, the development time for the parts that I have asked for should not take more than a couple of weeks.

We would like to build this out to be able to host information from content providers like yourself, so your input is incredibly valuable.

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
>>Does that mean that a student or school could not use the material until they upload enough material? I am hoping that we can survive on those in society that are willing to give without necessarily getting anything back (I'm an optimist).

I think having a points system would be fun, and one key to making the site work will be whether it is fun or not. Also I have a lot of experience in trying to share materials amongst teachers and institutions. There is huge reluctance to share anything of value--schools and teachers are highly protective. However, they will free up their "precious babies" if they see something else of value they can "trade" for it. Thus the idea of a virtual economy and required contribution.

Actually required contribution is not a bad thing. And it could be very easy or full of exemptions for types of members. For example, I imagine we could ask members from certain countries to contribute fewer files or contribute their time moderating and evaluating. There may be requests for materials that someone could fulfill. For example, for my lessons in Japan, I need photos of deforestation in SE Asia, S. America and Africa. A few photos uploaded might be a quick way for a school to contribute. Also, we might distribute limited free downloads to attract members.

Philosophically, I am opposed to donations and charity by the First World to the Third World. That mentality builds dependance and is paternalistic. All people and all countries in the world have valuable contributions and we can encourage two-way exchange. Where structural discrimination exists that prevents transfer of some resources in a monetary economy, we can make a fairer economy to promote participation by those with less traditional monetary assets.

Now maybe "points" is not the way to go--it is one interesting option. What we really need to do is analyze why community-generated content sites are so popular and why they attract so many uploads and traffic. Is it the interface? Is the ease of use? Is it the fun aspect? Is it the community building? We need to find ways to overcome this reluctance to contribute.
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Don,

The problem that I see with the points system is that we will alienate individual students.  While I do think that some variation of it is needed down the road, I have to stay focused on the next 6 months of our site so that we can get this to a point where people want to use it.  One of the many mistakes that I have been witness to is the desire to have "perfect" software with all the bells and whistles right out of the gate.  What I would like to do is identify the pieces that are needed to attract an initial group of contributors and users (the Phase 1 I was referring to earlier).  Even if we have the traditional 80/20 split for 6 months to a year, that is not such a terrible thing.

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
>>The problem that I see with the points system is that we will alienate individual students.

Not sure what you mean here, Milan. The points system is just for teachers and schools who are uploading and downloading materials from a repository--it has nothing to do with students. Teachers then take the materials and build a moodle course which the students use freely.
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Don,

I anticipate this system being used primarily by schools and teachers, but I also see this as a great tool for individuals that are looking for additional learning resources.  With a points system like the one you mentioned, what happens when an individual user wants to logon and learn xyz?

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
>>With a points system like the one you mentioned, what happens when an individual user wants to logon and learn?

Good question. An individual user would go to a site that is set up for anyone to go and do self-study or join an online group course. That site is separate from a repository. It could be on the same server as the repository, but a different moodle site, with lots of free courses to enter, browse and join. I don't think combining a learning site for students and a sharing site for teachers will work, but maybe you have some special idea that you want to try. smile My intuition is that you won't attract teachers (content sharers) without some incentives. But go ahead and try what you are thinking. You and we will learn something in the process.

What is a repository? A repository is a file download/upload site only, no courses being offered, and no way to actually learn there (I mean, no live activities with feedback by teachers). Remember that Moodle is a collaborative learning environment first and foremost, not just delivering pages from a book. The repository will be tricky because we are combining ways to browse and search through both discrete files as well as complex activity sets (lessons, courses, units).

Is it possible to use Moodle as it is now as a simple repository? Sure, our school uses an ordinary "course" on our moodle site as an internal repository for our teachers to upload/download handouts for project-based language learning lessons. We now have over 100 files/resources/activities there. It is crude because when you post a resource, and there is no rating, no versions, no keyword searching, and it is clumsy to browse (click open resource, download file, click open MSWord, view). I think we have reached the limit of 100 or 200 files with this system. We need a system that will go to thousands even millions of files. And for sharing activities, there is no download system in moodle. But inside a moodle site, it is easy to share using the Import function in the Admin menu.

Maybe we should move this discussion to the repositories forum here on moodle.org. I know that area is a little technical now, but this topic fits well there.
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Don,

Ah, I see the light.  I was missing the separation between the repository and the public site for self study.  I have been viewing them as one in the same.  I am going to shoot for the eLearning section first and then I'll get started on the repository.

Milan Indru Malkani

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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by James Phillips -
Don,

Regarding "We already offer a English language placement test and a English for Global Issues textbook as open content.", is it possible to actually put the placement test on your own moodle website?

Best regards,

James Phillips

P.S. Happy New Year!
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In reply to James Phillips

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
Yes, James, this placement test and the textbook have been distributed freely to a number of schools from the Moodle for Language Teaching site and the world-issues.net site as a fully blended learning system of moodle resources (pdf) and activities.

But this is one trivial example of thousands of free content that Moodle users are willing to contribute. Why hasn't this repository happened? There is a Moodle Exchange that no one uses. Is it the interface? Is it incentives? Maybe, we simply need a cool iTunes-like interface to scroll and sort through tons of material. We need one site to quickly browse, upload, download pieces and wholes of learning scenarios.
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by James Phillips -
Don,
Is it possible to download the quiz from the Moodle for language teaching site? I looked through the exchange etc. but couldn't seem to find it anywhere.

