The computing faculty at our High School is currently revamping the student and staff Intranet with the aim of developing an interactive and collaborative teaching and learning environment.
Our efforts are based around applications from the open source PHP community. We have implemented 'phpbb2' as our forum base, 'mambo' as our articles, subject resources, news and general Intranet interface and now I am investigating moodle as the online provider of (enrichment to begin with) courses.
As we have a captive clientle, we authenticate each user in the applications against the same database (so during registration they choose from a drop down list of their uptodate Novell account usernames), this also allows their photo etc to be automatically included in the different apps and postings. This also allows personalisation of the sites based on the user being either a staff member or a student. Eg. staff can post and access learning resources whereas students can only access them (for obvious reasons).
OK. We can provide the technology, but have yet to grapple with the elements of training of staff, changing the culture of learning to a more collaborative and sharing one, and in the case of moodle, what content is appropriate, within Dept guidelines etc.
Any thoughts, suggestions, approaches etc?
environment is:
State High School,867 pop. Co-ed NSW, Australia
Good post, Alan!
I'd be interested to hear more from you down the track about how the high school students have taken to online courses (I've only used Moodle with postgrads).
Your concern about the enculturation of online learning is especially interesting. Perhaps you have experienced (as I have, many times) what happens when even good technology is just slapped into a culture with the expectation everybody will just use it.
I think the first thing to keep in mind is that the advantages of online learning are not always obvious. In fact, for many situations where there are face-to-face alternatives then online learning may complicate the situation too much for many people. Unfortunately this does not stop some implementers.
When there are advantages, though, I think you need to know them and promote them widely and vigorously. Does it promote deeper learning of this subject? Does it allow more time flexibility? Is it providing voices to students who are normally drowned out? Is it promoting the use of electronic resources (and thus greater reusability)? ..etc.
From the other angle, the technology as a whole needs to be simple, consistent and persistent so that it keeps drawing people in. These are the types of qualities I'm pursuing in Moodle.
I'm not sure what the problem is with content and department guidelines - I would assume that's up to individual teachers. Can you explain that further?
I'd be interested to hear more from you down the track about how the high school students have taken to online courses (I've only used Moodle with postgrads).
Your concern about the enculturation of online learning is especially interesting. Perhaps you have experienced (as I have, many times) what happens when even good technology is just slapped into a culture with the expectation everybody will just use it.
I think the first thing to keep in mind is that the advantages of online learning are not always obvious. In fact, for many situations where there are face-to-face alternatives then online learning may complicate the situation too much for many people. Unfortunately this does not stop some implementers.
When there are advantages, though, I think you need to know them and promote them widely and vigorously. Does it promote deeper learning of this subject? Does it allow more time flexibility? Is it providing voices to students who are normally drowned out? Is it promoting the use of electronic resources (and thus greater reusability)? ..etc.
From the other angle, the technology as a whole needs to be simple, consistent and persistent so that it keeps drawing people in. These are the types of qualities I'm pursuing in Moodle.
I'm not sure what the problem is with content and department guidelines - I would assume that's up to individual teachers. Can you explain that further?
Martin you wrote
"I'm not sure what the problem is with content and department guidelines - I would assume that's up to individual teachers. Can you explain that further?"
-- I was refering to the fact that we are to follow the syllabus and outcomes as provided by the NSW dept of school ed. Approval to post full HSC courses online from a school, would need to be sought from above. Early stages as yet for this.
"I'm not sure what the problem is with content and department guidelines - I would assume that's up to individual teachers. Can you explain that further?"
-- I was refering to the fact that we are to follow the syllabus and outcomes as provided by the NSW dept of school ed. Approval to post full HSC courses online from a school, would need to be sought from above. Early stages as yet for this.
Martin
I have posted up a course in Information Technology for year 12 students, as part of a 2 year course, including resources (theory notes) , assignments based on competencies, quizes to test the competencies, forum and a journal. The student response is interesting! As they are all "into computing" anyway they enjoy using the application you have developed and majority of these students are also software programming students who are into php, so they are following the development of moodle with furvour. The learning atmosphere in the classroom has changed dramatically. Students are very self directed (clear goals and deadlines) but remarkably the students have responded to using journals to document their daily progress on the unit of work. Some have used the journals to store study notes for their later use. The effect of "1 day 12 hours" to go for an assignment has achieved 100% compliance rate ( a 1st) --- I felt "displaced" for a while as my role mutated slightly (the need for chalk & talk is engrained).
