Single Sign On (SSO)

IAM for Schools: Presentation to ICT Services Working Group

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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

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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.