Webmaster

District-Wide Event Signup and Registration using Joomla

Chris Kenniburg — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:23:25 +0000

I am just putting some of the finishing touches on our new event registration system using Joomla. With a very tight deadline we tried several Joomla components both free and paid for event management and Event Booking really met our needs. At only $30 this plugin for Joomla really saved us: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/calendars-a-events/events/events-registration/13701

You can see the results here: http://dearbornschools.org/events-signup

Mahara 1.5 Update is GREAT!

Chris Kenniburg — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:29:55 +0000

I just updated our Mahara install to the latest version 1.5.1. Among a whole list of great improvements the most noticeable is the new Elementary/Primary school theme. This is an intuitive and easy to use dashboard to quickly get students into the areas they need to go. I must say that Mahara is really coming a long way in terms of usability and functionality.

Great job by the Mahara Team. Check out the screenshot to see the new theme for K-12/Primary users.

New Moodle Social Course Format Work

Chris Kenniburg — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:58:40 +0000

We are looking to partner with others who might be interested in developing a new type of course format for moodle. The new format will closely mimic Facebook and Edmodo. While Moodle is awesome at course management it could use a little help with social interactions.

We are going to begin working on developing a more social format that will lower the barrier for teachers to get started with Moodle and do the basics such as posting homework, assignments, and calendar events. We are hoping that once they get started with this basic format that they will grow into using more advanced moodle activities and features.

I have attached an image of how we think the new course format might look. Some things about this layout:

No html editor.
There are three post types- Message/note, Assignment, and Calendar
Within these post types you can attach files, links, course library (selection of previously uploaded docs).
The posts display auto generates the title for each post by simply naming who made the post. Ie. From Chris Kenniburg… or Chris Kenniburg said… or something similar to these.
When a user clicks on Assignment button a form will pop-up which would allow the teacher to add an online text assignment type from Moodle. (I heard that assignments might be revamped for 2.3 in which case a teacher might be able to pick which type of assignment is to be used) When the assignment is added it appears in a sidebar block such as the Activity block.
Similar to how assignments work, a teacher would be able to add a calendar event.
There will be a small area at the very top of the page which grabs the course description. This area should also include the Resource and Activity drop down menus.

All postings and interactions would be ajax and not require any page refreshes. Possible additions later on would be to have a quiz button but for the most part we want to just focus on allowing quick and simple communication.

If anyone is interested please let me know.

kennibc@dearbornschools.org

@ Wayne resa

Chris Kenniburg — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:03:27 +0000

MCONF – An open source solution for webconferencing

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:21:05 +0000

Home – mconf – An open source solution for webconferencing – Google Project Hosting.

Built with BigBlueButton, Mconf adds a frontend to allow you to better collaborate and make use of BigBlueButton. This is an exciting discovery. Currently we use BBB with WordPress and Moodle. But, with Mconf people can build interactive communities with events, sharing, etc. This could be used to create a very powerful web conferencing platform for RESA’s and other large institutions. This is like an all-in-one solution to get into the game of web conferencing.

I am definitely going to be adding this to my list of summer projects. I want to explore how this might benefit some of our teachers and students.

From the website:http://www.inf.ufrgs.br/prav/projetos_gtmconf.php

FYI- below is translated from Portuguese

Access:

Access to server-GT Mconf:

Use the web portal: http://mconf.org

Repositories of code and documentation:

Code repositories on GitHub: https://github.com/mconf
Documentation and tasks on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/mconf/

Summary:

The main objective of this project is to generate a complete web conferencing with the ability to interoperate transparently between computers connected to the web and mobile devices connected in telephony networks. The main difference compared to current products is the management system with integrated collaborative environment that facilitates the location of users, easy transfer communication between devices and automatic adaptation to the terminal’s capacity, ranging from simple audio even HD video. The main product is a national software document management, remote collaboration, data sharing and audio communication, video and data in real time interoperable across web and mobile devices aiming conferences point to point or point-multipoint, allowing telecommuting, meetings distance or remote synchronous classes.

The figure below shows the three main blocks that make up the GT-Mconf:

BigBlueButton: System that forms the core Web conferencing. It is an open source project to which the GT-Mconf, and use it also makes contributions.
Mconf-Web: Portal to access the system, built in the form of social network based on Global Plaza.
Mconf-Mobile: It is an implementation of Web conferencing client for Android devices.

