Graeme Boxwell

We have been having a few difficulties with the way blocks work in Moodle 2 compared to Moodle 1.9, especially with blocks that you wish to use as sticky blocks. Sticky blocks are a type of block in Moodle 1.9 that you use when you want a block to be added to the MyMoodle page or on course pages. Fairly straightforward – you go to Modules > Blocks > Sticky Blocks to configure.

With Moodle 2, there are no sticky blocks. You need to add a block at a particular level and then look at the context of the block. So you could in theory add a block a particular course catergory page, and then edit the block context to say “Display on Category:’mycategoryname’ and any pages within it”. This should put the block on every site page in that catergory. But it doesn’t.

We found that this would always revert back to “Display on Category only”, meaning the block wouldn’t appear on any course sites, only the overall category page. Slightly frustrating and not at all intuitive.

We have one block that we wanted to put throughout all the course categories and here is the method we had to do:

1.   Go to the frontpage and add the block there.
2.   Edit the configuration so that ‘page contexts’ read “Display thoughout entire site”, and in the ‘On This Page’ section change it so visible is ‘no’.
3.   Browse to one of the courses and edit the block configuration there.
4.   Change the ‘Display on Page Types’ setting to be “Any Course Page”, or if you only want it on the front page – “Any type of course main page”

It is not the most intuitive way of adding a block to all the course pages. It also doesn’t seem to work for individual course categories so I couldn’t add a block to one category and not another. If anyone knows any ways to do this, please let me know.

Is anyone else having issues with sticky blocks in Moodle 2?

One of our learning technologists (@bennyhennytweet) recently told me about a site called Audioboo. Audioboo is an app you can install on your phone that lets you record some audio and immediately have it online. You don’t have to use your phone, you can go to the webpage and record from there. Once its online, the real power comes in as you can embed and share on other sites and social networks, as well as set up your audio as podcasts. You can also follow other people that are using audioboo to keep up to date with their recordings.

We are making steady progress with our move across to Moodle 2. Our first step has been to go through all the blocks and ensure that there is a Moodle 2 equivalent.

The one block that we haven’t got a replacement for yet is Nanogong. Nanogong is an excellent plugin that sits as a little loudspeaker icon in the HTML editor. It is fantastic for audio feedback. When grading an assignment, the lecturer pushes the speaker icon, then records the feedback and this is presented to the student through Moodle gradebook. The lecturer can pause, or delete and start again. It really simplifies a process that can lead to brilliant feedback for the student. We are on the lookout for another plugin similar.

One of the fantastic plug-ins we have in place is the sub-pages block. This block, created by the open university, allows you to add a page into your moodle course in which you can blocks and activities. This will cut out the need for endless scrolling down a Moodle site. Each section can have it’s own page. (https://github.com/moodleou/moodle-mod_subpage)

The second plugin we came across that has knocked us over is the drag and drop upload. This plugin is added as a block on a course site. When added, the teacher would turn editing on, and would be able to drag files straight from their PC onto a topic in their Moodle site. It is simply stunning. (http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Drag_and_drop_upload_block)

I will  upload a couple of videos showing these two blocks in action.

Moodle quizzes can be a pain to enter all the information but there is an easier way to get a large amount of questions into the quiz. GIFT format can be a really straightforward method of entering questions into the quiz. When reading the documentation on GIFT, it can be a little daunting so I have created this video to help you.

This has been my first blog post in some time, and I do apologise for not keeping it as up to date as I should. This term has been extremely busy with a new team in place who are doing some fantastic work and getting a great reputation around the College already. It’s great to be part of a team that have such dynamic and creative people. They help to inspire everyone to better things.

Speaking of better things – Moodle 2.1? We currently have a test server set up that we are looking to do some rigorous testing on over the next few months. If there are any of you with experiences of 2.1 that you can pass on I would greatly appreciate you getting in touch.

We are looking forward to being able to use the Moodle app with our VLE, as this requires Moodle 2. Combined with the ongoing network infrastructure updgrade that is taking place at the College, with wireless coverage being integral as far as I am aware, this will improve the potential for mobile learning and BYOD (bring your own device).

All this makes it a really exciting year ahead, so I’d like to finish this year by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I’ve been using Photoshop for a few years now, and have been amazed at the difference it can make to an image. Recently the we purchased CS5 in the office and I have been stunned by the new content aware mode. It really is staggering. Watch this video to from Terry White, demonstrating the content aware tools.

RSS feeds are an excellent way of ensuring that your students, and colleagues are keeping up with current trends and news in your subject area. I like using an RSS widget like BlastCasta to display the RSS feeds. You can create a widget to embed in a variety of different places (blogs, wikis, Moodle sites, etc).

Here’s a blastcasta widget displaying the RSS feed from the BBC Technology  site:-

What you can also do is take an RSS feed from any of your tags on your delicious bookmark site. So for example, lets say you teach AS Maths. Use delicious to bookmark your favourite sites, and when you see a site that is relevant for your specific class, set the tag to be something unique relating to the class e.g class10ASMaths. Create a widget todisplay that tag in your delicious bookmarks and have this widget at the top of your Moodle site. You would have a constantly up to date list of sites that are relevant to your students and that are updated to keep your students interested in returning.

To create the RSS feed from a particluar tag in your Delcious Bookmarks you need to use the following format:

http://delicious.com/v2/rss/[yourdelicioususername]/{the tag you want the RSS from]

so for my sites that I have tagged with elearning, the RSS feed address would be http://delicious.com/v2/rss/boxwell/elearning

Here is that RSS feed in a Blast Casta widget:-

I’ll create a screencast video walking you through the relevant steps as soon as I can.

YouTube has to be one of the most used tools by teaching staff. There is a huge wealth of resources on there.  There are lots of other sites that can give you extra functionlity and support when using Youtube in an educational context.

For example, if you are looking to embed content but do not want any comments, or advertisements etc to be on the video you can go to a site called ShareSafe to stripout all of that extra stuff. Just paste the youtube URL into the site and it generates a ‘safe’ version. Click here to visit the site.

Find out about lots of other youtube supporting sites at Richard Byrne’s fantastic blog called Free Tech for Teachers, and read the blog post about the other Youtube sites here.

Thanks to Doug Belshaw for sharing this on Twitter. He is a good person to follow if you are looking for innovative educationalists working in the North East – His Twitter Page

In keeping with the Johnny Cash Project, here is another TED talk from this year relating to the world of art. Amit Sood is an employee of Google, and the head of Art Project. This Project brings together amazing art from around the world to let you view and set up your own collections. Watch the video and give it a try here.