If Moodle serves NO OTHER PURPOSE THAN TO STORE THE DOCUMENT, then why use Moodle at all? Moodle is not very good as a document repository. Store the document on a network drive, or on the Web using Google docs.
Hi John
Your CAPS got me thinking. Am I using Moodle currently as anything much more than a file store? There are forums etc but the grading and all that goes with that is of no use to me as I work with self-directed adults.
I have posted here to see if there is anything more "active" I can use Moodle for - but in the end maybe it does come down to being a document store. Thanks for the Google docs link. It looks very interesting. Perhaps I could stick it in an iFrame in Moodle somehow . . .
In MoodleI was looking for something that would help with: the presentation of multi-layered material; group accessibility; forum type discussions; chat; e-learning/coaching; etc . . . I've hunted about, looked at SCORM etc but so far, everything I've seen seems targeted at schools or undergraduate teaching, and with a reasonably "linear" structure. Am I missing something?
Your CAPS got me thinking. Am I using Moodle currently as anything much more than a file store? There are forums etc but the grading and all that goes with that is of no use to me as I work with self-directed adults.
I have posted here to see if there is anything more "active" I can use Moodle for - but in the end maybe it does come down to being a document store. Thanks for the Google docs link. It looks very interesting. Perhaps I could stick it in an iFrame in Moodle somehow . . .
In MoodleI was looking for something that would help with: the presentation of multi-layered material; group accessibility; forum type discussions; chat; e-learning/coaching; etc . . . I've hunted about, looked at SCORM etc but so far, everything I've seen seems targeted at schools or undergraduate teaching, and with a reasonably "linear" structure. Am I missing something?
Actually I think in the space of a post the short answer is probably "no" :D But let me try . . . Moodle presents to the user the Titles of "resources". Clicking on the Title of a resource, opens it. With SCORM (?) the user follows a predefined set of sub-resources. But the passage is in either case linear, generally speaking. I am looking for something that would allow me to present material in a way that did not mimic the layout of a book but rather exploited the various link types so that the experience would be one of walking inside the information. I don't mean in a symbolic way, through the use of graphics with links disguised as bus-stops or whatever. I mean so that the information allows the user to drill into and out of it. Ahem. Err . . . any help? 
Ay suggestions?
Lots of people are interested in navigation issues, but unfortunately there is no silver bullet -- yet. Activity locking (which was the standard advice you would have gotten in the past) is not working in 1.8. Conditional activities won't be here until 2.0. SCORM doesn't yet support any fancy navigation. LAMS is a proprietary solution (as I understand it -- I never used it).
As long as you don't use any other Moodle activities (just resources), you could structure your entire course as a single Lesson. Use the Lesson's flexible branching ability to define the navigation structure. Create resources in "unseen" topic blocks, then link to them inside Lesson pages (like this), making sure they appear in new windows so student don't lose their place. Lessons can remember where a student left off (right after the last question they answered correctly), so students can suspend work and resume it in a later session, which is essential in a "course."
As long as you don't use any other Moodle activities (just resources), you could structure your entire course as a single Lesson. Use the Lesson's flexible branching ability to define the navigation structure. Create resources in "unseen" topic blocks, then link to them inside Lesson pages (like this), making sure they appear in new windows so student don't lose their place. Lessons can remember where a student left off (right after the last question they answered correctly), so students can suspend work and resume it in a later session, which is essential in a "course."
This sound like a really interesting approach John. But I didn't get the relevance of your link as it led me straight to the Moodle front page?
Presumably if I wanted to use other Activities I could still do that, but not within the lesson structure?
Does the remembering feature have to be tied to correct answers? - I'm not testing students, just diseminating structured information.
Presumably if I wanted to use other Activities I could still do that, but not within the lesson structure?
Does the remembering feature have to be tied to correct answers? - I'm not testing students, just diseminating structured information.
Sorry about the link to moodle.org (although I hear it's a good site). I meant to illustrate a link typographically. I should have just underlined it. When a student is studying your Lesson and encounters a link, they click the link and the content appears in a new window so they don't lose their place in the Lesson.
A Lesson can only be suspended and resumed immediately following a question that's scored. So a multiple choice question with zero choices won't work. You could have an MCQ with two choice, such as "would you like to take a break?" and "No, I'm ready to go on." The response to the first choice would be "click here" and would send the student back to the course page, suspending the lesson.
