Moodle News » lewis carr

Leeds City College – Moodle 2 Beachhead secured

Frankie Kam — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:30:27 +0000

If you have been following Lewis Carr’s blog you would have known that the intrepid VLE manager and his technical team have been on a quest. To be exact, a Moodle 2 upgrade quest of epic proportions. But they’ve done it. By George they’ve done it! I’m talking about the Lewis Carr, Sukhwant Lota and the Moodle boffins at Leeds City College.

How did it start?

Come with me for a little flashback if you will. In an earlier post on January 1st 1970…erm…2011 (little joke here, see if you can catch it by reading this post), Lewis deliberates on his decision, then justifies his action with precision and clarity.

To upgrade or not to upgrade? That is the question. Well my answer is…upgrade! … Unfortunately, due to the size of the organisation, our custom tweaks, third party plug-ins and staff training needs, an upgrade isn’t going to be easy.

Have a laugh: A true-to-life comic by @Lewiscarr “Admins of the World Beware”

Joseph Thibault — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:30:41 +0000

This comic was shared at Moodle.org by Mary Cooch yesterday in the forums [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=161891]; and it’s too good not to pass along. Enjoy the 1st entry to the Moodlenews “Funnies”; brought to you by Lewis Carr (@LewisCarr | lewiscarr.co.uk/).

Happy Friday: my top 5 favorite Moodle sites

Joseph Thibault — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:30:46 +0000

I’ve seen a lot of Moodles. I can’t resist a new Moodle link, to see the theme, the apparent activity on the front page and the various courses that are available (even though they might be closed). Checking out a new Moodle always gives me new ideas for posts, and how to design my own Moodle sites or courses.

Overtime I’ve visited a few over and over because they are just so cool. So here are my all time favorite Moodle sites*

1. http://www.moodleinschools.org.nz/ – The theme and overall design of this site is AMAZING. I love the palette. As a resource site for New Zealand, it’s really a great destination for courses, learning and other information. If you’re running a state or country based organization promoting Moodle, then this is a prime example of how to encourage Moodle with all of the right resources.

2. http://moodle.leedscitycollege.ac.uk/ – In my opinion: Best theme ever. The Leeds Moodle team seems to be unleashing new features and aesthetic flavor every week. Just check out Lewis Carr or Sukhwant Lota‘s blogs for the new features and tricks their posting on a regular basis. Well worth a visit to any of their sites.

3. http://quantum.riverview.nsw.edu.au/ – Julian Ridden talks about this site and the basis for their design on a recent Moodlemayhem podcast. His thoughts: help students own their Moodle site. Another great example of a cool theme.

4. http://imoot.org – This was used in early 2010 for the first ever virtual Moodle Moot. It is the first site I recall seeing with a modified 2 column layout (where the block columns are both on the same side). It’s also had some cool features like Facebook Connect-based registration and the Moodle bar. The cake though was the scheduling utility that was used. It was both robust enough to manage scheduling for dozens of sessions but very easy to use. Unfortunately some of the images are broken due to the prepping of iMoot 2011′s v2.0 site (but it was glorious in action). Update 9/8/2010: the imoot site had it’s images restored (yay!)

5. http://moodle.aub.edu.lb/ – This was featured a few weeks ago because of the wealth of information provided to teachers and students through the use of the Moodle Books Module. Though the theme is generally standard and basic, there’s a certain aesthetic which makes this site one of my favorites (perhaps I’m swayed by the direct link to Moodlenews…).

What’s your favorite Moodle? Do you have an exemplary Moodle to share based on it’s theme, purpose or otherwise? Share a link in the comments

*I reserve the right to revise this list at anytime.

A Customizable, flexible and beautiful Theme from @lewiscarr

Joseph Thibault — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:10:57 +0000

Lewis Carr (@lewiscarr) has done it again. Now available for download from his site is one of the best looking themes available for Moodle. The theme is Moodle with Mootools, which borrows from the striking theme at Leeds Community College’s Park Lane Campus Moodle and provides teachers a crisp three column course environment and students with customizable colors and aesthetics.

Check out the Leeds site to check out the theme customization options: http://moodle.parklane.ac.uk/.

Lewis says that this version is a work in progress, here are some of the other features that may be available in the future:

Code cleanup (make more standards compliant)
Add extras to the dashboard
Tailor the menus to the user (i.e recognize logins etc..)
Please feel free to give it a try and send me any feedback (positive feedback obviously!!!)
Include suggestions based on the Moodle community feedback!

(Source: http://lewiscarr.co.uk/content/moodle-mootools-theme)

Below is a sneak peak of the theme in action.

Fullscreen:

Dropdowns:

Dashboard:

End user UI for color/palate customization (my favorite part):

The theme is available for download now at http://lewiscarr.co.uk/content/moodle-mootools-theme.

One Theme to Rule them all http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/one-theme-to-rule-them-all-lewiscarr/
Free Themes http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/sweet-free-themes-from-moodledan/

Introducing http://iphone.moodle.com.au/ @moodleman @lewiscarr #moodle4iphone

Joseph Thibault — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:07:40 +0000

With growing momentum, the project team behind the Moodle Mobile iPhone Project has built out the official project website at http://iphone.moodle.com.au/. Details are still coming slowly, but the should be live next week according to Carlos Kiyan.

This project has grown from a collaboration between the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp and the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru toto include Learning Design Japan and two Moodle rock-stars in Lewis Carr and Julian Ridden (Julian hails from Pukunui Technology).

