Bett 2013.... expecting more from Totara

I’m just on my way to Bett and reflecting on how things have changed over the last 12 months. I think the largest change for me has been the growth of Totara LMS. Especially over the last 6 months where LMS users are now more aware of the platform and are asking about key features and how it can be applied in their business. Totara is Moodle with a nice layer of features to meet corporate requirements, if you are unfamiliar with it a nice detailed sheet of Moodle versus Totara can be found here.

Users first impressions are that they are amazed by the amount of configuration and customisation that can be applied when using Totara. They are not expecting the high level features from an Open Source platform and the familiarity over Moodle underneath the bonnet. Totara has lots of functionality, but the main things that users have been asking me for from Totara have been;

1. The Learner Dashboard: The learner experience is excellent users can plan their learning with tasks, objectives and learning plans and communicate this with or without manager approval. It also highlights their past achievements with their record of learning with the ability to recognise prior learning.
2. Face to Face Learning: A high requirement for a lot of Training and Professional Development departments. This is fully automated in Totara with the ability for learners to book themselves on training with responses, cancellations, waitlists, and manager approval all managed within Totara. This feature is on the roadmap to receive a raft of improvements in the next release.
3. Audience Management: I love this and I’ve blogged on this feature before. This enables you to group users based on different information in their profile. Once you have them grouped auto-assign them to courses and programs based on their group - easy!
4. Reporting: You can report across the site on all of the information that you have in the system. Users and managers can then access the reports on their dashboard or have them delivered to their email inbox each week.
5. Moodle: Yes, it is still there underneath the Totara LMS feature enhancements. Moodle is now on 2.4 and Totara is set to move to this base in March/April of this year keeping in step with the latest version. You can still bring all of your Moodle courses to the platform.

Get in touch if you are at Bett and I'll go through some of these features or ask about some of the different features. I'm at stand C1

TOP 20 Learning Management Systems

sorry its sooo looong!

An infographic (the web seems full of them lately) showing the top twenty LMS according to customers, users and presence. 

They've also included some stats on Social Media presence. Its worth a look, not really any surprises although there are some that I have never heard of. Moodle is at the top, through the open source nature and high adoption it seems to be the standard in the industry, although it does not seem to have the largest social media presence. 

Edmodo always seems to appear near the top too, a platform that is easily adopted by students with its social networking features. I'd like to have a closer look at this in practice.

And if you are using any of the LMS lower down in the charts and you are happy have a very good look before you leap!

Thanks to Capterra for compiling the list, I would imagine it would have taken some time to get the data together.

Managing users in Totara (and Moodle?)

Getting users into your LMS is a pretty straight forward procedure(!) Getting them where you want is another matter. Cohorts in Moodle are a nice feature for managing groups of users in your site, they can either be assigned a course or synched to courses. Creating the Cohorts can be time consuming manually although this has been improved in 2.2 where you can bulk assign members to the cohort.

Totara 2.2 has added Audiences, which are a little like Cohorts on steroids. There are two types of Audiences; Set Audiences, which are fixed and Dynamic Audiences which we will have a look at in this post.

Once you have created a Dynamic Audience you can create Rule Sets based on the information that you know about your users to divide them into groups. These rules have to be based on the profile fields that you have imported or on some of the Hierarchy features that you have created in Totara. (see right)

Reasons Audiences rock!

• Adds new users to audiences based on fields and hierarchies
• Use many rules to really customise the audience
• Use the And/Or operator in the rules
• Assign users to courses as soon as they enter the system based on Audience membership
• Users can belong to many audiences
• Can have times to begin and expire
• Report on an audience
• they make my life easier ;-)

You can add as many rules as you like to build your audience to channel users exactly where you want them to be in the system. (see Ruleset #1 below)

Fingers crossed we'll see this powerful tool in Moodle soon!

Great Moodle 2.3 changes for Teachers/Course Creators

Moodle 2 is already up to 2.3.1 and this release has seen some big changes. One of the key areas that has substantial changes is in the actual course design interface. I'm going to outline 5 of the changes that stand out for Teachers/Course Creators. *Warning some of these will cause experienced users to punch the air!*

1. When going to add a resource or activity you are no longer faced with two drop down menus, instead you face a new interface with selection made easy on the left and an explanation of the resource/activity on the right. You can turn this feature off, which may suit experienced users, however new users will enjoy the extra help.

2. The Assignment module has been re-written and consolidated into one activity. Users who have used the assignment activity before will know that there have been many different types of assignment that you could chose for your course. These are now options within the one Assignment activity module.