The students responded well to the immediate feedback given to assignments and journal. The issue remains of dealing with students who finish the unit a lot earlier than others - do they progress to the next unit or extension work etc. The amount of non productive work (social internet access etc.) has dramatically decreased - is it that they are using the computers anyway in a directed manner?
Staff are very enthusiastic about their Course in Computing Applications - a good sign.
Generally, the introduction of moodle has recieved rave reviews throughout the school. The journal concept has attracted most interest - students actually keep them up to date, a most unexpected thing in a secondary school.
I am investigating a new module for non assessable (no grade book entry) activities that can enhance the learning experience. Thank you for your work - the quiz module is a masterpiece on a global scale.
Alan,
Thank you very much for that - it's terrific for me to hear stories of Moodle being used out there. Particularly such positive ones! 
PHP programming can be great fun as you sometimes get a lot of effect for a little effort (then again sometimes you get little effect for a lot of effort) ... sounds like you have some budding hackers there 
(not crackers, hopefully). 
I'm very interested to hear more about how you have used the journals ... did you use few or many? When I designed it I was planning for each journal entry to be quite short, and that teachers would set up one or two journal activities in every week. Since then I've found many people are using only one or two of them in a whole course, and encouraging repeat visits so that they build up one big entry over a long time. As a result I'm thinking of new ideas for the journal to make it more dialogical, like a private forum between student and teacher. 
Glad you like the quiz module ... it was my most frequent request and I put a lot of work into it. Since it's now released mostly all I've heard is requests for new things instead. 
One more thing - are you using the LDAP authentication?
Cheers,
Martin
How do you make Novell usernames available to other applications? More specifically, how could Moodle connect to them?
Alan writes in the Moodle News forum:
Later on I will require automatic login authenticated against a user database gleaned from novell (into mysql) and/or only students from my school will be able to register/login etc.
Great! I look forward to your help with that!
Later on I will require automatic login authenticated against a user database gleaned from novell (into mysql) and/or only students from my school will be able to register/login etc.
Great! I look forward to your help with that!
Martin;
We used NDS Exporter (http://prope.insa-lyon.fr/~ppollet/netware/) freeware which extracts any NDS field out of NDs into delimited file, then put it into a db table to be queried at leisure.
Moodle (in high school situation) needs to have the Novell login name , fullname in a comma delimited format sent as a variable username then split it up into its components either side of the comma using the php split function. You now have the novell login name and novell fullname at your disposal.
We use this in the drop down selection boxes in the registration area so students can only use there novell login names (eg. 04kel) as the username in an application. No option to change name in "details" or "profile" is allowed.
We used NDS Exporter (http://prope.insa-lyon.fr/~ppollet/netware/) freeware which extracts any NDS field out of NDs into delimited file, then put it into a db table to be queried at leisure.
Moodle (in high school situation) needs to have the Novell login name , fullname in a comma delimited format sent as a variable username then split it up into its components either side of the comma using the php split function. You now have the novell login name and novell fullname at your disposal.
We use this in the drop down selection boxes in the registration area so students can only use there novell login names (eg. 04kel) as the username in an application. No option to change name in "details" or "profile" is allowed.
Does the Novell export include passwords too?
And are you saying that your other apps have a drop-down selection menu containing ALL student names? (that could be huge!)
My current plan for integrating this stuff into Moodle is as follows:
How does that sound?
And are you saying that your other apps have a drop-down selection menu containing ALL student names? (that could be huge!)
My current plan for integrating this stuff into Moodle is as follows:
- Admin selects "external source" for usernames, and the source type (SOAP lookup, database table etc).
- When user types in their username and password to log in), Moodle first checks it against the external source.
- If the username/password were correct, Moodle creates or updates a local entry in the user table (which in addition to the external username/password contains all the extra Moodle fields like picture, email, etc etc).
- If the username didn't exist on the source then any local copy is also wiped and access is denied.
- Lastly, if the user attempts to change their username or password then Moodle forwards them to an admin-defined external URL to do it (eg Novell).