From the site:

As the project continues to build momentum the team is continuing to grow. This new website is here to help facilitate and demo the new Moodle4iPhone functionality.

No news yet, but stay tuned as there will be more to follow.

Visit the site at http://iphone.moodle.com.au/ and prepare for the Mobile Moodle revolution!

One theme to rule them all @lewiscarr

Joseph Thibault — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:11:44 +0000

Lewis Carr (http://lewiscarr.co.uk/) just posted that he’s creating a new theme to share with the Moodle community (which will be released to coincide with the Moodle Moot UK 2010.

Recently I’ve been working flat out on a new Moodle theme. It’s heavily AJAX driven and very web 2.0.

My aim is to create one of the most beautiful and most user-friendly themes available to the Moodle Community.

The theme currently has smooth drop-down menus, customisable colour palettes, real-time font size changer, column selectors and much more including a dynamic dashboard style panel.

Although heavily javascript dependent the theme degrades well with javascript disabled.

Most certainly Lewis will replicate the great theme customization tool available on the Leeds Community College (http://moodle.parklane.ac.uk/, shown below–which is one of the best Moodle themes on the web). It certainly will make a splash in the Moodle community when it’s released.

The post: http://lewiscarr.co.uk/content/theme-development-update-february-2010
Leeds Community College: http://moodle.parklane.ac.uk/
Lewis Carr’s blog: http://lewiscarr.co.uk/
Moodle Moot UK 2010: http://moodlemootuk2010.org.uk/

Moodle Theme for #Firefox

Joseph Thibault — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:54:33 +0000

As you may already know, Firefox is one of the best web-browsers for Moodle users; Firefox properly loads the HTMLArea text editor, renders pages more consistently and is a safe and secure browser. Now you can theme your browser to match the open source software you use as a Learning Management System.

Firefox Personas are an add-on to the popular open source web-browser that let you add various themes to your browsing experience. Recently Lewis Carr created a Moodle Persona for Firefox which is attractive and functional: http://lewiscarr.co.uk/content/moodle-persona-firefox-36.

The Moodle Persona features the standard Moodle with mortar board and additional floating mortar boards over a dark grey background.

Show your loyalty and download the Persona’s plugin/extension and the Moodle Persona today.

@LewisCarr releases Moodle Bar 1.0

Joseph Thibault — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:28:04 +0000

The Moodle Bar, which was highlighted at MoodleMonthly a few weeks ago is now available for download publicly through Lewis Carr’s blog/site.

As promised, I have released the Moodle Bar. The release date coincides with the iMoot 2010.

It is available direct from this website by following this link:

http://bit.ly/du5RNQ

Please feel free to use it, hack it, modify it and do with it what you will.

Do send me an email though so I can see it in action on your Moodle sites.

Visit Lewiscarr.co.uk to read more.

MoodleMonthly coverage of the Moodle Bar: http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/moodle-bar/
Lewis Carr’s original Moodle Bar post: http://lewiscarr.co.uk/content/moodle-bar-almost-ready-public-release
http://twitter.com/lewiscarr

Embedding #Twitter into Moodle and the Twitter Post Block

Joseph Thibault — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:02:25 +0000

Here’s a quick presentation posted to E-teachUK (http://muppetmasteruk.blogspot.com) that shows the process of embedding a Twitter widget into a Moodle page.

A handy tutorial for adding all of your Twitter posts to an HTML Block in a Moodle classroom.

Additionally, Lewis Carr also recently released a Moodle Twitter Post Block which allows users to post directly to twitter from within a Moodle classroom.

According to Lewis, future versions of the block will include the ability to post images and to notify users through it’s integration with the Moodle Bar. For more information or to download the block code please visit: http://lewiscarr.co.uk/node/66

Moodle Bar

Joseph Thibault — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:56:50 +0000

Lewis Carr, Moodle developer has contributed a great many projects to Moodle.org (including fixing many bugs and a developing a new My Moodle page). Lewis’s blog is full of useful developer notes and downloads that could be implemented to Moodle sites and his list of development projects for 2010 includes an iPhone theme and the Moodle Bar.

The Moodle Bar is an always available navigation tool which creates quick shortcuts to all of the most often access Moodle activities and resources. The content is completely based on a user’s enrollments and new content directed towards them (including messages, the user’s profile and any other direct links as specified by the site administrator). Like popular social networking sites like Facebook, the bar is always available and constantly updating.

As an improvement on standard Moodle features, the Moodle Bar will alleviate any issues with message pop-ups which often are blocked by browsers today. Additionally, the shortcuts provide a brief tool bar linking directly to many of the most sought areas of a Moodle installation; creating a more personal and user-centric experience within the site, not to mention advancing the overall “social” character that has previously eluded Moodle.

The Moodle bar will provide each logged in user with links to:

My Moodle page
Profile
Messages
Calendar
All blogs
Adding a new blog post
All Tags
additional links

Here are two images of the Moodle Bar deployed (click to enlarge). Note that each Moodle Bar takes on characteristics of the main theme; the bar also is located at the bottom of the Moodle page (similar to the Facebook notification bar).

The above is from http://iMoot.org, which uses the Moodle bar but is customized by Julien Ridden (http://moodleman.net)

The lower example of the Moodle Bar can be seen at http://moodle.parklane.ac.uk/

As a point of reference, this is the Facebook bar:

According to Lewis Carr, the Moodle Bar will be released to the Moodle community early this year. He says, “I expect to see lots of variations of it once it comes out. There are some talented coders who there who will rework it. I’m looking forward to seeing what others do with it.”

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