For more information visit: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_2.0_release_notes

Here’s to hoping.  Stay tuned for QA testing information to find out how you can help out.

1. Moodle.org Module Repository:   The Module and Plug-in repository has well over 600 Modules, Plugins and Blocks that you can add to your Moodle to do any host of tasks, tricks and additional functionality.  Though they are unsorted and unranked, it’s a great place to start if you know what you’re looking for.  To get a better feel for what the most popular modules are, consider reviewing the Moodle.org download statistics: http://download.moodle.org/stats.php.  As you can see the top four most popular modules and plugins are the Questionnaire, Certificate, Presenter and Book.
   
2. University of Iowa plugin Matrix: This site documents the features of some of the best modules available in an easy to navigate format.  While it was primarily for internal use in evaluating the desired functionalities of a Virtual University for UofI, the site offers a peek at the characteristics of over 50 extensions (acting as a clearing house of many other sites that have reviewed plugins and modules in the past).
   
3. Lambda Solutions top 20 Modules:  This Moodle partner provides a sneak peek of the most sought Moodle modules available and includes a quick screen shot some.  All are listed in alphabetical order.  It’s a great list of some of the modules they’ve learned to be the most popular, presumably through the relationships with their clients.
4. Moodleman’s Playpen: This site maintained by Julian Ridden (@Moodleman) has an awesome combination of Moodle extensions including the Accordion Course format, a sharp custom theme, and around 10 great 3rd party extensions (including the Book, Nanogong, WizIQ and several image storage plugins).  If  this were a production Moodle site it certainly would make it’s users happy.

If you’ve got a favorite source for Module/plugin/block information, leave it in the comments!

There are some real gems in the Moodle docs at Moodle.org and the Student FAQ is one of them.  This is a quick and concise recap of the most frequently asked questions about Moodle.  If you find your students asking these questions again and again then a quick link to this resource could go along way.

Help students master the in’s and out’s of:

• Turning off email notifications
• understanding the grade-book
• navigating Moodle
• and more:

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Student_FAQ

The theme is called Isometric and is quite striking:

At my request Mary also formatted the theme to be seen with a logo:

B-e-a-utiful.  For more themes visit the Moodle.org theme database or follow @Moodlethemes on Twitter.

The following is cross-posted at http://pmasson.wordpress.com and is written by Patrick Masson.  Enjoy!

Maybe a more interesting scenario might be: Moodle buys Blackboard.

I wonder what might be the affect of a fund raising campaign, a-la Wikipedia, which raised $6.2 million in 2008 and $7.5 million in 2009 [1]? With $13.7 million, Moodle could buy 394,926 shares of Blackboard at today’s price of $34.69. Admittedly that’s only 14%, but in only a few years Moodle could become the controlling interest in Blackboard. I will also admit, Moodle’s 953,597 “registered users [2], are far fewer than Wikipedias “three million active contributors” [3]. While the number of registered users (those who administer Moodle sites) would obviously be less than average users (the millions of students who use the LMS for course work), I would suspect only the site admins would choose to donate (and only a percentage of those. Using Wikipedia’s numbers: 3 million users = 7.5 million dollars, Moodle might expect to raise $2,383,992. At this rate it would take several years to gain a controlling interest (all while “investing” in your competitor’s product).

Another approach might be to request (or “license”) current and future Moodle adopters to donate the equivalent of one year’s licensing fees of whatever system they were on prior to Moodle. For example, if an institution was paying $20,000 annually to license Blackboard, that money would be paid to Moodle for the first year of use after implementation. According to North Carolina Community College System’s Feasibility Study Report [4] the average cost savings for implementing Moodle per campus is $21,817, and $11.66 per student. Using these numbers, the above “licensing” approach would yield $1,195,767,953 based on money raised from registered sites (54,809 registered validated sites [5] x $21,817) or $444,907,110 based on the number of users (38,156,699 users [5] x $11.66). Either of these amounts would provide enough to gain a significant interest in Blackboard at its current value of $1,189,520,100 ($34.66/per share x 34.29M shares).