New Moodle and Etherpad Plugin Installation Video

Chris Kenniburg — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:42:55 +0000

This is the new Etherpad and Moodle integration. You will soon be able to download the plugin from http://etherpad.org

Download installation Docs and Step Sheets

Download the Plugin:

Moodle.org – Pending Approval ?
Etherpad GIT

Etherpad and Moodle Integration Module/Plugin Demo Video

Chris Kenniburg — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:47:24 +0000

Here is the video of the Etherpad and Moodle plugin. This plugin adds an Etherpad activity to your Moodle setup. Teachers can allow students to do real-time collaboration on documents via this plugin in similar fashion to Google Docs from within Moodle. We hope to get this into the Moodle plugin repository soon. We are still working with developers to make sure everything is functioning and working properly to how we think the integration would work best. John McLear of Primary Technology has been instrumental in helping develop this new module. Watch the Etherpad and Moodle Integration Demo Video

Buzztouch | Free iPhone and Android App Builder and Content Management System

Chris Kenniburg — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:56:24 +0000

I just downloaded and installed BuzzTouch on a server. This great new technology is what I hope will jumpstart our Mobile App development. I am planning on creating a simple application that has some basic information and reads some RSS feeds. Nothing too complex. Just a mobile source of news for parents and students. The great part about this is that it runs on our server and so whenever I make changes it will push out the changes to all the devices. buzztouch | Free iPhone and Android App Builder and Content Management System.

Etherpad Moodle Integration Underway

Chris Kenniburg — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:01:16 +0000

We are in the process of working with developers to create and release a Moodle-Etherpad Integration. John McLear of Etherpad and Primary Technology has been a joy to work with and is spearheading the development and implementation. Dearborn Public Schools benefits tremendously because of open source web applications we use on a daily basis. Hopefully once things get going we will have a date that the code will be available. The integration of Moodle and Etherpad will enhance our District’s ability to provide first class learning technology to our students and staff. We absolutely love Etherpad with it’s simplicity and powerful learning applications. Bringing Etherpad into our favorite LMS Moodle is going to be spectacular.

AjaXplorer – Awesome File Sharing

Chris Kenniburg — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:20:58 +0000

AjaXplorer is a great software app I just discovered that is very easy to install, easy to use, and a great little app. We plan to use it to allow vendors and others to submit large files to the district. Of note is the super cool and super slick user interface. This application has it all. Sharing of documents, permissions, all kinds of great features are rolled into an easy to install application. I can’t believe it is free. I know we only have a limited use right now for this program but it is so nice with it’s drag and drop file uploading I can’t help but wish we come up with more uses. This is the software to use for anyone looking to create a file repository for quick and easy sharing.

Mahoodle / Mahara Use in K-12 Dearborn Public Schools

Chris Kenniburg — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:54:15 +0000

We are slowly getting some use out of Mahara. The integration of Mahara and Moodle is so nice! Below are some screen shots of some pages students were asked to create using Mahara. Most of the photos were from a Biology class dealing with genetic diseases. Check out the student work below.

The Tools

Chris Kenniburg — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:19:22 +0000

I can really see a complete open source eLearning platform taking shape. Let’s take a look at this. WordPress + Buddypress – The public publishing tool for the eLearning Platform. WP Multisite with Buddypress is a very powerful social publishing tool that can be used by students and teachers to publish material that is available to the public. We utilize LDAP logins so that teachers and students all use a single login. This is true of all of our web applications. We all know the powerful tools available for WordPress that allow for great communication. BigBlueButton + Matterhorn – These two apps working together do the heavy lifting for realtime communication and presentation of recorded content. BigBlueButton integrates very nicely as plugins for both Moodle and WordPress. The new recording feature of BBB and it’s integration with Matterhorn provides a high power recording and playback system for lectures and classroom instruction. These recordings can be made available on WordPress and Moodle. BigBlueButton is probably a must have for districts looking to get involved in Hybrid and Flipped classrooms. Moodle + Mahara + Etherpad – A complete learning and ePortfolio system. Moodle and Marhara, commonly called Mahoodle, is a great way for student to build repositories of learning material. Mahara is great for forming organic learning groups and sharing of materials in a social type setting. Moodle is such a powerful and useful application. It is like a SWISS Army knife for online learning. It can be used for anything from wikis to blogs and everything in between. Etherpad is a missing piece in the toolset of Moodle. What Etherpad allows you to do is collaborative document editing. It’s quick, easy, and fun to use. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will have the beginnings of a plugin that will integrate a Etherpad install with Moodle. StatusNet - Patric Lougheed ‏ @patriclougheed on Twitter pointed out this open source twitter-like application. I haven’t used it before but it sure does seem interesting! More information on this application can be found here:http://status.net/features I don’t know how I would integrate this into our setup as this would be in competition or used in conjunction with WordPress. There are tools that allow WordPress to behave like twitter, specifically this plugin which we actually have available for our teachers:http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/quick-status. In our journey right now, we are focusing on 2 main apps: Wordpress and Moodle for teacher/student use. Any additional applications need to be tightly integrated with either WordPress or Moodle for us to want to use them such as BigBlueButton and Mahara. We want to work to provide support and build a strong userbase for these two tools. I love new tools like StatusNet but for our situation in a K-12 environment we really need to have a laser-like focus on the tools and purpose or said tools for teachers. Otherwise they have no idea where to go when they want to use the web for communication or to build an online course. We are going to keep it simple with iBlog (WordPress) and iLearn (Moodle).

