Moodle News » themes

Moodlebook = Facebooky theme for Moodle 2.2+

Joseph Thibault — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:00:09 +0000

Julian Ridden (@Moodleman) has just updated/released his new “Facebook” theme for Moodle which is based on the core Decaf theme by Lei Zhang. The theme mimics the world’s favorite social network in color and layout and also includes some nifty drop down navigation. Dropdowns from the main menu bar across the top link to a users course enrollments, their settings and other main blocks (seemingly removing the need for docked blocks).

It’s nice looking and easy to navigate (and courses look great with the theme as well).

Enjoy!

Moodlebook for Moodle 2.2.x forum [http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=163036] | Download [https://github.com/moodleman/moodle-theme_moodlebook]

On the 4th day of #Moodlemas the community shared with me…

Joseph Thibault — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:09:52 +0000

4 pretty themes!

3 [awesome] plugins

2 Cheery images

and A freebie Christmas themed Glossary!

No doubt that the last 12 months has seen a TON of great themes posted to Moodle.org. Credit is due to New School Learning and Patrick Malley who laid the foundation for themes of Moodle 2.x. A few of my favorite themes that have come out this year are (in no particular order):

Aardvark 2.1 by Shaun Daubney
Post-it by Mary Evans
MyMobile by John Stabinger
Premium Red by Haley eLearning Center
Mandarin by 3rd Wave Media
All Content by John Stabinger
and there are plenty more: http://www.moodlenews.com/category/resources/themes-resources/

Don’t forget to stay-tuned for more #Moodlemas.

Read this now: @Ghenrick’s Moodle 2 Theme White Paper

Joseph Thibault — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:00:23 +0000

Gavin Henrick (@ghenrick) has a great white paper out about themes in Moodle 2.0. He highlights and points out all of the things you should consider when thinking of upgrading from 1.9 or simply making the jump to the new Moodle platform. As you may know, themes are a lot different in Moodle 2, providing dockable navigation and full flexibility for developers to make the sites look different from Moodle’s traditional sidebar-body-sidebar 3 column layout.

A few highlights from the white paper which I highly recommend as quick lunch-time reading material:

Gavin breaks down each of the standard Moodle themes and some of the 3rd party contributions to let readers know which can be customized (and how) from the Administration panel;
There are some really great examples in the appendix of cool Moodle sites (including the usual suspects: Newbury, Leeds, iMoot, etc);
Good overview of theme settings and possibilities in Moodle 2 (how many columns,where they are, docks, etc.)

For more information or to grab a copy of the white paper go to http://www.somerandomthoughts.com/blog/.

My personal favorite (and new to me) is this really great login screen at University of Canberra (which changes each time you visit). It’s the little things that make a big difference aesthetically: https://learnonline.canberra.edu.au/login/index.php. Where’s your favorite Moodle 2.o theme?

Top 30 reasons to move to Moodle 2 by @ghenrick

Joseph Thibault — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:00:04 +0000

Gavin Henrick has pulled together 3 (three) top 10 lists for why to move from Moodle 1.9 to 2.0. The three presentations are available at his blog and the each already has a voice over presentation video available on Youtube. Each presentation highlights another set of new/changed Moodle features and discusses (quickly) how they impact the online classroom. From blocks to repositories to comments to mobile apps…many of the cool new tools are covered and highlighted.

10 reasons to move to Moodle 2

10 reasons to move to Moodle 2 Part 2

10 reasons to move to Moodle 2 Part 3

If you’ve been curious why you might/should make the transition from an older Moodle model to the newest these are some great resources to check out. You can also join in a little community discussion by posting your top modules to the comments at Gavin’s post: http://www.somerandomthoughts.com/blog/. In any event, you should DEFINITELY subscribe to Gavin’s blog (http://www.somerandomthoughts.com/blog/). This great resource provides loads of reviews of Moodle modules and plugins and is a wealth of knowledge if you’re looking for a little bit of information on the new 3rd party integrations and tools available for Moodle 2.0.

New theme: MMR by Ricardo Caiado

Joseph Thibault — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:00:54 +0000

Here’s a cool new theme by Ricardo Caiado which has a cool star/sun burst effect in the background. It’s hooked up with the Moodle bar and has a nice bright, high contrast for block labels and headers.

