Fortnightly Mailing

Getting to grips with Moodle. Guest Contribution from Julia Duggleby.

In spring 2005 the Sheffield College adopted Moodle as its Virtual Learning Environment. Online and blended learning wasn’t a new venture for the College, we’ve been delivering online learning since 1997 using a variety of platforms, including bog-standard webpages, an internally developed content management system (MySheffcol), and various other VLEs.

My main experience of Moodle is in:

• the development of two online courses;
• the delivery of one online course;
• supporting College staff in developing/uploading their own content and activities.

I really feel positive about Moodle. It isn’t perfect – it has some quirks and shortcomings that are annoying, though some of them may be to do with modifications we have made ourselves. For example:

• It doesn’t seem to save Chat transcripts, though it pretends it has and there is a link, which doesn’t work, to transcripts.
• I cannot get the icons to disappear in the Book Module, even when I have “Turn Editing On” turned off. Fortunately they only appear when I am logged on as a tutor, and learners don’t see them.
• Sometimes when creating content I can’t get it to do what I want it to – it is a bit basic. My workaround is to create what I want in Dreamweaver, and copy the html into Moodle.
• I find the top level navigation a bit clunky and would like to have more control over the course hierarchy.

But I feel these are quibbles. Actually I love Moodle because I find it so easy to use. What is it that I love?

• In content creation and editing I have a reasonable degree of control over what it looks like – I can fiddle about with fonts, colour, tables and colour, though it does have limitations (see above).
• It is so easy to move things around. Many happy hours can be wasted shoving elements up and down, and from side to side.
• It has a lovely, and growing, box of tricks that I am gradually learning to use. My particular favourites are Labels, the Book Module, the Wiki, the HTML Block (so simple, so useful).
• The College staff generally takes to it very easily. I find that a couple of hours training and a bit of supported hands-on is all they need to learn enough to at least create and upload some content, and some learner interactivities. The more IT competent/pedagogical imaginative staff then move forward on their own without any further training
• Learners seem to use it with little difficulty. We have had few technical problems with accessing it, and learners quickly get to grips with how it all works.
• It’s free, or cheap anyway because time (money) needs to be spent on it. But it is still the best VLE I’ve used. Moodle is to VLEs as Primark is to fashion (cheap, cheerful, and surprisingly good quality).

About the Author. Julia Duggleby is Online Learning Manager at the Sheffield College. If you wish to contact Julia, please email: julia.duggleby@sheffcol.ac.uk.

Free stuff in a commercial world. Guest Contribution from Mark Berthelemy.

Since the beginnings of the internet there has been a possible conflict of interest between those who believe everything on the net should be free, and those with a commercial bent, who want to sell internet-based products and services.

So, how does the availability of “easy to use” free tools and systems, such as Flickr, Del.icio.us, Writely, Frappr, Nuvvo, Yahoo Groups, Google Calendar, Elgg etc etc, work alongside those commercial interests?

First of all, let’s set a context: I’m writing from the position of being part of a company that sells a range of learning “products”, from off-the-shelf face-to-face training through to bespoke formal, open and self-directed learning solutions (see Terry Anderson for a definition of these that works) that mix online and offline learning. So where does the free stuff fit into our world?

There’s no such thing as a free lunch

No matter how “free” something is, there is always a business model attached to it. Every service has a cost that must be met somehow, whether by direct payment for the service, grants and donations, or indirect subsidy from another paid-for service. The viability of that business model dictates the stability of the free service. If we sell a commercial solution that includes free elements, we must be confident that the free stuff will work consistently well, which means being confident in the business model that supports the free stuff.

For example, we may build a Google search as a prescribed activity into a learning solution for a client. It’s a pretty safe bet that that will work – as a society we’ve gained confidence in Google’s business model and its product. If however, we were to use Frappr as a way of showing the locations of people involved in the learning group this would probably be done an experimental option within the solution. Although Frappr has a superb product, it doesn’t yet have a demonstrably viable business model, which means confidence in the long-term viability of the product is not that high.

There are many start-up companies, like Frappr, that don’t appear to have a good business model, yet gain commercial confidence by being bought up by companies such as Yahoo (which bought Flickr) and Google (which bought Writely). As soon as that happens, then it is more likely that these services will be built into solutions.

There is also an accountability issue, in that most large organisations prefer to use systems and services with which they have some sort of contractual relationship. With free solutions, there is usually an explicit clause in the terms and conditions which removes any accountability from the service provider. But then, the providers could incorporate this into their business model, to provide paid for support and warranties for organisations that wish to have that level of protection.

We should remember that free stuff in the guise of open-source software (Open source primer) is actually well embedded within the commercial world, although it tends to be for the back-office applications such as Linux and Apache for servers, and systems like DNS and SMTP which underpin the internet. However, a number of front-office applications, such as Moodle are also gaining wide acceptance. Again, this is mainly because confidence in the sustainability of the application has increased to a critical level. This has happened through the exponential increase in the number of developers involved, and also through the business model adopted by Moodle.com which ensures that development and support will continue.

Building the free stuff into a learning solution

We have used a number of free services to provide access to open information that can then be integrated using RSS. For example, using Del.icio.us to provide a set of links tailored to a specific group.

But, as soon as you need to hide information, restrict access or brand the solution for a particular client, then the difficulties arise:

• Will we require users to register with each of the free services individually?
• Will we have to host our own set of services and information behind a firewall or a single login?

Many learning solutions require complex mixes of interactions, activities and resources. If each interaction, activity and resource comes from a different service provider, with its own branding, navigation and registration process we are likely to lose learners rapidly. The question is then, how do we make use of these “best of breed” services, at the same time as providing learners with branded, coherent, integrated solutions?