Pros and Cons of Using a Single Theme for Multisite Setup

Chris Kenniburg — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:25:39 +0000

What are the pros and cons of using a single template for a WordPress Network? Currently we are allowing subsites to choose their own themes. I am wondering if it would make sense to pick a really nice theme for all of Buddypress and subsites to use. I think the consistency would be a big benefit. Teachers wouldn’t have to worry about the look of their site. They could just focus on the content. On the other hand, some teachers want a unique look. For my Webmaster Blog I am using the same theme as the Network Blog. I think it might make sense to really streamline all functions of wordpress to make a really simple and functional communication tool. I’d like to see if we could get a functional site that the user would never need to go into the dashboard.

Rockettheme – March Template for Joomla

Chris Kenniburg — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:42:56 +0000

I am really impressed with the new design from Rockettheme. The new plugin called RokSprocket is also amazing! Very nice design. Joomla Templates – RocketTheme Joomla Templates Club Demo Site.

Hybrid and Flipped Classrooms

Chris Kenniburg — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:47:51 +0000

New Series: Open Source Online Learning – Hybrid and Flipped Classrooms In this series I will be talking about how Dearborn Public Schools is planning on implementing open source tools to help facilitate hybrid learning and flipped classrooms. All of the tools we will be discussing are open source and free for any school to use and implement. Each new part of the series will examine a new tool such as Moodle and others and will share how Dearborn Schools has implemented the tools and how we manage and support teachers in using the tools in a K-12 environment.

Open Source eLearning Platform

Chris Kenniburg — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:47:38 +0000

Here is a list of features and functions I think a good K12 educational web portal should have. Feel free to leave a comment about any additional ideas you might have. Web Publishing/Authoring

District Website
School Websites
Teacher Websites
Student Websites/ePortfolios

Features for Web Publishing

Easy to Use
Easy to Manage
Utilizes the latest in web technology: Web 2.0, social, etc.

Web Publishing Tools

Blog
Wiki
Document Collaboration and Sharing
eLearning such as assignments, tests, quizzes, etc.
Social: Chat, Forums, Discussions
Video/Audio Web Conferencing
Video Publishing

Etherpad and Moodle Integration

Chris Kenniburg — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:57:20 +0000

Hello All, We are looking for partners to help fund the development of a Etherpad and Moodle Module. Currently we are only looking to do a simple integration in Moodle, but think it would be wise to develop a more robust Moodle Module that more fully integrates the two services. We are footing some of the bill but would like help from other interested parties. The Moodle Module would be released to the community upon completion. The plugin would do the following:

Allow the teacher to create and display an Etherpad editor using Moodle’s Activity Drop-Down
Allow Students of the Course/Group to collaboratively create a document. The students would automatically have their usernames passed to Etherpad.

We will be working with John McLear who is an Etherpad expert and part of the Etherpad Foundation. http://mclear.co.uk/ http://etherpad.org/ John mentioned that it would cost about $1600 or roughly 20 hours to develop a Moodle Module. If we have 6-8 districts chip in a couple hundred dollars it isn’t so bad. All interested parties should contact me and we can discuss the development of the plugin. Chris Kenniburg kennibc@dearbornschools.org We are just in the discussion phase.

What Teachers Do and What Students Want

Chris Kenniburg — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:03:20 +0000

http://sukhwantlota.blogspot.com/2010/07/moodle-courses-what-teachers-do-what.html

WordPress as a LTI Provider

Chris Kenniburg — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:18:14 +0000

I am wondering if anyone has a plugin or tutorial on how to integrate WordPress with Moodle using LTI? I’d like to be able to add WordPress Multisite as an activity in Moodle using LTI. LTI stands for Learning Tools Interoperability As seen here,http://www.somerandomthoughts.com/blog/2011/11/28/moodle-2-supports-connecting-to-ims-lti-tools/ this would allow WordPress Multisite to be added as an Activity in say WordPress, Sakia, Blackboard, etc. And more on the LTI standard: http://www.imsglobal.org/lti/ This could be a huge success in educational circles for those using both WordPress for publishing and Moodle for learning.

Google Docs and Moodle 2 – How easy is that!

Chris Kenniburg — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:57:46 +0000