3. The ability to make an Alias to a file has also been added. This is similar to making a shortcut (why didn't they call it this?) on your computer. The same file can sometimes be used throughout the Moodle site and the problem with this is that you may edit it you then have to find them all again. Create an Alias and you only need to update the original. *punch the air*

4. Drag and Drop has also made it into this release. Some of you may have seen some of this through Davo Smiths block which allows you to drag files straight from your desktop and drop them into your course!! You can also drag folders and SCORM packages to your course and Moodle will prompt you with suggestions of what you want to do with it *punch the air*

5. New users will expect this and experienced users will be nodding with appreciation. The ability to Edit the Title of the resource/activity on the page has been added so you no longer have to go into the activity/resource settings to change the title. 

Mahara 1.5 - 'theme changes'

The social eportfolio tool Mahara has released version 1.5 this month with lots of updates and new features. Myportfolio has used some of these features for a while so I'm pretty familiar with most of them.

The ability to customise your institution theme is a nice little feature where you can select colours and a logo/crest to upload. I was training some new users last year and saw @kieranphilip build a nice looking theme for his school in 3 minutes.
Along with theme customisation you can now also select the 'primary theme' which takes away the standard 3 boxes and introduces a nice UI for Primary school pupils.
Great for engaging younger users as they can click on the pictures to access different areas. (see picture)

Dropdown menus are a new feature that you can turn on in Mahara 1.5 that will help users visualise and find different areas when using Mahara.



 If you know enough about coding and design then you can still apply your own skin.

Reflections on Bett 2012

Wow what a few months I've had.

I've moved from NZ to the UK and for the passed few months I've been talking to Synergy Learning about how we can work together. They suggested we meet at Bett in London.
I had been warned, but it is massive. The night before I helped set up the stand and realised that the hall I was in had more exhibitors than participants at L@S and Ulearn. And then there was another hall that was bigger!
The guys at Synergy Learning are great they've really got some awesome Moodle and Mahara experience with what sounds like a team of developers in the engine room who can make magic things happen.
The scale of the Moodle community was evident on the first day as I spoke to lots of DIY enthusiasts, users and potential users. There was lots of interest in Mahara, but not lots of existing users. I really appreciated my NZ experience with myportfolio and loved sharing this with them.

Bett is great - I had a few hours walking around and could have spent a few more. I'll just take some comfy shoes next time!

Bring Your Own Device

Wireless is one of those unmeasurable benefits to learning, but when going into schools I'm often asked about it or told what the school are doing. There is certainly lots of buzz around it at the moment.

Last month I attended ULearn and attended one of the key sessions on Bring Your Own Device with 5 schools that had already worked through implementing their own policy. They had been through the same issues of security, inclusion, support and planning but had developed policies for students to use their devices in school.

Personally I think its a no brainer - students get to use their computer, the school doesn't have to buy as many and we can start to utilise our devices as school.

Here are some examples of policies;

• Rangitoto
• Burnside High
• Orewa College
• Kristin

Moodle 2 Administration

Having used the book Moodle Administration I was delighted to get a copy of the Moodle 2 Administration. Whether you are an old Moodle 1.9 administrator or completely new to Moodle 2 Alex Buchner ensures that you are well informed of all the new features from installation to adding plug ins and networking with other Moodle sites.

Moodle 2 was released towards the end of 2010. It is an Open Source Course Management System that has become popular all over the world through its versatility in being able to be adapted to suit Primary and Tertiary education. The original Moodle was very successful, but since Moodle 2 there has been considerable more momentum and support.

Alex Buchner is the co-founder and Technical Director of the UKs leading Moodle Partner, Synergy Learning. His first book Moodle Administration most experienced Moodle users will be familiar with as a point of call and Moodle 2 Administration will do the same for Moodle 2. Administrators of all levels will find this useful, whether you install and host yourself or it is hosted by a Moodle Parnter and you are the on site administrator, Alex has written a guide that you can turn to for inspiration and support.

The first 2 chapters of the book cover the installation and the system which helps administrators who are handling their own Moodle installation. Alex uses plain English and a succint description of the tasks at hand so even those that are new to Moodle can follow the guide. It is nicely broken with clear headings that allow you to chose which parts are relevent to your install. Even if you are not installing Moodle yourself it is useful to briefly look over the pages to familiarise yourself with Moodle 2.

