To keep up-to-date with new add-ons, a few years back I started to active review them on this blog. Based on the reviews and on the experience of working with organisations using Moodle, I put together a list of “Essential plugins for Moodle”, which I have regularly updated and  presented at conferences, including the recent Ireland & UK Moodlemoots and the iMoot in 2012.

Michael de Raadt is the Development Manager at Moodle HQ and has been actively developing Moodle plugins over the past few years including Progress Bar and Unanswered Discussions. In 2010 Michael wrote the book “Moodle 1.9 Top Extensions Cookbook” which showed examples of how the plugins could be used in teaching.

For the past year I have collaborated with Michael to write a book on Moodle add-ons and today we are delighted to announce that our book “Moodle Add-ons: Using add-ons to enhance your Moodle site” is now available to buy.

The book is available to buy on Createspace and on Amazon and other online retailers. For now it is just the paperback version but we will have the Kindle version formatted soon.

Our new book goes beyond the work we have done before, extending the presentations and reviews into a new context, providing more reasoned background about add-ons, their format and function, and on the process of evaluation.

Book Summary

The first three chapters explain Moodle add-ons in general, including the different types of add-on plugins available, how they are contributed and why people write an add-on. The book continues with a guide on how to install a Moodle environment to safely test add-ons, away from your production site, and explains how to install a sample add-on. Perhaps most valuable is the third chapter, which describes the many aspects an institution should consider before installing an add-on.

The rest of the chapters include comprehensive reviews on Add-ons broken down into the following areas:

• Resources and Activities
• Navigation
• Course Tracking
• Interface
• Course Administration
• Site Administration
• Course Formats
• Virtual Conferencing

Hope you have as much fun reading the book as we had writing it.

Order now on Createspace

There are a lot of cool new things and improved old things in this release which are sure to make many users admins and teachers alike very happy. These include:

• Badges (see blog/video post)
• Installing Add-ons from inside Moodle UI (see blog/video post)
• Forms improvements (see blog/video post)
• UI Improvements (see blog post)
• New themes (see blog post)
• Drag and Drop updates
• Assignment enhancements
• Templates for essay questions in Quiz
• Performance improvements

Starting with this release Moodle Docs will now have a page outlining the new release key feature improvements. Check out http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/New_features

For details on how to upgrade to Moodle 2.5 see here -> http://docs.moodle.org/25/en/Upgrading_to_Moodle_2.5

For the full release notes check out -> http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_2.5_release_notes

Now Mark Glynn of the Learning Innovation Unit at DCU has adapted it for Dublin City University.

The other available versions of the Moodle 2 Tool Guide are:

• English version by Gavin Henrick (@ghenrick)
• Spanish translation by Alfredo Ruiz.
• German version by Ralf Hilgenstock and Susanne Gebauer and Gerald Hartwig
• Czech version by Bohumil Havel & Jan Trávnícek
• Dutch version by Gerda Flim
  
• Simplified Chinese Version by Sun Zhigang
• Japanese version by Mitsuhiro Yoshida of Mitstek.com

It has been only a few months since Moodlemoot Dublin, but things have been progressing quickly.

We are delighted to announce that we will be running a Moodlemoot Edinburgh 2014 in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University. We aim to have a similar format to the two Dublin Moots, with training workshops, two days of presentations and then a developer hackfest.

We are currently working to finalise the dates and the venue and have narrowed down the decision after visiting a number of venues in the last few days.

However, we can confirm that the Moot will be held in Spring 2014 -  more information as soon as this is confirmed.

The following have generously agreed to be the Moodlemoot Edinburgh chairs:

Dr Keith Smyth
Senior Teaching Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Higher Education
Programme Leader MSc Blended and Online Education
Office of the Vice Principal (Academic)
Edinburgh Napier University

Dr Mark Glynn
Head of Learning Innovation Unit
Dublin City University

We will be announcing the programme committee in the coming weeks too – we already have a number of people accepted as members and are in discussions with others.

As with the last two moots, the programme committee will be doing three tasks:

1. Setting the themes/formats for the Moot
2. Assessing and rating the submissions
3. Chairing sessions at the Moot

So if you want to put yourself forward for the programme committee on behalf of your institution – please get in contact with me in the next two weeks on info@moodlemoot.ie

See you in Edinburgh.

The Original Bootstrap Moodle theme which is in the plugins database has over 8700 downloads since release. It was based on the Bootstrap CSS framework. It has minimal styling and can be used to create User Experience optimised themes. The framework was released by Twitter and has a huge following.

When you are looking at a course with the normal Clean theme enabled it would look like this:

When you shrink your browser (as it would be smaller on an iPad or mobile device) it looks like this (the blocks have jumped below the course sections):

Options

There are a few theme options which can change how it looks.

Navbar

The first option is to invert the navigation bar or not. This swaps the text and background colours for the navbar at the top of the page between black and white.

The two variations are shown below. This is certainly a neat feature.

Standard

Inverted

Logo

The second option within the theme is that you can upload a logo. This will appear below the breadcrumb and above the course content/block area as in the example below. To me the positioning is a bit odd, and would maybe be better being above the breadcrumbs, but I imagine that is not a big change to make when you clone it.