I was interested to hear your views on making it easier for people to contribute things. People seem very willing to use free resources but very unwilling to contribute. The success of schemes such as YouTube is very much a result of the motivation of the users. It is also EXTREMELY easy to use, and there is the social angle. I am not sure if moodle is suited to the kind of exchange you are referring to though. Surely a hack of something like Elgg would be more appropriate. Some of the P2P file sharing systems don't let you download anything without simultaneously uploading something. Maybe a system like that would be more straightforward. My ideas here are a little undercooked. Maybe I should come back when they are done!
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Mark Burnet -
Don, It is wonderful to hear of this development. In the school system where I have my day job we are providing language teachers access to public domain literature content (about 5000 titles) but this is limiting and not well integrated into Moodle or an easily updated repository.

I am curious as to whether you are investigating adaptation of current open source repositories or building from the ground up. I know that the Moodle Roadmap looks for advanced repositories to be an external piece integrated through APIs. I spoke to the Martins (AU and NZ) wink about this last summer and I know the technical hurtles for this are of some consequence.

What you mention about community building information is an essental piece. The Moodle and Wikipedia success stories are testament to that and necessary for the content development parts of our project.
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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Mark,

I am looking to modify the current Moodle codebase so that we have complete sharing amongst the users as well(the open repository that you all have been referring to).  My plan was to get a group of volunteers/paid developers together and have them crank away.  Should I contact someone at Moodle directly instead before I start anything?

Milan Indru Malkani

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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by A. T. Wyatt -
You might want to take a look at this case study. I know the topic is not the same, but there are some interesting ideas and concepts in here about building a repository, rating the content, incentivizing contributors, etc.

Final product here:
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/

Could some of this work be transferable to the repository you are discussing here?

atw

ps--I have to say the the primary reason I do not contribute to an open source repository is because I use a lot of copyrighted work as content. I think that many people might have this problem, and that creates a barrier. It isn't so much that the instructors do not *want* to share, but perhaps they think they should not presume to distribute work that rightfully belongs to others.
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In reply to A. T. Wyatt

Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
Hi A.T.,

I took a look at the case study and found it fascinating. Yes, I think that work is very transferable, or at least enlightening to the question of repositories in Moodle.

As for copyright material, a condition of uploading will be to state that the material is contributed to the public domain. Contributors who claim a work is public domain but actually is not, would suffer some penalty--lose points, lose some kind of trustability rating/ranking. I believe that ebay auction sites have some kinds of social penalties that encourages everyone to behave honestly.

I just took a look at the moodle Roadmap and noticed that in version 1.9 (due in April), will have a Repository API to allow external repositories to presumably connect to a moodle site. Perhaps what we are trying to do is create an external repository, that will integrate into sites. It may not be so important to build some ultimate global repository of learning materials, but rather many little focused-theme repositories that connect into moodle sites easily.
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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by elearning edu -

Hello,

I am from India and happy to note your ambition to use moodle for internationalising content.  Moodle is pipe and you dream to pipe the world for the flow of content or you may already have the content and looking for a piping network.

I have adequate exposure, experience and expertise for you to translate your vision into a plan.

Just contact me at vnagarajan@moodler.com

Nagarajan

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Nagarajan,

I have read your profile I can see that you have many years in the field education.  I also noticed that you have spent time in Madras which is where I met the AIDIndia organization which I'm sure you are familiar with.

In this article, you made mention of the fact that in some places the connection is slow so the courseware would need to be burned onto a CD and delivered to the school, village, etc so that it could run off of the hard drive - funny, but I was thinking the same exact thing.  If that is the case, would a Moodle installation be required on their machine, or is there some desktop based SCORM software that can be installed?

Could you give me a brief summary of some of the customizations that you have done to Moodle sites?  How do those compare to the customizations that I have outlined in a previous post?

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

We are close to giving educators access to our site, but I am trying to get my hands on a demo course for teachers.  Is there any place where I get a course to train the trainer on how to build a Moodle course?

Milan Indru Malkani

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

We are officially live to enable users to use Moodle completely hosted for free at www.asteio.org.  We are doing our part to spread the word about Moodle and to get educators to share information freely and openly.  We have customized the code to automatically setup all users to be course creators upon signup so that anyone can post information.

I would like to ask if anyone has a "train the trainer" course that we could download or purchase to teach users the ins and outs of building a Moodle course.

There was talk before about creating a full repository of learning material and I would like to reopen that discussion to see if anyone had any thoughts on that.  I would also like to know your thoughts on our current site and what we could do to promote Moodle use. 

Milan Indru Malkani

milan.malkani@asteio.org

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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by Sean doc -
Hi Don and Milan, I've been thinking of setting up a free English self study moodle website for some time now. I found this forum while checking out if anyone was doing anything like this already. I'd just like to applaud you on your work so far and wish you both the best in your projects. I'll be following your work and be happy to give you my thoughts on it. Yours, Sean. English teacher, Spain.
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Re: Educating the masses with Moodle

by WriteToShare .org -

Sean,

You are more than welcome to use our site.  It's setup, secured, and up, so why reinvent the wheel?  If you setup your own site, I'm happy for you since you are promoting education, but I would really like to find a way for us to combine our efforts.

Milan Indru Malkani

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