Chapters 3,4,5 and 6 looks at users, roles, courses and permissions. Existing and new Moodle users will appreciate the time taken over these chapters to clearly explain the relationships and the settings that are available in Moodle 2. Different scenarios are outlined in setting up a Moodle site and also individual courses making us aware of our options. Recommendations are also made and best practice shared along with the pitfalls of certain settings. The benefits of Synergy Learning's experience with Moodle in different settings save the reader lots of time.

Chapters 7,8 and 9 moves away from courses and users and looks as how you can develop your own Moodle flavour. Most Moodle users I meet have great pride in their Moodle as there is lots of configuration that you can manipulate. Alex goes through blocks, themes, plug-ins and configration with lots of help and tips to ensure that you can develop your flavour.

In Chapters 10, 11, 12 and 13 we look at reporting, security, performance and backups. This is again a sound insite in each area that give an administrator the knowledge that they need to get started and also to be aware of features for the future. These chapters make essential reading for the Administrator to keep an efficient Moodle and reap the benefits that the user expects, but does not generallly see.

The final set of Chapters 14, 15, and 16 look more towards extending Moodle with 3^rd Party Add ons, Moodle Networking and Integration. We look at how to to extend moodle in each of the cases and also how to revert back. Its useful as an Admin user to be aware of the potentials of networking and linking with Mahara although Alex warns us of the trust involved in each of the cases and clearly explains the impact of each.

All in all the book is the Admin User Guide that would be shipped with Moodle if you bought the software off the shelf. Alex has laid down his knowldege to build a user guide and shared his experience to make sound recommendations along with warnings of common mistakes that can cause issues in the system. The book is a must for new and old Administrators - a companion that you will always refer to. Get your copy here

Teaching with Moodle and Mahara

Moodle and Mahara in the classroom

View more presentations from Pete Potter

#Ulearn was awesome last week there is not one other time in the year where I see so many friends from across NZ. To have so many like minded people in one space at one time creates a buzz and the highlight is definitely those connections. I received great feedback on my Moodle and Mahara in the Classroom workshop it was nice to hear that it was hard to get a place and also that users at very different stages in their journey got something from it. There were Moodle users, Mahara users and people who used both. It takes you through my journey of using eportfolios and websites in my teaching and through the evolution of using Moodle and Mahara together and how it is shaping up for the future. Let me know if you have any questions.

NZ MoodleinSchools Hub

The NZ Moodleinschools community is a project that provides a tested and up to date Moodle instance for NZ schools. It means that schools can download Moodle or chose to have it hosted by a Ministry Partner with the assurance that it is tested and safe. As it is community driven you will see that the website has contributions from schools who share their resources, stories, experience and direct its future.
One of the new developments this year that is new to the community and to Moodle 2 is the idea of a central hub. This means that Moodle sites can be linked to a central repository or 'hub' . Moodle.org have their own hub called Mooch. The idea of the NZ moodleinschools hub is for NZ schools to collaborate and share courses through the hub. This has not been forthcoming through schools getting up to date with Moodle 2, this being a trial (with 6 schools) and teacher training, but I'm sure term 4 will be a good time to remind lots of schools of the advantages. As a teacher this does flip my switches!
I linked my moodle instance to the hub (with help from Kristina - again!) and found it 5 minutes with of admin work and once a teacher has created a course it takes them less than a minute to upload or search for a course from the hub, as the video shows.

How Kiwi educators are using MyPortfolio

Above is a document that has been created by the Myportfolio community. Myportfolio is the NZ Mahara instance that is used by over 800 NZ schools and has over 40,000 users (September 2011). It has been shared as a public page in Myportfolio and also through Twitter. Anyone can add to the document and reading through the posts there are some varied ways that it is being used. Have a look through and add to it if you are a user...

Moodle App

The long awaited Moodle App finally hit the App Store this week with around 90 seconds of changing some admin settings (--> instructions here) Moodle 2.1 has enabled web services and added the functionality of an App! The Android one is yet to be released so I went and installed it on my Ipod and made the changes in my Moodle. The installation was easy just prompting me for web address/username/password and we are in and met with the dashboard.

The great thing about the app is that it is not just a mobile UI for moodle it opens up the functionality of the mobile device allowing users to create and upload images, video and sound files straight from their device in to their Private Files area. In my opinion this bridges the gap between moodle and use in the learning space where demonstrations of learning and multimedia can be uploaded quickly and easily with the handheld device that most user have at their disposal. It takes moodle into the classroom and can be planned in courses as part of the learning experience.
From the dashboard you can also view Participants in the courses that you are in and communicate with them with their moodle Profile Details and also add them straight to you contacts in iOS.