Thanks,
Just thinking…

[1] http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/75_million_wikipedia_reaches_fundraising_goal.php
[2] http://moodle.org/community/
[3] http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB125893981183759969.html
[4] http://oscmoodlereport.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/moodle_feasibility_moottx_aug_10.pdf
[5] http://moodle.org/stats/

Help desk at Moodle.org: http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=4086 (the module was contributed by Jonathan Doane)

After uploading and unzipping the block to my Moodle site, it was a snap to setup.  One thing you may opt to do immediately is to change the role permissions (if you have administrative rights for your Moodle site) to allow all authenticated users to submit tickets (otherwise the help desk block will only be available to Admins by default).  Set “Help Desk Asker” to “Allow” for authenticated users and all users will then be able to submit new tickets.

Even if you’re just using it as a bug and ticket tracker for Administrators the help desk has easy tools to help you assign technical issues to different members of your staff (and to track their progress).

Here’s a view of a submitted ticket and the various tracking and assignment options:

Download the block at http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=13&rid=4086

Unmet Demand

What’s clear to all is that in recent years the use and adoption of Moodle has grown substantially (http://moodle.org/stats), but I will take it one further and assert that demand has outpaced the adoption.  What I mean by this is that with the allure of Moodle (often characterized by “free”, “open”, and other open source catch phrases) has attracted many 1000s of teachers to seek Moodle.  The problem lies in the fact that demand has outpaced supply, and this has happened for a number of reasons,

• official Moodle Partners, who are the only organizations allowed to proffer “Moodle hosting”, all charge for the service (cost is generally greater than $1 per user per year).  Even this cost is prohibitive for many individuals teachers
• cPanel controlled Moodle installations require both money and expertise/tech savvy.  Though cPanel creates an easy to use installation service, there’s a cost for setup and not unsubstantial knowledge necessary for setting up a site.  Moodle’s ease of use no doubt refers to it’s lowest common denominator: e.g. the course creation process (not Moodle server setup and management).
• Moodle.com has refrained from approving a “free hosting” partner to meet this demand.  For obvious financial reasons, though at least one organization has submitted applications to be official Moodle partners offering free Moodle, these applicants have all been rejected (I speak from personal experience).

What’s happened is that 3rd parties world wide have filled this free hosting void.  On the Moodlenews Hosting page nearly a dozen hosting services (all with a level of free service) are highlighted, and there are certainly more out there.  These businesses, while offering free Moodle to 100s of 1000s of users, have varying business plans (some arguably have no business plan) and levels of service, but all are providing a no-cost entry to the popular LMS; which but for these organizations would not be available.  One free hosting company that I’ve been in touch with personally represents over 8000 sites (which is 15% of the figure reported as total registered sites at Moodle.org/stats).  These are not insignificant numbers.

The Free Hosting Downside

Now, it’s important to note the other side of the coin: Moodle.org is directly subsidized by revenues from Moodle partners (the majority of which probably comes from official Moodle hosting).  According to the site (and to Martin’s keynote) 10% of revenue/profit is posted to Moodle.org by all partners in order to facilitate the central staff in Perth.  If everyone were to jump on free hosting, how would the partner system work?

Procuring hosting through an official Moodle Partner has a direct positive benefit on the Moodle code and community.

Additionally, 3rd party, non-Partner free hosting sites have inherent drawbacks:

• Ads
• possibly less control
• questions of sustainability (after all, if there’s no business plan, how long will the service be available?)
• data security
• upgrades
• ease of backup/restore
• limits
• uptime

Conclusion

Despite the risks and disconnect between these companies/organizations and Moodle.org, I do believe that they are playing an important role in the Moodle community: they are a stepping stone for new Moodlers worldwide and provide an important opportunity to teachers and schools without the means for self-hosting or partner hosting to explore the world of Moodle.  Some (but not all) may even “graduate” to official Moodle hosting through a partner in the future.

