Visvanath Ratnaweera

Hi Robert

Yes, I read your other posts with details about the project. Here are my two cents on the new setup, please discard my previous answer.

You wrote:
> But the problem I present to myself is using computers for learning in prison barracks. If I can present a stand alone system with one computer which can present videos to logged on inmates I think it will be useful enough to be adopted.

Sure, the computer is immensely useful as a medium for teaching. It is nice that the inmates are allowed to use computers. The remainig big problem is the flow of information, the network, I mean. If I understand right, sneakernet is the only available network. Therefore you are looking for some kind of a "portable Moodle". There were many in the past, I wasn't aware of any usable and actively maintained solution. I hope the new project coming from Catalyst will work out for you.

We are still at the technical end of things. There are two common approaches to "portable" solutions:
1. Provide only the applications in a portable medium. You need hardware and system software which satisfy certain requirements. A well known example is the http://portableapps.com.

2. Provide the applications and system software in a portable medium. You need only certain hardware. http://www.knoppix.org/ is the originator.

I'm sure soon there'll be a new genre. With hardware like this http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-compute-stick,28356.html you can make even the CPU portable, All you need locally are the KVM and (USB) power!

The possibilities are endless. Still you faced with a major problem: How to bridge the missing network which is, in the case of Moodle, also the communication line for interaction - with the teacher and with the peers. If I understood the Catalyst project right, their concept is to build a "Moodle reader", i.e. to take back Moodle to CBT. May be that is what you are looking for. The ordinary Moodle user tends to think in terms of resources and activities (Moodle-speak) like Forum, Assignment, Book, Quiz, Lesson, etc. I am very much interested to know what your local Moodle extpers say. (They read this thread, right?)

> Inmates are a collection of antisocial individuals. In a barracks they form a society which shares methods to come back to prison. Inmates who successfully reintegrate into society after one mistake are not there. The social milieu is one of failure and knowledge of how to beat the system.

That is a bitter world. Ironically, the philosophy of Moodle which I mentioned earlier is based on the complete opposite social behaviour. Are you sure that food from this world will nourish the other?

My question is fundamental though: If a central (client-server) architecture is not wished and interaction is prohibited, why you start with Moodle, which is build on those two, and try to dismantle those very two towers? Why don't you start from basics? The most basic thing we all know is the distance education before the Internet era. You got a thick envelope with everything for the coming month. Once that is done, there was the next. Replace the envelope a USB memory stick, ... you get the idea?

Sorry, it sounds like I am answering this in the OP:
> If Moodle is not the vehicle and cannot be used can you suggest another?

But that happens to all of us. The vehicle we have, whether Moodle or Meditation, is the right one for anybody's journey!

Colin

Same here. We agree - ordinarily. In this discussion apparently not. I am trying to find out on what we disagree. It can't be about the solution Robert needs, because we both didn't know the problem, the prison background I mean. If it is about something else, I'd rather stay with the OP.
;-P

You said:

> There's nearly always too many options presented to learners which in 90% of cases is going to confuse and put off learners

Those stats should have been available during Moodle 1 times. Moodle 2 is a forced march from one feature to the next. And many thousends are waiting I heard!

Very interesting discussion.

Can somebody pl. list the improvements in appearance that flow in to Moodle as a result of this discussion?

Wordpress (WP): is a CMS (Content Management, not Course Management !) widely used in all sorts of websites, from company web sites to bloggers to marketing campaigns. Its theming is very powerful, a real cameleon. (Not to downplay Moodle, WP is something simple compared to Moodle.)

Anyway, it is an interesting exercise to visit a site and guess whether WP is behind it. I mean not cheating by looking at the source, just from the way it behaves. If I was not told that this beautiful site is Moodle, I would have thought it is WP theme. (Doesn't have any weight for anybody else, I am no web designer.)

Impressions: If you stand on a road and think it is a road, the world is OK. If you stand in a river and think it is a road, that is a wrong impression. If you stand on a road an think it is a river, then the world is NOK, it is flooded!