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.”

Subscribe to MoodleMonthly for updates.