Check out the video about the private resource block below (direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwQcoCOfYlU)

Looks to be a great student portfolio system fully integrated into Moodle “out-of-the-box”.

Gavin has highlighted that and more through narrated screen casts and videos at http://moodle.drupalgardens.com/.  Well worth a visit if you want to see what’s cutting edge from Moodle 2.0 (out this July!).

Release notes can be found here: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_2.0_Preview_3_release_notes

A few general notes and things you can expect from installing this release:

• lots of bugs have been fixed
• Single Simple discussions are again available
• users now have private files as part of the file repository
• A new theme is available
• some advances on the community hub search, browse, etc. have been made

If you’re eager to help the progress, testing priorities this week remain on the community hub and usability.  Specifically for usability you can try the backup and restore features, navigation via blocks and messaging.  Any bugs found should be reported using the Moodle Tracker: http://tracker.moodle.org/.

For more information: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_2.0_Preview_3_release_notes

Related:

• Moodle Core Developers Group: http://moodle.org/user/index.php?id=5&group=172
• MoodleMonthly coverage: http://www.moodlemonthly.com/2010/moodle-org-seeks-developers-for-a-coding-sprint-php/
• Helen Foster’s announcement: http://helenfoster.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/moodle-2-sprint-this-weekend/

Are you a Moodle developer with some time to spare this weekend? If so, please join our first ever Moodle 2.0 sprint and help us get 2.0 beta out in four weeks!

To take part in the sprint, simply choose a feature in Moodle 2.0 which needs finishing, or some 2.0 bugs which need fixing, then when you have time at the weekend, get coding! Remember to drop by our Jabber developer chat room at some point and let others know what you’re working on.

Are a PHP developer with a few hours to spare?  If so drop by Moodle.org and lend a hand or get in touch with @Moodlehelen online.

The timetable is designed to deliver Moodle 2.0 in time for the new school year in the northern hemisphere and currently looks like this:
+April 2010: Moodle 2.0 Beta release
+May, June 2010: intensive beta testing and bug fixing (freeze on new features)
+July 2010: Moodle 2.0 production release

Stay tuned for more updates.

More information at the Roadmap page: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Roadmap.

Related:

• http://ismoodle2outyet.com/ (haha)

Welcome! This site is for helping with our Moodle 2.0 QA testing.

The site is running the latest daily build of HEAD and the database and files are erased and restored to a clean state every hour on the hour.

Here are some accounts for you to use:

• Admin – username admin, password mood1eQA!
• Teacher – username teacher, password mood1eQA!
• Student – username student, password mood1eQA!

Access the Moodle QA site (http://qa.moodle.net/) and be sure to post any non-theme related bugs at the Moodle.org tracker (http://tracker.moodle.org).  Note that the QA Moodle is restored every hour (so play and play) and updated with the latest possible Moodle2.0 build.

From the site:

Welcome! This site is for helping with our Moodle 2.0 QA testing.

Here are some accounts for you to use:

• Teacher – username teacher, password FunMood1ing!
• Student – username student, password FunMood1ing!

The database and files are erased and restored to a clean state every hour on the hour, so don’t worry if you make a mess.

Also note that you might not be the only person using one of the demo accounts at the same time, so you may see unexpected things happen occasionally.

Note that this will give you access to the latest build of Moodle, however some functionality will not be working and no courses have been created.

If you’re interested in seeing a Moodle2.0 course in action, David Mudrák is looking for testers of the Workshop 2.0 module.  If you’re a current Workshop user, check out the discussion here (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=141662) and the testing site at http://test.moodle.net/workshop/.

One of the best things so far about Moodle: the new text/html editor.  Prior to using Moodle2.o, users experience a wide array of issues using the HTMLArea text editor.  By far the worst was the fact that it often didn’t even display depending on the browser a user was using.  For example this is what the course settings page looks like in Chrome, Opera and Safari:

In Firefox and Internet Explorer (the only supported browsers for HTMLArea) the same page is rendered correctly, showing the text editor:

Moodle2.0 employs a new text editor however as default.  The text editor appears to be  a flavor of TinyMCE text editor (http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/) which is a Javascript based editor.  It works on all major browsers (we have verified and tested) and is much better supported by the community than Moodle’s current html editor (HTMLArea).  Here’s a peak at what the new editor may look like:

Most, if not all of the old HTML editor functionality has been carried over with a few cool additions:

• a “citation, abbreviation and acronym” button allowing for mouse over text
• “select all” option
• “add layers”
• “add Moodle Media”
• the ability to edit CSS styles (presumably for the entire webpage/description)
• and handy “paste as plain text”/”paste from word” buttons to prevent pesky mis-formatting and unwanted markup.

All in all, the editor works very well and is a great improvement over the previous HTMLArea editor included in Moodle installations.

Moodle2.0 is widely anticipated for the core changes to how Moodle operates and the new improved functionality of many of it’s modules.  2.o will be release this Spring (all signs and blog murmurs point to February 2010).

New/improved features include:

• a revamped workshop module
• conditional activities
• new theme configuration (and new available themes)
• portfolio system API
• changed wiki
• and much more: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Roadmap

The release of Moodle 2.o is a major step towards a more advanced Moodle community system as well, with more and easier ways to link your Moodle to course/content repositories (and to other Moodle sites).

Note that the latest build for 2.0 is unstable, download, install and use at your own risk.  It is not recommended for use as a production/live site.

What’s not yet clear is the process for installing and then upgrading 1.9 sites to the newest release, or if Moodle courses must be active on a site before the upgrade in order to make the process as smooth as possible.

One thing for certain is that the Moodle community will step to the challenge to provide course conversion utilities and tips and tricks for the smoothest transition.  There is no doubt that Moodle2.0 will attract significant attention through it’s Alpha and Beta release and will motivate many a Moodle user to think about upgrading as quickly as possible.