Moodle community sites

Hi,
More resources, does involve higher ups. at least in my opinion

Notice I only get up on this particular soapbox about once a year. Maybe I should just do it, then everyone can spread my guts out on the forum floor to see if the signs are auspicious. { I am having entirely too much fun on a Friday afternoon}. Ok, here is an idea that can be done right now.

Wipe the demo.moodle format clean. I would start with 3 course categories: Demonstrations, Tutorials and Shared Courses. Create courses and assign teachers. "What me worry?" MoodleDocs is working out and that is a real free for all. That is my flexible vision, use Moodle's tools for teachers to collaborate with each other in development and even let "students" and visitors to see and use things as the course develops. Moodle software can handle this and maintain some semblance of control just like a (gasp) real course. Over the years, I have grown fond of those pedagogical principles, what else can I say about a collaborative model?

Be happy, leave the old "Moodle Features Demo" right on the front page for a while so those who need it will feel safe. The techies should be able to figure out how to restore it every hour and leave the rest alone and then when a teacher figures a course has matured, add it to the list of hourly restores. In the meantime, that is the teacher's worry and why they can do backups and restores for their course, hide and unhide it or parts as they see fit. Still not happy, don't give them rights to reveal their course until it has been reviewed. Authority can always banish non believers to the Pointless Forest. I don't see why it is so hard to take the first step.

It will be a painful at first. How about figuring out different roles for the same user (student) in different courses. And I am sure that there will be other bumps. And what is the worst that can happen, we go back to the DULL AND BORING Moodle Features Demo that never changes. Education is always a challenge and it should be fun and exciting for everyone.

Please we need at least one more Helen for this !

A.T. you really got me wound up. Now I am guessing that of the 20% of MoodleDoers, 80% are not interested in this. Even better, less cooks.

Best to all Chris

Great! I would like to see it.

atw

My experience with this (much to my sigoth's dismay) is that one of the best ways to provide install documentation is to second chair a newbee doing an install for the first time, from hitting the site to completing all admin set-up (which should include cron set-up, php-cgi issues, etc.. The doc write sits on a second system doing exactly what the newbee does but can then snap screen shots and take notes. Once the prototype is compiled, then it is tried out on another innocent to see where language is confusing, where some stop signs or pauses need to be placed, where some branching may be appropriate, etc. Finally, I would create a "prequel" which would be a punch-list with references to documents that will be helpful during the install so that the user can have all the documentatin and materials and access ready BEFORE s/he starts.

and

out of date documentation is often worse than no documentation... so anyone bold enough to write documentation should stay, well, vigilant??

I have a class of teachers now and could offer them an opportunity to earn some extra credit if they wanted to do this if there was some interest and they were interested?