Mahara Tutorials

There are 4 parts of this onlone tutorial by John Patte (Director of Technology and Information Systems Sylvan Union School District).

http://edutonica.blogspot.com/

By the way, I found useful videos also on:
http://www.teachertube.com/

Instructional Content System -- code name: "Bulldog Bytes"

Moved forwarded on ICS - Instructional Content System. I have updated Alfresco to Lab 3c and completed LDAP and CAS single sigh on integration; Google Gadget implementation; Blackboard integration; and a new UI being tested. So far so good!

Since that, I am offcially giving the project a code name: Bulldog Bytes!

Max

Updated Road Map on LMS Pilot and Extended Projects

This is a updated ROAD MAP of the LMS Pilot and extended projects:

Learning Management System and ePortfolio

Pilots:

1. Moodle and Mahara (pilot Spring 2009)
2. Sakai and OSP (pilot Spring 2009)
3. Bb and ePortfolio (being constantly reviewed)
   

Potential pilots:

1. Elgg (piloted and available to be integrated with Moodle)
2. Keeps Toolkit
   

Projects:

1. Student ePortfolio and Peer Review (LMS pilot)
2. Project ePortfolio and Collaboration (Ida)
3. Department ePortfolio/Repository for Assessments (Ida)
   

Researches:

1. IMS Content Package (preparing potential Content Migration if we decide to move)
   current: IMS Content Packaging v1.2 CM/DN Release v2.0 Specification
2. IMS ePortfolio (preparing potential eP portability)
   current: MS ePortfolio Specification - Version 1 Public Draft Specification - HTML
   

Instruction Content System

Alfresco Lab 3c (pilot Spring 2009):

1. Integration with LDAP (and CAS if necessary)
2. Integration with LMS (Bb/Sakai?)
3. Integration with ePortfolio systems
4. Integration with Institutional Repository (library?)
5. Implementing Share
6. Integration with Social Networking Platforms (Goole/Facebook gadgets)
7. .. continuing streaming media and Podcasting/iTunes U implementation.
   

Social Networking

1. Implementing OpenSocial containers, mainly Google
2. Implementing OpenID application interface (consumer), mainly Google/LinkedIn
   

Max

The Pilot has Officially Taken Off!

The first "official" Moodle training took place on December 11th. Three faculty attended and spent time exploring the Moodle tools and preparing their spring 2009 Blackboard course for single sign-on to Moodle. Moodle Open Lab is scheduled for January 15th.

Participating faculty on the Moodle Pilot are enrolled in the Moodle Pilot Forum where they will experience the LMS from a student perspective and have easy access to training and documentation materials. More updates as conversations take place!

Moodle Email

Missed .. a cron job needs to be set up!

Sakai Pilot course shells ready

Sakai Pilot course shells are ready as well.

Moodle pilot course shells created

All requested Moodle pilot course shells have been created. Each instructor is given one developmental course shell and one pilot course shell. Students will be enrolled to the pilot course shell in the 2nd week of Jan 2009.

p.s. All courses are created manually. Batch loading process and Peoplesoft integration is being developed.

Moodle'fied Mahara

Mahara has been installed and integrated with Moodle pilot for SSO. It is very simple to set up by following the document at:

https://eduforge.org/docman/view.php/176/3200/Mahoodle.pdf

This concludes the LMS Pilot - ePortfolio integration for both Sakai and Moodle.

And -- ePortfolio

A quick follow up:

With our on-going efforts on the LMS pilots, there are ePortfolio tools available for both Moodle and Sakai. Moodle has an integrable ePortfolio tool called Mahara (http://www.mahara.org). Mahara is a 'very Web 2.0 implementation' for providing ePortfolio and Social Networking features with user-centered focus. Sakai Project comes with OSPortfolio (Open Source Portfolio - http://www.osportfolio.org/) that is very powerful (aka. complicated) with their Learning Matrix and comprehensives Assessment implementation. One of our 'technology' goals is to evaluate the two open source LMS/eP solutions with Blackboard/ePortfolio system ('IF' Bb-NG is proven to be section 508 compliant :-) ). Also, one of our main criteria is to carefully evaluate any ePortfolio solutions with the adoption of IMS ePortfolio standard (http://www.imsglobal.org/ep/) to ensure content interoperability for life-long learning; so, the ePortfolios are not depending on any particular application. All Mahara, OSPortfiolio, and Blackboard eP are or being implemented with IMS eP standard in mind! Another exciting project related to this is our ICS (Instructional Content System). ICS will allow users (students and faculty) to directly publish digital content directly to the LMS/eP system, and also, with the potential, to Facebook and iGoogle for peer reviews or team projects by taking advantage of their Social Network technologies.

Sakai Pilot Site is up and running

Sakai Pilot site is now up and running. It is version 2.5.x complied with both core and provisional tools (see http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/DOC/Tool+List+(2.5) ) as well as two additional OSS tools: jForum and Melete from http://etudesproject.org/ .