If you’re curious how Moodle.org could embrace a level of free hosting for new users, I suggest looking at WordPress.com‘s model.  It’s important to note that WP.com doesn’t have “official partners”.  It provides paid hosting directly, but as lead generation it also provides a free level (with inexpensive upgrade options like unique URLs) of hosting.  There’s a cost of providing free hosting (which is why many of the free hosters all offer “upgraded” hosting options), but the upside of lead generation turned into paid hosting could be a boon for Moodle.org and it’s partner network.

What do you think?  Do you use a free service for Moodle, and is it “worth” it?  Do you use a partner?  Do you think free hosting services should be allowed or shutdown?  Comments below.

His opening was preceded by a special treat: a sing-a-long song about Moodle to the tune of “Thank god I’m a country boy“.  The song was then immediately followed by Martin’s best southern sounding “howdy y’all”.  As usual, a high level overview of the Moodle.org, .com and Partners structure was provided for newbie Moodlers.  An interesting fact is that while Moodle’s official programming staff can be counted on two hands, over 250 developers have various permissions to submit and post code to the Moodle core at Moodle.org (a sizable workforce!).

Martin then summarized the benefits (as he sees them) of Moodle 2.0:

• Security
• Performance
• Media and File Management
• Integrations
• Improvements and major rewrites

Aesthetics:

Among the improvements (here in started the demonstration of a live Moodle 2.0 running locally on Mr. Dougiamas’ Macbook) were aesthetic.  Martin even went so far as to call Moodel 1.X “ugly” (many would agree).  2.0, from the visions provided on Martin’s screen and the various 2.0 themes around the web (here and here) certainly prescribe to that notion: Moodle 2.0 is much more aesthetically pleasing.

Navigation:

Martin went on to show the various changes to navigation.  what I previously did not realize is that the Navigation block is a personalized utility that allows the deepest opportunity to drill down, even to individual Forum posts from anywhere on the site.  It’s like a teleporter for your Moodle account.

My Moodle and Private Files:

Perhaps one of the most exciting feature overhauls is MyMoodle and the addition of the private files block.  Private files provide a file structure (similar to that of a course in 1.X) for each individual user.  A mini-portfolio if you will.  This block can be located into MyMoodle, effectively giving all student not only a convenient “jump off” or starting point on the site, but a digital backpack replacing the need for any thumbdrive or external storage.  Truly a utility worth exploring.

Media/File Management:

Probably the feature that will cause the most waves and controversy is the redesign of the file structure for Moodle courses.  The structure has been changed completely, which Martin admits, may force a change in training and methodology of how teachers manipulate courses (but in the end he hopes it will be seen as overall beneficial).  Adding files to Moodle can now be done from various file repositories (Google Docs, Flickr, Youtube¹, or a organizations own private digital repository) and was designed to eliminate duplication of files from course to course.  In one pilot, by eliminating duplication of files which were used in multiple courses (and allowing those courses all to call the same file) reduced the digital storage footprint of the site by 30-40%.

Messaging:

Messaging as well received an overhaul, a few highlights,

• No more popups
• Provides an “inbox” for students
• All messages go through Admin (I believe this was what Martin said)
• Notifications provided as Ajax popups immediately when logged in (can even set that notification to include new forum posts)

Other Features:

Other various improvements included,

• Ajax popup of Moodle documentation and help (the ever present ? button).
• Conditional activities and course completion.
• The retooled Workshop Module (which is equally functional but now includes a step by step “how to” displayed on each step of setup and implementation.
• New Enrollment plugin system; this last one provides course level enrollment options including unlimited group specific course enrollment keys, Cohorts, and a revamped UI for managing course roles (which is pretty slick).