How does that sound?
martin;
"Does the Novell export include passwords too? "
-- we have not tried , will find out
"And are you saying that your other apps have a drop-down selection menu containing ALL student names? (that could be huge!) "
-- Yes, we have it in our intranet home page (mambo). Understand that adolescent school children will do weird & wonderful things behind an untraceable username. If known by novell nic we can actually know whose work we are marking when assignments are submitted as well as that we can serve up content based on it (or year group etc) eg. their photo. I would like to disable the e-mail confirm (for classroom usage)and automate the confirm.
"Lastly, if the user attempts to change their username or password then Moodle forwards them to an admin-defined external URL to do it (eg Novell). "
-- We disable the ability to change username, but they can change their password (solves a day to day admin hassle -forgotten email passwords etc)
* by the way is the last part of this url related to the course ID? /moodle/login/?PHPSESSID=20287296e1fcff6dcd7ef1f4a1d28417
"Does the Novell export include passwords too? "
-- we have not tried , will find out
"And are you saying that your other apps have a drop-down selection menu containing ALL student names? (that could be huge!) "
-- Yes, we have it in our intranet home page (mambo). Understand that adolescent school children will do weird & wonderful things behind an untraceable username. If known by novell nic we can actually know whose work we are marking when assignments are submitted as well as that we can serve up content based on it (or year group etc) eg. their photo. I would like to disable the e-mail confirm (for classroom usage)and automate the confirm.
"Lastly, if the user attempts to change their username or password then Moodle forwards them to an admin-defined external URL to do it (eg Novell). "
-- We disable the ability to change username, but they can change their password (solves a day to day admin hassle -forgotten email passwords etc)
* by the way is the last part of this url related to the course ID? /moodle/login/?PHPSESSID=20287296e1fcff6dcd7ef1f4a1d28417
It's pretty essential to have passwords, otherwise what's to stop kids logging in as other students?!
Come to think of it, with your big drop-down list of usernames is there any authentication at all?
Come to think of it, with your big drop-down list of usernames is there any authentication at all?
I am talking about registration - they can only register under their allocated novell account name - there is trust that they do not register as someone else - has not been a problem. They still need correct username & password to Login to an application. Application looks after authentication at login, we authenticate at registration and whenever we need to to personalise content.
Screenshots are from Mambo 'registration' and 'edit details' screens.
Screenshots are from Mambo 'registration' and 'edit details' screens.
Ah, OK, I see now. So they still register on every application, and they set their own password for every application.
The scheme I am aiming for would do away with registration altogether - ideally they would just log in to Moodle using their Novell username and password and it would Just Work (tm).
If they change their password on Novell (for mail etc) then it would be ideal if those changes were reflected immediately in Moodle.
The scheme I am aiming for would do away with registration altogether - ideally they would just log in to Moodle using their Novell username and password and it would Just Work (tm).
If they change their password on Novell (for mail etc) then it would be ideal if those changes were reflected immediately in Moodle.
you wrote "So they still register on every application, and they set their own password for every application."
-- Yes, I am aiming at an integrated suite of 3 apps. You login to 1st and the username & password are parsed to the others via a hyperlink, but bypassing the login page of each app. Thought of parsing to a 'splash' page of next app. with an entry button to send variables to each apps. session / db etc (as if they entered their username,password). Code would check user tables of app. for $username if !exist then given registration form.
-- re: novell idea, constant updating authentication data is an issue for admin. Schools use NT and apple stuff as well. Would have to be an option as you suggested previously. Don't think password field can be picked up.
-- Yes, I am aiming at an integrated suite of 3 apps. You login to 1st and the username & password are parsed to the others via a hyperlink, but bypassing the login page of each app. Thought of parsing to a 'splash' page of next app. with an entry button to send variables to each apps. session / db etc (as if they entered their username,password). Code would check user tables of app. for $username if !exist then given registration form.
-- re: novell idea, constant updating authentication data is an issue for admin. Schools use NT and apple stuff as well. Would have to be an option as you suggested previously. Don't think password field can be picked up.
For your particular situation you could store your username in a cookie, and hack all three applications to use that info for authentication.
It's a pretty specialised situation you're using there (passing the data around like that) - not something I'm going to work on myself in the near future.
What I do want to do is develop direct authentication against external servers like Novell. There should be zero added admin load because these servers are ALREADY maintained by admins and the students (passwords etc). For example, it seems Novell supports LDAP out of the box - that should be a very good way to use it to check username/password pairs from a PHP app like Moodle.
eg http://www.ldapzone.com/perl_python_php.html
I believe the code can be as simple as:
if (!$connect = ldap_connect("", )) {
//error
exit;
}
if (!$res = @ldap_bind($ldap, $user, $password)) {
//error
exit;
}
It's a pretty specialised situation you're using there (passing the data around like that) - not something I'm going to work on myself in the near future.