It would be nice if Lesson provided a built-in target that branched out of the lesson (which is different from branching to the End of lesson), but there is no such built-in target.
A Lesson can only be suspended and resumed immediately following a question that's scored. So a multiple choice question with zero choices won't work. You could have an MCQ with two choice, such as "would you like to take a break?" and "No, I'm ready to go on." The response to the first choice would be "click here" and would send the student back to the course page, suspending the lesson.
It would be nice if Lesson provided a built-in target that branched out of the lesson (which is different from branching to the End of lesson), but there is no such built-in target.
Actually, Moodle can be a very good document repository IF that is all you use it for...if you are using it as an LMS, then I agree, the document management features, as a component of the LMS, are extremely limited.
I have one client (a state organization) who serves over 1,300 schools in the State. They use Moodle as a "Members Only" website to share documents (and other things) with their member schools. Each school has a single login to a unique site (course) with documents (and other things) applicable only to that school and a common site (course) with common documents (and other things) shared among all member schools.
It's a great set-up and I'm of the opinion, that when used in this way, Moodle is at least as good (and maybe a better) document management system than a learning management system.
However, just to repeat, the online classroom document management features in a "normal" Moodle install is very much lacking. I also agree Googe Docs is a much better solution for collaboration on documents, but not as good as my Moodle set-up for document storage and management. And, yes I could do the same thing with a "content management system", but why? It would take me months to learn as much about a system like Mambo as I already know about Moodle.
Steve
I think I am using Moodle rather as the members-only "sites" (courses) that you describe Steve. But in this too I have been irritated by the way participants are handled on a site wide basis rather than on a course basis. It's a minor gripe.
But can you explain why you say that:
"the online classroom document management features in a "normal" Moodle install is very much lacking"?
By the way have you checked out promoodle: http://promoodle.com/index.php ? It hooks Moodle into Joomla.
But can you explain why you say that:
"the online classroom document management features in a "normal" Moodle install is very much lacking"?
By the way have you checked out promoodle: http://promoodle.com/index.php ? It hooks Moodle into Joomla.
It would take me a long time to thoroughly explain that, but suffice it to say, "students" have virtually no document management capability and "teachers" have to duplicate their documents (resources) in every class since class resources are tied to "courses" and not users....recognizing meta courses are one way around this issue for "teachers".
The need for integrated document management features has been discussed for a very long time...and, by my estimation, seemed to die off about the same time Hive came in the picture. You will find threads all over this site that address this need, but maybe one of the best is here:
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=3383
Steve
PS: Just my opinion based on my experience and I have very little first-hand experience with anything past version 1.6, so my knowledge could very well be out-of-date.
Thanks Steve. There's a new thread Martin started on this here
It's too late for me to get to the bottom of this as there's a lot of tech stuff mixed in with what sounds like as Martin said in 2003: a dynamite idea! That was at the time of the launch of 1.6 . . . surely something about this must now exist in 1.8 ???
It's too late for me to get to the bottom of this as there's a lot of tech stuff mixed in with what sounds like as Martin said in 2003: a dynamite idea! That was at the time of the launch of 1.6 . . . surely something about this must now exist in 1.8 ???
Just like I share this material:
http://www.georgetownprofessor.net/lms/course/view.php?id=4&topic=all
That could just as easily be an entire series of "Directories" containing a complete library of documents in a course open to whomever you like. If you want multiple people to be able to "manage" the documents, then add as many "teachers" to the site (course) as you want.
I use Moodle for the school to do normal Moodle stuff. I only need the recommendation how to handle this single thing within Moodle. I can come up with a way to share a file using some other system, but I don't want to use another system, and don't want to have the staff using some other tool.
Hi JM, as mentioned already the database module is a flexible way to file share. You could also use the 'Files' area in your course Adminstration block.
This is effectively a teacher only area, until you decide to 'add a resource' by selecting 'link to file' or 'display a directory'. This then allows you to share these resources with students in this course. I'd recommend this method if your teachers will be file sharing frequently.
Cheers, Chad
This is effectively a teacher only area, until you decide to 'add a resource' by selecting 'link to file' or 'display a directory'. This then allows you to share these resources with students in this course. I'd recommend this method if your teachers will be file sharing frequently.
Cheers, Chad