Some interesting Moodle audio visual plugins just released

I've been discussing podcasting in some depth recently: today I've decided to take a break from the topic, and tell you about a related subject.

Now read on...

Let's pretend for a moment that you've followed all my advice, tips, and suggestions about creating, authoring, recording and producing podcasts with alacrity. Your content needs to be stored somewhere to be distributed to your audience. In the e-learning world we use learning management systems (or LMS) to manage this task.

An LMS (or the related Learning Content Management System) is software for delivering, tracking and managing training and education resources. LMSs range from systems for managing learner records to software for distributing coursesvia the Internet, typically including features for online collaboration. LMSs can also automate record-keeping, as well as for:

• Registration of learners for classroom and online courses
• Student self-service (e.g., self-registration on instructor-led training), training workflow (e.g., user notification, manager approval, wait-list management)
• The provision of on-line learning (e.g., Web-Based Training, podcasts)
• On-line assessment
• Management of continuous professional education (CPE)
• Collaborative learning (e.g., application sharing, discussion threads)
• Training resource management (e.g., instructors, facilities, equipment)

One of the most popular, effective, and easy-to-use LMSs is Moodle. Moodle has been taking part in the Google Summer of Code, and it looks like some interesting new plugins have emerged from the project. Among them are the Nanogong and the Riffly plugins for Moodle 2.0.

The Nanogong plugin allows audio-only recording inside Moodle repositories. Captured in WAV format, files are stored in Moodle using the ImaACPCM or Speex codecs. Recorded files and the recording applet are available in all places where the repository is used to select files.

The Riffly plugin allows audio-only or audio-video recording inside Moodle repositories. Encoding in Flash FLV forma,t files can be stored on riffly.com servers or downloaded to Moodle. Recorded files and the recording Flash object is available in all places where the repository is used to select files.

Note that Moodle 2.0 is under development, and is UNSTABLE. It should NOT be used for production sites. For developers, testers and any other people who helping create the next generation of Moodle. The latest stable release of Moodle is 1.9.5. I recommend that your download, install and have a play with the platform if you haven't done so already.

Next time: Back to podcasting

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Learning Technology Products 2009 Report out now

The number of available tools and technologies for online employee training continues to grow each year. Hundreds of content authoring tools, learning management systems, and learning content management systems are currently available.

Brandon Hall Research, providers of information about the tools, technologies, and best practices related to employee training and enterprise learning have just released a comprehensive new report called Learning Technology Products 2009: Authoring Tools, Learning Management Systems, and Learning Content Management Systems.

The number of tools and technologies for online employee training continues to grow; there are literally hundreds of content authoring tools, learning management systems, and learning content management systems currently available for training professionals to use in the operationalization of their organizations' learning and development strategy.

To help you get a sense of what's at hand commercially, Brandon Hall's 526-page report provides one- to three-page profiles of more than 250 learning technology products. And, best of all, this report available for free, gratis.

This report contains profiles of the products featured in three Brandon Hall Research KnowledgeBases:

Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase
This online resource contains 20 to 30-page profiles of 100+ tools used to create almost any type of online learning content, including courses, games, presentations, and tests. The Authoring Tool KnowledgeBase provides case studies and success stories that show how high-profile corporate, educational, and governmental organizations have completed their authoring tool selection processes.

Each authoring tool is profiled extensively and provides information on standards, rapid development capabilities, assessment capabilities, language and localization features, simulation capabilities, etc. – all the details you need to find extensible and flexible authoring tools to help you create superior e-learning content.

LMS KnowledgeBase
Containing 40-60 page profiles of 92 systems, the new 2009 edition of the LMS KnowledgeBase is the most comprehensive resource available to help you compare learning management systems and select the system that best meets your needs.

The depth and breadth of this research makes it a valuable resource to practitioners, CLOs, IT staff members, and other key stakeholders. The cost of the research is easily justified in that it helps you avoid costly mistakes and ensures an efficient LMS selection process.

LCMS KnowledgeBase
A learning content management system (LCMS) can elevate your content creation to a new level. An LCMS stores your content as small bits of information that can be modified and reassembled as needed. These systems also act as single-source authoring platforms that can output content to many different formats.

This online resource contains profiles of 38 of the best systems. If you are planning to harness the power and flexibility of an LCMS, this research is the way to go about it. It can help you understand all the details that go into choosing the right LCMS for your organization.

Why is this report free?
According to Brandon Hall, this report contains a few half- and full-page ads. Support from advertisers allows them to publish this report free of charge. In my view, this free report should become part of your resource toolkit to assist learning professionals select the appropriate technology for organizational learning initiatives.

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Martin Dougiamas says: Moodle 1.9 now released! Hurrah!!

Like the man in the title said, Moodle 1.9 has been released.
Headline features include:

• Gradebook - Completely rewritten from scratch for speed and flexibility. The new gradebook consists of plugins for reports, imports and exports. There are a number of standard reports which are useful for graders, students etc. The grader report allows you to treat the gradebook much more like a spreadsheet with manual editing, calculations, aggregations, weighting, locking, hiding, textual notes and so on.
  
  
• Outcomes - You can also now develop a list of expected outcomes (competencies) and connect these to courses and activities. You can even grade against multiple outcomes at once (i.e. Rubrics).
  
  
• Events API - The new Events API provides a way for any code to "hook" into events in a clean, loosely coupled way. A lot of events in Moodle (such as adding a user or a course) now trigger events that developers can hook into.
  
  
• Scalability and performance improvements - A complete overhaul of the Roles implementation for correctness and scalability. Large sites with thousands of courses and users now load quickly and behave well under heavy traffic, thanks to reworked code for Roles. Additional boost for sites using PHP pre-compilers and significant improvements in the database access code for all databases. Many other parts of Moodle have been optimised to cope better with large numbers of courses and students. Overall performance is very noticeably increased.
  
  
• Moodle Network - Moodle 1.9 and Mahara E-portfolio v0.9 now do transparent Single Sign On - one to one, one to many, many to many. Students can maintain their personal E-portfolios in Mahara.
  
  
• Tags - Allows users to describe their own interests in terms of tags, which creates interest pages around those tags, bringing information together from a variety of sources (Blogs, Flickr, Youtube etc)
  
  
• Improved question bank - Allows questions to be shared by the whole site, a course category, a single course, or be kept private to a single module. More control over who can do what to each question. Improved file management for files linked to by questions.
  
  
• Notes - Detailed notes can be kept about individual users (for example teachers might want to keep and share notes about students in their class).
  
  
• Bulk user actions - Administrators can perform bulk user actions, such as the mass deletion of user accounts. Extended features in the bulk user upload script to allow generation of user fields based on templates.
  
  
• Custom corners theme - Beautiful and curvy (in all browsers).

Find out more here [links to Moodle.org]

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