Blog Moodle Installation

I have attached a Moodle installation to the blog and put on all of the resources so far developed for the OCR Nationals in ICT. This allows you to see what the course look like before you decide if you want to use them.

On the Introduction page of each course there is a link to the backup file for that course. Click on it and choose ’save’ and save it to your own computer. It is worthwhile to have the course categories you are restoring to created before you begin restoration. Many of the files are big and will need FTPing into Moodle as there is always a size limit on files that can be uploaded. When I do it I set up a course and add a folder called ‘upload’ in the ‘Files’ section of the admin block, then FTP the files into it. After that you choose ‘Restore’ from the admin block on the side of your course. You will be given a choice to create a new course as the file is unzipping.

UK National Repository getting closer

The National Repository

 

The big news is the imminent arrival of a national repository of free resources for VLEs, The great thing about it is that is not a product of central government or any of its supporting quango’s and satellites, but it has been created by the North West Learning Grid who provided the VLE based materials for DiDA and the OCR Nationals. Read more

Moodle – a thousand hits from home

We are in our third year with Moodle and it is now used for year 7 students (11-12 years old) for about a quarter of their lessons plus other years and other subjects apart from ICT. On Thurday I checked the logs for the week and they were – to me at least astounding. On Monday there were 1100 hits on Moodle after the school closed for the day. 25% of all the activity for the whole day. Read more

OCR NC2 in ICT Unit 5 and 23 free resources for VLEs

I have laboured in vain to use SCORM as a way of packaging and sharing VLE resources. In Moodle the deployment of SCORM units is really quite ugly. On analysis it is not doing that much.

Read more

Moodle Mail List

I have often wondered where or if people involved in Moodle get together to discuss the VLE. The group in ‘Google Groups’ hasabout 3 postings a week, two of them spam of some sort. At last I have found it – http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?INDEX&X=61C6F86D6D7C4B534B

This is a list primarily for Higher and Further Education in the UK, but the problems are pretty much the same as those faced by people in Secondary schools. The list comes in several flavours – Technical, UK, Wales, FE, HE. It is neccasary to register in order to take part, but that is no great hardship. The UK group has over 400 active participants and the Technical Group will be vital for VLE admins.

SCORM- less than meets the eye

Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)

 SCORM is a standard that describes how Shareable Content learning Objects (SCO’s) can be packaged and used within a Learning Management System (LMS). The learning objects are usually web pages, web sites, swf based tutorials and other files. Most modern VLEs recognise and work with the SCORM standard. Read more

Report from the frontline – two years with a VLE