What I do want to do is develop direct authentication against external servers like Novell. There should be zero added admin load because these servers are ALREADY maintained by admins and the students (passwords etc). For example, it seems Novell supports LDAP out of the box - that should be a very good way to use it to check username/password pairs from a PHP app like Moodle.
eg http://www.ldapzone.com/perl_python_php.html
I believe the code can be as simple as:
if (!$connect = ldap_connect("", )) {
//error
exit;
}
if (!$res = @ldap_bind($ldap, $user, $password)) {
//error
exit;
}
Hi Martin,
I work with Alan Chambers and do the Network Administration at our School. Alan has introduced Moodle to us and now I'm in the process of using ldap to authenticate against our Netware 6(BTW Novell is company name Netware is the OS) box. I'm trialling it now and the ldap part seems to work although I'm getting some errors. Heres the picture.
1. Moodle is installed on a SME5.5 box (LAMP)
2. When I authenticate against the Netware box the process happens correctly. ie Users have to use their Netware password to login to Moodle. But: When I login as admin in moodle and look at the edit current users I see the correct number of users but nothing under their Name * (only admin is visible). Upon clicking on the edit link I get a box now showing the users login name as authenticated against Netware **
I've sent the screen captures * and ** as one image
BTW we've got different OU's under the student O.e.g ou=y7-2001,o=students;ou=y7-2000,o=students but when I enter:
ou=y7-2001,o=students;ou=y7-2000,o=students
in the ldap_user_context undet ldap settings I cannot authenticate. I have to put o=students only and do a ldap_search_sub<>0 to search the organisation.
Is this the way it was intended to be used?
sam
Hi, Sam.
This problem has been thoroughly fixed in 1.0.8. Students in 1.0.7 were never forced to fill out their profiles, so if you didn't get the details (firstname, lastname, email etc) out of LDAP directly then they often stay blank.
Upgrading to 1.0.8 will force all those students to fill out their profile next time they log in.
The LDAP settings I cannot help you with ... I've never actually had an LDAP box to test against. Petri wrote the orginal code for that bit. Looks like your settings are working though, are they not?
Cheers,
Martin
This problem has been thoroughly fixed in 1.0.8. Students in 1.0.7 were never forced to fill out their profiles, so if you didn't get the details (firstname, lastname, email etc) out of LDAP directly then they often stay blank.
Upgrading to 1.0.8 will force all those students to fill out their profile next time they log in.
The LDAP settings I cannot help you with ... I've never actually had an LDAP box to test against. Petri wrote the orginal code for that bit. Looks like your settings are working though, are they not?
Cheers,
Martin
Great.
2 things:
1. If using ldap can users change their passwords on the "Moodle Box"- ie Can users create an environment where they have different passwords? (Obviously not wanted -thats why we are pursuing ldap)
2. If users are deleted from the ldap box how are they flagged in the Moodle Box- Manually have to delete them?
1. No, they can't change their Moodle passwords (you actually provide a URL in the auth setup which is used by the Change Password button).
2. If LDAP accounts are deleted then they can no longer log in. Moodle accounts still exist, though, so that existing content (eg forum posts) isn't disrupted.
2. If LDAP accounts are deleted then they can no longer log in. Moodle accounts still exist, though, so that existing content (eg forum posts) isn't disrupted.
Great Work Martin!
It works like a hawk on Netware 6. (BTW any chance you could include Netware as one of the OS's that Moodle runs on, on your moodle.com page.(http://developer.novell.com/ndk/whitepapers/namp.htm and http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/10/21/021021hnnovellmysql.xml has relevant info)
Qn: When a new user logins to moodle and authenticates via ldap shouldn't it be possible to have some of the fields already populated by the ldap authentication process. If so what do you put in the ldap admin authentication section. You've written:
"These fields are optional. You can choose to pre-fill some Moodle user fields with information from the LDAP fields that you specify here. "
But what do you actually put in these fields to self populated from ldap?
regards
Sam
Netware 6! Excellent.
You just put the names of LDAP fields in there, like "givenname" or "telephonenumber" etc ...