Before launching into a demo of the Mooch (http://hub.moodle.org), Martin talked briefly about the workload of Moodle developers and how he hoped that once 2.0 was released that they would start managing community produced code more (rather than spending the majority of their time developing the code for the community).  This would allow them to focus on creating a more fully featured Moodle.org, including the capacity to rate, vet and manage plugins, blocks, themes and whatnot (and to manage their other long term projects).

An exciting feature in the roadmap (sometime in the future) is the inclusion of Admin ability to search, review and download/install Modules directly to a Moodle installation, which would be similar to the current capabilities of WordPress.  This would truly be a game changer for LMSs.

MOOCH:

Finally Martin touched on and demonstrated the Moodle.org Course Hub (Mooch) software plugin which will allow 2.0 users to share and adopt or search and locate constructed courses to use in their own classroom or enroll in for PD/learning, respectively.  It’s a feature that’s been “in the works” for several long years but will finally come to fruition with the release of 2.0.

In conclusion, Martin gave a keynote that was very much focused on the release of 2.0 and the roadmap thereafter (which presented a vision of a dominant Moodle LMS).

This session was recorded and will be posted as soon as it is available from the conference organizers.

¹This calls to question the practice of districts in the US (and worldwide?) blocking Youtube and other open repositories of information, images and content.

This post and all posts from the #mootustx10 were made possible with support from Wiris.com and Moodlerooms.com.

Through Blackboard’s documentation and website I was able to test out their new Mobile app (Mobile Learn) which was provided to all licensees for testing (Blackboard also provided free iPads for testing purposes).  The app was released in June, was supported on Android and iOS (both iPad and iTouch/iPhone).  The apps renders Bb on the iPhone and Android using a similar approach to the apps we’ve seen for Mobile Moodle so far, but with the iPad they made a huge shift.

Honestly, the iPad app is one of the most innovative approaches and retooled mobile apps I’ve seen for an existing LMS.  It’s hardly resembles the student experience online, instead providing a robust level of Blackboard’s collaborative tools through the app.  There are downsides too (no test taking, which in my opinion is one of the most important and must have functions of a mobile app); but even the video demo got me excited about trying out the app:

Now, there’s a flurry of activity surrounding the development of Moodle Mobile (http://www.moodlenews.com/tag/mobile-moodle/) and it’s all positive (the more apps in development, the better off the community will be; but Blackboard has the advantage of concentrated effort).

The apps under development for Moodle all have a generally similar look and feel (which is not a bad thing), but there is a developer that’s thought quite outside the box for their organization specific iPhone/iPad app which pulls data from the Moodle quiz module: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/unio-pagesos-cuestionarios/id346456267?mt=8#.  According to the translated app site [translate.google.com],

Farmers Union uses Moodle as a tool for managing your online training. Thanks to an amendment to the authentication plugin, the iPhone/iPod can directly access the campus, and through export of the questionnaires as these are displayed on the iPhone/iPod.

The user can respond to the questionnaires, see the photos and videos associated and know their score.  Scores are calculated and stored directly in Moodle.

It’s a pretty far cry from the current Mobile Moodle apps, but it’s the kind of development and out-of-the-box thinking needed to differentiate the Moodle app from just a mobile rendering with a similar look and feel to Moodle on a compute screen.

In my opinion, the Blackboard apps matter to Moodle because Blackboard has the lead.  In other aspects of development, Moodle has outpaced Blackboard in terms of flexibility, community building and ease of use (not to mention providing an outlet for 1000s of other capabilities through 3rd party plug-ins).  Mobile though could prove to differentiate LMSs very soon as it becomes more and more of a necessary feature for schools and teachers world wide.  Though cost prohibitive to some, the availability of a polished Mobile application (compatible with the various mobile OS’s) may be a deciding factor as licenses come up for renewal in the coming years.

The obstacle is harder yet to overcome due to the decentralization of development efforts.  Maybe Moodle.org will step to the plate.

What do you think?