Check it out in the screen shots below or download it from Moodle.org: http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=26&rid=4735

This might be my new Favorite Moodle: TAFE SA Moodle and an update from @ozesteph1992′s

Joseph Thibault — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:00:34 +0000

Stephan Schmidt (@ozesteph1992) asked that his team of course developers and Moodle-experts be given due recognition after I posted about his great presentation yesterday [link]. Stephan works at the Department of Further Education Employment Science and Technology, Training And Further Education of South Australia; better known as TAFE SA. He wanted to make sure that his department and team, who all contributed to the great process/development tips highlighted in the presentation he gave on 4/6 were also included in the recognition.

If you’re interested in the TAFE SA products and services (course design of the quality seen in the video) check out,

TAFE SA Learning Material Unit http://www.tafelearning.sa.edu.au/
Learning Material https://products.tafesa.edu.au/LOR/Home.aspx

The last link led me to the TAFE SA Moodle site which is very good-looking: http://moodle.tafesa.edu.au/. Might just be one of my new favorite sites. I really like the right side block design…

Moodle.org moves to replace/refresh the Modules and Plugins Database

Joseph Thibault — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:00:38 +0000

The Modules and Plugins Database is the treasure chest of Moodle addons and extensions which we’ve grown to love. Testing new modules and plugins released through that database is both fun and rewarding (because there are so many ways to extend Moodle through new resources, new activities, new blocks, course formats, themes and more).

The new initiative, announced by Sam Hemelryk (Moodle HQ Core Developer) will replace the use of the Database is getting underway slowly and Moodle HQ is seeking community feedback on the proposal which can be read here: Development:Modules_and_plugins_replacement_proposal. The new system would be an extension to Moodle itself (a plugin) rather than a heavily modified Database activity (which it is currently). The proposed plugin’s design is making every effort to create a system which is at least as good as the current database with a lot of potential to be a greater resource to the community. A few key features which might accent the new design:

version control and tracking
extension of the site-wide roles already created and managed
improved stats for downloads, etc.
greater categorization and organization of plugins
greater usability.

Perhaps the biggest change would be a formalized and “trusted review system”.

Check out the proposal and discussion online at Moodle.org. You can also take a peek at some “mock ups” of the system [link, or below]

Comments are welcome at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=167764
Proposal Development:Modules_and_plugins_replacement_proposal

Do you dress up your Moodle for the holidays? #Moodlebells

Joseph Thibault — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:00:14 +0000

I’ve seen a few Moodles don some gay-apparel for the holiday season. Share some Moodle holiday love by tweeting or blogging with the #Moodlebells tag. Here are a few quick examples of some Moodle’s with digital holiday cheer either added easily using an image or right in the theme.

Enjoy and share!

Check out three examples with some holiday/wintry aesthetics:

Aardvark theme for Moodle 2.0 is coming soon

Joseph Thibault — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:00:43 +0000

Mary Evans, a contributor of many great themes to the Moodle.org theme repository just posted a screenshot (below) of her adaptation of Aardvark to be compatible with Moodle 2.0.

Check out another of Mary’s themes called Premium.

Aardvark is a great theme for Moodle 1.9, including custom menus and a insert of the student/user’s profile picture in the top right. For more flavors of Aardvark visit the theme repository: http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=26.

Download this for Moodle 2.0 at http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?d=26&rid=4357

Opinion: My three favorite Moodle 2.0 themes (Arialist, Magazine & Skyhigh)

Joseph Thibault — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 15:00:48 +0000

Wednesday we ran a quick preview of the new themes included in Moodle 2.0 (there are over 15 with screenshots) which was a very popular post. Today I just wanted to share the three I like the most. A lot of the credit for these great themes goes to Patrick Malley who redesigned the Moodle 2.0 theme engine making these types of themes possible. Check out his portfolio of super themes by visiting http://newschoollearning.com/folio/.

Magazine – awesome design/layout with some really pleasing aesthetic features (I’m particularly fond of the block headers). This theme was designed and submitted to the NSL theme contest by John Stabinger.

Arialist – simple, crisp and it looks good with the navigation dock in use.

Skyhigh – this theme by Julian Ridden has a cool color scheme and a unique layout with the block columns justified right.

Which one is your favorite?