Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Moodle Cute Repository


I received an email recently describing a new content repository from the Worcester College of technology, its called MrCute and is intended to be an optional add-on to the Moodle Virtual Learning Environment. More specifically, it extends the functionality of the IMS Repository system originally developed by Alton College, UK. From their website a repository is a storage area where materials – in this case elearning materials – can be held and from where they can easily be accessed by teachers and learners. IMS (Instructional Management Standards) Global Learning Consortium is an international body which aims to set standards for interoperability between learning systems. The specific standards involved in this case are the IMS Content Packaging Standards.
MrCute will be compatible with Moodle 1.8.2 but not with earlier 1.8 versions. You may like to give this site a visit and see what you think and please remeber to get back and post your views, but it certainly sounds worth while.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Open Source Mahara and Moodle


I was wondering if anyone out there in Moodle land has thought of trying out the e-portfilio and social networking tool Mahara yet. Mahara has been designed as a means of storing evidence of lifelong learning in digital format called artifacts, a Mahara concept. An advantage to this approach is that students can display their artifacts in views depending on the intended audience; seems good in itself. In relation to Moodle, its appears that 1.9 and Mahara v0.9 support a transparent Single Sign On, all well worth a look. Please feel free to reply to this blog of you have any thoughts.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Death of the Podcast

As a supplement to my lectures and notes for 2006-7, I decided to begin making some specific MP3 recordings at certain strategic points during the delivery, which resulted in about four or five recordings with each lasting somewhere between 3 to 4 minutes per session. While I used the MP3’s in audio form, I also decided to tryout driving an avatar with the audio and so give them all something to look at while listening, basically duplicating the material. All these recordings I then posted onto Moodle. At the time my students thought this was a bit of a novelty, and by tracking their activity I found they seemed to be making good use of them, very encouraging for me. At the start of this academic year, I simply restored my course and released the MP3 and Video casts, great for me, and I thought my students, however tracking has revealed an unexpected trend for the first semester. Below I have listed the students access, from a group of 20+ on a topic basis for the material

MP3 11,6,6,0,1
Video 9,4,3,0,4

As an experiment I have not installed the Podcasts for the second semester, and I have to say so far have received no requests for them! Has anyone else out there had a similar experience? Was the podcast just a blip? Or is this a reflection of my present cohort?