It is integrated with Fresno LDAP authentication through CAS. The theme is pending to be updated as soon as the initial QA is completed this week.

You will find the site at: http://sakaipilot.tlt.csufresno.edu/

Max

Concluded the initial Moodle Pilot setup -- Moodle Theme Update

Updated Moodle Theme Header Image from img tag to div background to allow flexible width for varied by different screen resolutions. This concludes the initial implementation of Moodle Pilot.

Find any problems? Let Max know ..

Moodle: Casifed

Moodle Pilot has been CASfied with options to ldap or manual password. Modified the frontpage with two login options: Fresno State Users and Guest Users.

p.s. PHP-XML is required for enabling this feature also.

Moodle: Customized System Role

Customized a Course Manager role that adds additional privileges, i.e. managing users and enrollments. This role will be assigned to the Instructional Designers and support assistants.

Course Shell and Training Information

Course shells on the Moodle server will be available the second week of December when the PeopleSoft/Blackboard integration process begins for spring 2009.

Moodle Training

• Introduction to Moodle
  December 11th 1:00pm until 3:00pm in IT 300
  
• Open Lab
  January 15th 9:00am until 2:00pm in IT 300
  
• Individual Moodle Training is available by contacting Mary Bennett, mbennett@csufresno.edu 8-7203

Spring 2009 Moodle Pilots

Ten faculty from the following departments will be participating in the Spring 2009 Moodle Pilot:

• Literacy and Early Education
• Music
• Child, Family, and Consumer Sciences
• Finance and Business Law
• History
• Kinesiology
• Curriculum and Instruction
• Health Science
• Industrial Technology
• Kremen School of Education
  

Moodle: Pilot Setup

11/25 ~ 11/26, 2008

• Create course categories
• Test: system test
  
• Development: developmental course shells
• Pilot-2093: pilot courses for Spring 2009
pending (rb)

• Schema for Batch course, user account, and roster uploads:
  schema for users (mt):
  header: username, password, firstname, lastname, email, idnumber*
example: max,goodhuy,max,tsai,email@csufresno.edu,PSOFT ID

Validate above by the following tests:

• Create Pilot 'Instructor user accounts' in Batch process;
• create 'developmental' courses (course id = "DEVL-SUBCAT#-userid") under Devlopment category;
• create roster batch upload (create 2 test user accounts and use those two accounts to create roster data file)
  

To Do

• Both Sakai and Moodle are expected to be integrated with current Blackboard thought CAS.
• Both Sakai and Moodle are expected to be integrated with current Streaming Media System.
  

Moodle Update - 11/21/2008

• Book and Questionnaire Modules are installed and working
• Theme is installed (Fresno State localized)
• Tested export-->import using the Moodleconverter tool quizzes, presentations, links, etc. No problem being identified
• Tested batch loading the roster from the Moodle 'development' site successfully.
  

Moodle: Blackboard Course Content Converter

For converting Blackboard course content to Moodle, we have tested and are very happy with the tool created by LSU. You can find it at:

http://moodleconverter.lsu.edu/

I have contacted the development team and they are kindly to share the code; so, we will be able to host the application at Fresno State in possible Moodle future!

Moodle Pilot Server Up

The installation of Moodle pilot server has been completed and starting initial QA. It is set up with 2 servers model: Moodle application server and MySQL database server. Both are running on Redhat AS-5 using the RH versiong of Apache and Mysql. Each server is set up with 2 NIC interfaces: one for public user access and one for database access b/t the servers. More detail configuration information will be posted as soon as the initial QA has been completed.

Sneak Preview: "Pre" Pilot Sites

We have two experimental 'Pre'-pilot Moodle and Sakai Project sites set up at:

• http://moodle.pilot.csufresno.edu/moodle/
• http://sakai.pilot.csufresno.edu/

Fresno State faculty are welcome to request for test course shells for sneak preview access.

Initial Server Platform Setup

Set up the pilot server virtual instances today for Moodle and Sakai Project pilots:

• MySQL
  
• Moodle
  (reserved url) http://moodlepilot.tlt.csufresno.edu/
  
• Sakai Project
  (reserved url) http://sakaipilot.tlt.csufresno.edu/
  

Server: Dell PowerEdge 2950 / 8 x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5440 @ 2.83GHz, 16GB RAM
OS: VMware ESX Server, 3.5.0
Virtual Machine Instances: 5

Base System:

• MySQL Pilot
  Redhat AS5 (64bit) installed / 2vCPU / 1024MB / 32G+64G diskspace
  
  
• Moodle Pilot
  Redhat AS5 (64bit) installed / 2vCPU / 1024MB / 32G+128G diskspace
  
  
• Sakai Project Pilot
  Redhat AS5 (64bit) pending / 2vCPU / 1024MB / 32G+128G diskspace
  
  

Future of LMS Pilot

This is an unofficial worklog of Future of LMS pilot implementation at Fresno State.