Moodle

If you have ftp access to your Moodle the Game module is a useful activity module to add. It takes vocab from glossaries and quizzes and puts them into 8 different games such as crosswords, hangman, sudoku and hidden picture. There’s a 2minute 27 second whistlestop tour here:

Why not? Click and listen below!

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Why spend ages typing into Word when you can type straight into Moodle? Listen to the podcast and check out the screencast below:

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Why spend ages typing into Word and uploading it when you can just type straight into Moodle? Watch the screencast below:

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Here is a little movie showing you how to download a video from youtube and upload it into Moodle. Before you start you need to be aware of two things:

1. copyright issues - be careful; check out your permissions! Youtube is full of copyright-breaking videos  but they can afford the fines; can you?
2. multimedia filters on your Moodle site: Not essential for getting your video to work but if you want it to play in a neat little player on your Moodle course you need to check that your admin has turned on the multimedia filters -specifically flv files which youtube generates. Just ask if you’re not sure - and if they are not sure, then they haven’t!

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Of course, there are other VLEs apart from Moodle. Very expensive, commercial set ups that no doubt many people are sastisfied with. It is important to make an informed choice about any VLE that you wil be using long term, weighing up the pros and cons of all systems, Moodle included. The TALMOS gateway is used by many establishments - if you are considering it you might like to read this in order to help you reach your considered decision.

Thanks to Jose Picardo for tagging me on this inspiring idea first thought up by  Miguel Guhlin whereby we post a photo showing what inspires us most about education - a kind of international passion quilt. Such a difficult choice, really - as  a Moodler, it should be something cyber, or at least technological, but the one image that has really stayed with me has neither element - and yet I have used it in so many lessons in different contexts.  My daughter took it during a 3 week stay in Mumbai in 2005; some children she saw on the streets who came running to her.  It says so much: poverty; caring for one another;  exploitation; joy in despair - not to mention the politics which so inspire my daughter.

(click for larger image)  All very well we fortunates posting our blogs about the latest ICT gadgets; there is another world out there for whom such stuff is of little import. I tag the following five comrades:

Lisa Stevens

Sinclair Mackenzie

Tom Barrett

Doug Belshaw

Graham Davies

Moodle 1.9 has some new (and fun!) new features.  A small selection is highlighted in the blog here or in the podcast below.

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I’m enjoying 15 days of Google Answers from edtechroundup -  a group of educators interested in the pedagogically sound use of ICT in education who questioned the Google Apps team and are serialising (!) the answers. Still not half way through yet - well worth a read!

All about changing grading in Moodle - not just for assignments but also for evaluating students’  performance in a forum or a glossary. Click the image for a Wink Screencast about Moodle Scales or read the Moodle Scales and Gradebook blog here. (or listen to the podcast below!)

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