You just put the names of LDAP fields in there, like "givenname" or "telephonenumber" etc ...
Great!
If our site was already using email authentication then change over to ldap. What happens to the existing 100 or so users and their passwords?
Does moodle ignore the existing password and use ldap authentication for these existing users.
Yes, when you are using LDAP then all accounts are checked against LDAP (except admin and guest).
For continuity, it all comes down to usernames. If they were using their Novell usernames, then the accounts will continue (except password will now be LDAP). If they weren't then obviously they will be creating new Moodle accounts when they log in.
For continuity, it all comes down to usernames. If they were using their Novell usernames, then the accounts will continue (except password will now be LDAP). If they weren't then obviously they will be creating new Moodle accounts when they log in.
I would like to disable the e-mail confirm (for classroom usage)and automate the confirm.
Yes, with an external database the self-sign-up process could be completely disabled.
Yes, with an external database the self-sign-up process could be completely disabled.
by the way is the last part of this url related to the course ID? /moodle/login/?PHPSESSID=20287296e1fcff6dcd7ef1f4a1d28417
No - it's just a session ID. It keeps the session going even if they have cookies disabled (of course they still have to turn cookies on at the login screen (as it says just above the login form.
No - it's just a session ID. It keeps the session going even if they have cookies disabled (of course they still have to turn cookies on at the login screen (as it says just above the login form.
Phew !!
What a great job you are doing !!
I am the Computer Coordinator at Muirfield High in Sydney, and I have been moving towards similar goals with my school Intranet. I have been using phpNuke (http://phpnuke.org/) for general student communication, and a product called claroline (http://www.claroline.net/) for my coursware.
I only came across moodle a week ago and installed it yesterday to give it a go. After mucking around for only a few hours I'm already convinced that moodle is superior and more flexible when compared to claroline, and being able to do much of what we use both phpnuke and claroline, rolled into one product, would make things easier.
I like the sound or your authetication using your novell login names - we're running win2k here, so I may be able to do something similar with LDAP.
I also run the VET IT course, and am very interested in what you have done with your yr12 competencies - pity Armidale is so far away, I'd love to have a visit and see it for real (I wonder if I can see your site through the Dept's Intranet ??).
Anyway, great job !!
Bernie Carpenter
Muirfield High School
Thanks for the picture. I like the background and the calendar. I havent seen a calendar function in any of the documentation. Is the calendar built in, or did you add it yourself ? Also, does it talk to the dates you set up fo assignments automatically, or do you have to add the dates yourself later.
Our site is still in very very early stages ... Im still getting my staff (not to mention myself) up to speed with the software - ie still exploring the possibilites.
Im guessing you are a DET school .. if so, you may want to point your browser to http://10.15.46.22/moodle and have a look at what we're doing. If you feel inclined to contact me directly my email is gandalf@muirfield.nsw.edu.au
CyberGL phpNavigation ver 0.0.2
phpNavigation ver 0.0.2 is a php script that allows you to easily apply a navigation menu within your website.
It allows you to create/edit/delete nested navigation. It also includes a simple code snippets to integrating navigation into your web in 3 choices of view mode (path/menu/sitemap).
Only 3 lines of code added to where you want the menu to appear!
The attachment gives a screen shot of my implementation. It only appears on index.php page.
Great! (Are you applying the menu to your other PHP applications as well?)
Martin; Believe it, I have dispensed with Mambo and PHPBB and integrated the features we wanted into Moodle as the one application for the students. Eg searching forum subject line allows us to use the forums in Moodle for students to log the problem and solution for the IT support work they do for us (part of their competencies.) . We are working on the students real photo appearing beneath their avatar of choice.
Logo and "other things?" are on their way to you from my students. Staff are putting courses online now. Wow!
Logo and "other things?" are on their way to you from my students. Staff are putting courses online now. Wow!
Very cool! Looking forward to the goodies!
You/they might possibly be interested in helping define/write the "Tracker" module that I'm planning to replace bugs.moodle.com:
http://bugs.moodle.com/bug.php?op=show&bugid=169
(Searching by subject is now in CVS, for example this site is using it)
You/they might possibly be interested in helping define/write the "Tracker" module that I'm planning to replace bugs.moodle.com:
http://bugs.moodle.com/bug.php?op=show&bugid=169
(Searching by subject is now in CVS, for example this site is using it)