About the Author. Mark Berthelemy is a Learning Solutions Architect for Capita Learning and Development. He works with clients to help them understand the potential of new technologies to support effective learning and then to implement those technologies across their organizations. If you wish to contact Mark, please email: mark.berthelemy@capita.co.uk.

In praise of older bloggers. Guest Contribution from Kevin Donovan.

The Guardian reported recently that bloggers and internet pundits are exerting a "disproportionately large influence" on society. So, six weeks after I retired from full-time employment in education, I've arrived. First off, thanks to Seb for inviting this guest contribution - and for establishing and maintaining this extremely useful and accessible mailing.

Retirement has given me an opportunity to do lots of things, including to reflect a bit on what's happened to education during my time, and how technology and e-learning have come to play increasing (albeit disputed) roles. I started teaching in 1968, spent most of my career in further education colleges, and ended up with the then Learning and Skills Development Agency. Now I'm working part-time and finding more time for things I enjoy and am involved in otherwise.

My big introduction to technology was very privileged for a classroom teacher: in 1979 I was seconded to the then Council for Educational Technology (one of Becta's predecessors) and worked for the inspirational Geoffrey Hubbard. Apart from learning a lot about education and about 'technologies' (including - on a later secondment - becoming an early Apple Mac user), the first big lesson was that the core mission of education and training (if I didn't know it already) is for the student. (And here I confess to one of many prejudices: I can't stand the word 'learner'. Student, please, and teacher.)  The second lesson? That 'educational technology' is only incidentally about technology; the real ed. tech. is a systematic approach to teaching and learning. From those, all else follows.

But does it? The dangerous zealots of Neo Labor are busy sacrificing socially progressive education on their faith-based altar of liberal economics. Following the links in the previous sentence pretty much says it all for me. But most readers of this post will be involved in 'technology' and we've seen this flag flown by government and its friends to represent the boys with toys. E-learning will give us 'personalisation'. Well, possibly. But see elsewhere in Fortnightly Mailing - and worry about whether personalisation really means privatisation (where not just economic capital but social capital, values, emotions and finer feelings are also privatised, commodified and debased). Shouldn't e-learning rather be enlisted to encourage particpation and achievement and - a word we forget at our peril - solidarity.

How long is a blog? Is this one a rant? Ho, hum. I hope you will join a discussion anyway. Meanwhile - discovering that "The Wikimedia Foundation servers are currently experiencing technical difficulties" it's probably time for me to leave my desk for a while.

The South Yorkshire learning technology team. Guest Contribution from Nick Jeans.

This is a guest contribution from Nick Jeans, who leads the South Yorkshire e-Learning Programme's team of learning technologists.

E-sy.info is a VLE available to many primary schools, all secondary schools, colleges, Adult Community Learning and 400 small businesses in S.Yorkshire. A team of Learning Technologists have recently been appointed to promote the development and use of high-quality interactive learning materials by teachers, trainers and students which can be accessed via the internet any time, anywhere. These materials can be accessed through the  VLE, at www.e-sy.info .

HCI and webcasting in Toronto. Guest Contribution from Sara Frank Bristow.

In June 2005 I became the Network Manager for NECTAR, the Canadian Network for Effective Collaboration Technologies through Advanced Research. NECTAR links 14 HCI researchers at UBC, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Toronto, Queen's and Dalhousie universities, and is administered from the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) in Toronto. A 5-year project which runs through 2008, NECTAR is part of the government’s Strategic Network Grants Program, and like all networks in the program, it is funded by both the Canadian government (NSERC) and the private sector. In our case, major sponsors are Microsoft and SMART Technologies, though NECTAR has support from a number of other companies too.

Among NECTAR's many goals is to improve communication among our own labs, preferably via technology. Yet we find that without annual network-wide meetings at which our faculty, postdocs, and students can interact face to face, collaboration is less likely to flourish. Last Autumn we tried to improve network synergy via a postgraduate Computer Supported Collaborative Work course, webcast live to all NECTAR sites via an open/community source tool called ePresence (a version is available at SourceForge, and you may also be interested in this podcast about ePresence on the Educause web site). The course attracted students and/or speakers from all six NECTAR universities; built-in text chat, synchronization of audio/video with PowerPoint slides, and experimentation with a new (and pedagogically controversial) Voiceover IP module all contributed to each week’s presentation.

ePresence is one of many projects sponsored by NECTAR, and one of numerous collaborations underway at KMDI. Project Open Source|Open Access (OS|OA) is another: a tri-campus initiative, it seeks to develop a networked community of individuals interested in distributed peer production at the University of Toronto and beyond.

I must admit that I get a bit lonely amidst all of these virtual communities. From Toronto I co-ordinate the activities of researchers up to 3,000 miles away, most of whom I have never met. We keep in touch via Instant Messaging (MSN, Trillium), VoIP (Skype, Google Talk), the telephone and email – lots of email.  But there are no immediate colleagues to celebrate with when, for example, I finish a big project. Perhaps this is one more reason to support HCI research: with an adaptive enough interface, I might not notice the difference.

Contact Sara

Everyone writes and no one pays - Guest Contribution from Donald Clark

Thanks to Donald Clark for this guest contribution.

In January I blogged a "Seven Wonders of the Digital World" list:

1. Wikipedia
2. Napster
3. Toy Story
4. Linux
5. Doom
6. Google
7. World Wide Web

Lots of people posted with suggestions; Google Earth, iPOD, eBay etc. But Wikipedia remained a firm favourite. The more I use it, the more wonder it induces. But is Wikipedia full of crap data? Research published in Nature (December 2005), a blind trial in which experts were sent randomly selected articles from both Wikipedia and Britannica, found that both contained inaccuracies, but the difference was marginal.