Logo positioning on Clean Theme

You can also specify some CSS here which is useful if you need to have a logo different to the standard 75 pixels in the theme.

Footnote

You can also add some content that will be displayed in the footer throughout your Moodle site. This is a neat touch for those who have to add privacy/copyright and other links or logos to the foot of every page.

Footer Text positioning on Clean Theme

So all in all a nice new addition to the Moodle theme family!

When you have a platform that has been built to cater for many different needs, one thing which happens is that there are usually a lot of options available to tweak the set up.

Moodle is no different in this matter. The settings pages when creating a course, or some activities (like quiz) have a lot of options available to enable each type of usage you can probably think of and also enabling you to configure it to how you want it to behave. For example  a 1 hr exam no retakes and no feedback, or a 10 minute test with unlimited retakes and lots of question by question feedback.

Taking Quiz as an example it has settings to address so many aspects they are broken down into the following headings:

• General (3)
• Timing (5)
• Grade (3)
• Layout (3)
• Question behaviour (3)
• Review options (28)
• Display options (4)
• Restrictions on attempts (5)
• Overall feedback (5+)
• Common module Settings (4)
• Restriction of Access (5+)
• Activity Completion (4)

The number is the amount of settings under that heading.

As you can imagine, this makes for a long page which can be a bit intimidating.

The new collapsed form shows the required information and then has the balance collapsed into sections that if you want to change the default settings you can expand it to do so. The image below shows the new look and the video demonstrates the change.

Adding a quiz in Moodle 2.5

This is a great move and I know many will like this.

Settings Block – Administration Block

For those who have got used to the Settings block being there, it has now been renamed to Administration which really does make sense.

It is where all the module administration, course administration and site administration features were located so now it has a possibly more suitable name.

Moodle 2.4

Moodle 2.5

In addition to this, those reports which jumped out of the course admin block in Moodle 1.9 into the Navigation Block tree in Moodle 2, have been ushered back to the Administration block. Teachers will be glad to see them back where they used to be.

Drag and Drop

At this stage we are all used to dragging and dropping files into Moodle 2 – however now some more improvements have been made.

It is now possible to drag and image onto the course page and to create a label with that image inside it. You can then go in and edit the label as normal too.

Dragging Image to Course in 2.5

Added Image into a label in Course in 2.5

Jump to

One of those features many liked in Moodle 1.9 was the ability to Jump to a section.  With the newly implemented Section Per Page feature for course sections, Moodle 2.5 now improves this by adding the Jump To dropdown below the displayed section. The images below show how it was in Moodle 2.4 and how it is now in the upcoming Moodle 2.5.

One Section per Page in Moodle 2.4

One Section per Page in Moodle 2.5

In Moodle 2.4 this was brought a step further. Not only did Moodle tell the site admin that a plugin update was available, but they could now update it through the admin user interface. This was a great step forward.

Now with Moodle 2.5 has take this feature to its next natural step, and enables a site admin to search for and install plugins from the Moodle Plugin Directory directly rather than having to upload via FTP. It is also possible to upload a zip of a plugin and not just pull from the plugins directory.

So what about checking the plugin?

The new system makes it much easier to manage the add-ons in the Moodle site. Once you select the plugin to install it will copy it to the server and validate it. There is a set of technical checks it goes through to validate and once it is complete you can then proceed to install.

Add-on package validation

Moodle then goes through the normal upgrade process.

Add-on Install Prompt

Once installed, it is the same as if you had done it manually.

The below video shows the process by which a site admin installs the block Progress Bar into the Moodle site just using the web interface.

Some things to note.

To make use of the feature requires certain permissions on the server to work which many managed hosts will not provide as it means that code they have not approved and audited themselves can be installed on a Moodle for which they are responsible. This is fair enough as it would be unreasonable to ask someone to stand over an installation that they do not control.

Also, it should be understood that as with any code change to a site it is always prudent to have a full site backup before any change is made. Where this feature is available in other applications like wordpress it always recommends that step too. When installing the add-on you have to tick an acknowledgement about this topic.

“I understand that it is my responsibility to have full backups of this site prior to installing add-ons. I accept and understand that add-ons (especially but not only those originating in unofficial sources) may contain security holes, can make the site unavailable, or cause private data leaks or loss.”

Lastly, it should be noted that where admins are using source code repositories such as GIT to manage their code this feature is not really usable on the live site, however would be useful in a test site where people want to try out a plugin before formally requesting inclusion into the managed implementation.

If you do not want to have the web-based admins install add-ons from the interface, you can just add the following line to your config.php

$CFG->disableonclickaddoninstall = true;

1. What are badges?
2. How are they earned?
3. Who issues badges?
4. What about Badges and Moodle?

 So what is a badge? or specifically what is an Open badge?

According to openbadges.org the central site about open badges, “a digital badge is an online representation of a skill you’ve earned” But Open Badges take that idea further allowing you to verify the skills through a credible organisation.

As someone explained it to me – “if a resumé or CV is a bunch of claims, Open Badges are a bunch of evidence”.

