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!