Upgrading to Moodle 3

As a Moodlerooms client we have recently been upgraded Moodle 3 here at the College and as such I have been particularly interested in some of the new features that come along with that.

Looking at the improvements and changes to assessment methods I feel the inclusion of :-

fig 1

The Drag and drop onto image question type, see fig 1, where participants simply drag either text or small images onto an image is going to have so many uses for us.

fig 2

Then there's the Drag and drop markers question type where you can drag text markers onto a predefined image see fig 2.

 

fig 3



For us admins there is also some welcome imrp0vemenst to the Atto editor see fig 3 from now on it seems we will be able to drag and drop images, much quicker. There are some really significant improvements to the equation facility, for us Maths types out there see fig 4, plus some welcome additions for table editing for border styling, sizing and colours.

For even more information on the Moodle 3.x check out Moodle documentation here

Thinking about performance, Moodle 3.0.1 will support PHP7, which we are informed could potentially result in speed increases of between 25 to 70%, even at the lower end of the scale figures like these are in themselves reason enough to consider the jump to version 3.

If you read my previous post then you will have seen the reference to learner analytics, and I notice that our Moodlerooms currently have a short white paper for download that you may find interesting

Finally, I came across this innovative little clip showing how you can make use of your smartphone as a video tool, it just requires a claw clamp from the science lab to overcome the custom handheld shake effect.

That's all for this week, but do feel free to comment

Is your VLE cognitive?

As I recall, it was at least  few ago now that I first started to hear the term Student Analytics banded around in the corridors of eLearning, around the time of the 2012 Horizon Report.  For sure the systems that we now use have over time become increasingly attuned to the complexities of student performance tracking, and so  hopefully leveraging that competitive edge realized through analytics for our students. The benefits sited here include such aspects as an improved student experience, increased retention, efficiency cost savings, that can extend even to facilities management.

If you are a Moodle user, then you may be aware of the Learning Analytics dashboard form SmartKlass™. I admit we do not at present actually run this ourselves, but I would be interested in hearing from any of you out there in Moodle land who do, it does seem to be a nicely presented and interfaced product.

While you may be thinking that I am jumping on all this a little on the late in the game, It’s because I recently saw the posting from those people at IBM Research on personalized experiential learning, entitled – The ‘Classroom Will Learn You’

The concept seems to be that soon cloud based education / learning platform systems would be able to collect the vast arrays of student analytic data to alert teachers on intervention techniques and interactive content to address apparent gaps in knowledge. Furthermore the ability to tag student interests need could be used to generate a personalized learning pathway, silver bullet?

On another virtual learning front, I have been enjoying some success with my work in virtual worlds. My project Only Rocket Science was designed for my Level 4 and 5 students, and used the affordances of a virtual world to deliver a situated learning experience. Rather than repeat the details here, you can get a full blog from this link.

That’s all for now, please feel free to comment