So just like a qualification in the “real world” carries the reputation of the issuing body, an open badge carries the credibility of the organisation.

But crucially, there are two key concepts

1. as open badges are not “proprietary” any organisation can create and issue badges and provide the verification of them.
2. users can collect these open badges from many organisations and then package them together to provide a full picture of their skills.

In general, normal certificates printed for a course that the person has been taken are not something that can be easily managed online. Yes, they can be scanned and uploaded but then anyone could edit that. Which brings the second aspect of certificates that they are not easily automatically verified. Some institutions have systems that can provide verification based on a unique code. There are also businesses that specialise in qualification verification..

So open badges solves multiple challenges at once by enabling  both the collation and display, and the issuing and verification -  thus assisting the issuing organisation, the learner (badge earner) and potential employers or people interested in those skills.

So how are they earned?

Anyone who completes a task/course/activity for which the organisation involves issues an open badge can earn one. Mozilla themselves issue a range of badges on http://badges.webmaker.org covering webmaker skills such individual skill as:

• fixing or adding an image to a Mozilla Webmaker Project through proper use of the img tag
• fixing or adding either a header or a paragraph to a Mozilla Webmaker Project by using the proper texts.
• fixing or adding a list to a Mozilla Webmaker project by properly using the ordered and unordered list tags.

For more info on those badges go ahead and look into these over here -> https://badges.webmaker.org/

There are lots of other places you can earn the open badges already -> http://openbadges.org/community

So what about issuing open badges?

Those organisations wishing to issue badges need to put in place the infrastructure required to both award and provide verification for the badges. As mentioned it is free software and an open technical standard. This enables anyone who wants to and has the system or resources to put one in place to start awarding badges.

The below image from the Mozilla.org wiki shows the infrastructure at a glance.

The full information about issuing and the setup required are found here -> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/Onboarding-Issuer#Diagram

So how does this relate to Moodle?

Through the new version, Moodle can be that infrastructure to issue and verify the badges.

So how does it work?

A Badge has a set of data in Moodle related to it:

• A Name
• A description
• An image
• The issuer Name
• The issuer Email
• The Badge expiry
• A set of criteria defining how it is issued
• A message to the user that is sent once it is earned

It is possible to set up Badges at site level or at a course level. What is the difference?

Site level badges are defined by the administrator of the site. The available criteria for awarding are:

• Finishing a course or a set of courses with a minimum grade or by a certain date.
• Completing a number of fields in the user account profile
• Issued manually by a specific role (Such as a teacher, or a site wide departmental assessor)

Course level Badges offer a slightly different set of criteria namely:

• Finishing the course (aka Course Completion)
• Completing an activity
• Or Manually issued by a role (such as teacher)

And of course it could be all of these, such as completing the course and being granted it manually.

Having both options available within Moodle enables the teachers/admins to use badges in a number of very creative ways

1. reward the on boarding process by encouraging profile field completion
2. reward individual activity completion such as participating in a forum
3. reward success at a course
4. reward success at completion a suite of courses – such as a full programme
5. reward a non-moodle based success through ad-hoc rewarding of the badge

What is the process?

Lets take the course based Badge.

Once the course is built with whatever activities that are to be completed and the completion tracking for the course has all been set up and defined, then the teacher can add a badge

1. They add the badge name, description, and image
2. They then configure the criteria to be used
3. Lastly they enable to badge.

This process is shown in the below video.

The a student can complete the criteria so that they are awarded the badge. This process is shown in the below video.

A Teacher is then able to look at the badges in a course and the recipient list of who earned the badge and when. This process is shown in the below video.

One last point – what is difference between a badge and a certificate in Moodle?

This is a question that has been asked me nearly every time I bring up badges with organisations I work with, but usually structured as “Which should I use – a badge or certificate”?

Certificate is a add-on activity in Moodle that will dynamically create a PDF for the learner to download and print as proof they have completed / achieved something. This is very much a digital delivery of an offline method of proof. So if a user wants to collect and present online the certificate they can, however there is no automated way to verify the authenticity of the certificate. Also, with a certificate the Name of the course and other data are visible on the certificate to provide context as it is usually printed out.

The Open Badge system allows for this verification and for users “taking with them” their digital rewards. Although the image for the badge does not show the same details, there is meta data included in the PNG to enable the verification of what it represents.

I certainly see that people will be issuing badges for discrete parts of courses and also issuing badges & certificates for the full course itself. But time will tell.

As with other Moots, the content at the Moot will be more practice focused than research focused where users of Moodle – teachers/trainers, developers and administrators share experiences and case studies of where they have applied Moodle. It is a great opportunity to network with those using Moodle and those who are considering moving to Moodle.

According to the website – It will be possible to register for both the Moot and the Research Conference for a special fee.

Key dates to keep in your diary:

• 17 June 2013: Submission of manuscripts
• 22 July 2013: Notification of acceptance
• 26 August 2013: Submission of the final copy of  papers and posters
• 26 August 2013: Early-bird registration deadline
• 2nd-3rd October Event

Be sure to keep an eye on #medmoot13 on twitter for information.