Overall - Excellent. Making use of moodle and the mobile device that the app is installed on.

MaharaDroid 1.7

Recently downloaded the MaharaDroid app for Android phone. I'm new to Android and wanted to try this for a while. As usual I tried to set it up with no help and after 10 minutes of working out where the token went I looked for some help. I knew Kristina was a fan of this and found some help in the MyPortfolio forums. The attached video (courtesy of Kristina) made it easy.

The app makes it easy to upload images and videos that you have taken on you phone. You can create folders to upload them to and also wait until you are in a wifi area to upload the artefact. The app also enables you to provide descriptions and tags from within the app which then follow it into your Mahara instance.

This allows students (and teachers!) to upload anything to Mahara that can be shared on their phone. It saves downloading to computers then uploading to Mahara, it makes the process simple. I'm a big fan already!

Single Sign On (SSO)

IAM for Schools: Presentation to ICT Services Working Group

View more presentations from Paul Seiler

Attended a seminar today organised by friends at the Ministry of Education's Managed Learning Environment Team. I'd encouraged people to attend that I work with as I'd recommended using SSO after explaining that it wont matter if students change their username and password in moodle, google apps, myportfolio, you tube etc and as users we will only have to log in once to have access to everything. It sounds too good to be true doesn't it?
There was a good example from John Creighton at Burnside too who has developed their moodle with myportfolio, google apps, and etv inside. He explained that this was important that staff saw it as one thing rather than introducing them to many. They used SSO that students and staff only logged into their moodle and then had access to everything that was inside. As users we know this important as we try to fumble through our different combinations of passwords when we log in, but to get the trust and buy in of teachers this is essential.

MyPortfolio Tasters

I've been running MyPortfolio Taster Sessions this term and sharing the Teaching with MyPortfolio page. The page is a great resource and I refer to it in the session as the 'guts of MyPortfolio'. Really if you can do those things then you can use it in the classroom. I tried to keep them all less than 90 seconds, but creating a page was just too much.
The sessions have been well received and it was great to catch up with Heath Sawyer earlier this term to swap ideas as there has been lots of primary interest this term. Primary teachers seem to be more cyber savvy on the whole and pick it up quickly.
Sessions are Ministry funded for the rest of the year and can be booked here

Revolutionising education?!?!

Here is a great infographic from onlineeducation.net. I've seen more of this type of information hitting the mainstream media lately and I love it! The majority of it is information that we already know although it is backed up with some nice bits of data. The article is talking about higher education and it suggests that students are increasingly finding their own knowledge through the web and without a face to face teacher?? There is great investment from the Gates Foundation and governments in elearning, but I think that they are missing the important role that the teacher plays to engage, inspire, share and encourage them to think! blended learning is allowing educators in higher education to have more students, I hope higher student ratios is not something that filters down to schools.

Via: OnlineEducation.net

Moodle Developments

Martin Dougiamas gave this presenation lat month tahat showed some of the developments in Moodle.

Moodle Development May 2011

View more presentations from Martin Dougiamas

Martin gives some great stats and shows how moodle has ballooned around the world in many different languages and how it is being used by many corporates - I'd love to see this!!?
The slide titled Pedagogical Progression (slide 8) shows 10 steps that teachers go through on their moodle journey. This made me evaluate my own use and my workshops with teachers. The first step for teachers is mirroring their home drive and then adding multimedia which is an enormous step for the majority of teachers. After this I try and encourage some thinking about engaging students and building communities using quiz, forum and assignment. I'm not sure about the points 9 and 10 for secondary schools?? perhaps I'll change my mind with further use.
The planned major releases for moodle show a real strength in its development and it looks like there are some good things on the way. With further polishing of the UI and of course there is now an App for Moodle!
When trying to save in moodle 2 the hubs are introduced. The prospect of having different repositories for me, the school, web 2.0 sites and the local community are immense I can't wait to see where this goes. Of course some of this integrates into Mahara too!

New journey

After being completely displaced by the earthquake in Christchurch in February and changing plans around 75 times I have fallen into working this year with 2 goals. The first goal is spreading the good word of Mahara. Mahara is the software that sits behind the Ministry funded Myportfolio and is avaialable free to schools until the end of 2013. I have the role of facilitating taster sessions around the South Island.
My second mission this year is working with Dataview to get KnowledgeNet and Moodle working for teachers in schools and also get the parent portal established. Anyone who knows me knows that the LMS is a passion of mine so I am looking forward to this.