Articulate, Moodle, and SCORM

You've got Moodle and Articulate now you want them to talk to each other using SCORM.  One of the most common questions I see in forums, twitter, and blogs is how to use SCORM so that the results of eLearning courses developed with articulate can be tracked in the Moodle gradebook.  While it is a fairly simple process, many eLearning developers run into problems tracking scores for Articulate courses in Moodle.  All it takes is one wrong setting for your scores to not be tracked and there are a lot of SCORM settings to choose from in both programs. This blog post is an attempt at helping out eLearning developers having trouble using SCORM features in Articulate and Moodle.  I hope that the video and written instructions below help one of those many people encountering issues using SCORM with Articulate and Moodle.

(Click Here to view video on Screenr)

How to use SCORM reporting with Articulate and Moodle:
The instructions below highlight some of the key points covered in the video.  For full details and a visual example please see the video above.
 Articulate Settings:

• From within your Articulate Presenter project, access the "Publish" feature.
• Select LMS as the publishing option
• Click on the SCORM Reporting and Tracking button
• Enter course description on "Reporting" tab (Optional)
• Click on the "Tracking" tab and set the project to track slide views or a quiz score.
• Slide views - Best used for Presenter projects that don't include a quizmaker or Learning Objects quiz.
• Quiz score - Best used for Quizmaker and Presenter projects that include a Learning Objects quiz.
• Click OK and Publish
• After publishing, compress all of the published files into a compressed Zip folder

Moodle Settings:

• From the Moodle course site in Editing Mode, add a "SCORM/AICC" Activity.  A common mistake is to use the "Link to file or web site" resource.
• After selecting the "SCORM/AICC" activity, you will be able to upload the zipped folder of published articulate files.
• After uploading the zipped folder, click the "Choose" option.
• From here you will be able to adjust the rest of the settings to your liking.
• Once you have all the settings adjusted you can go back to the course site and test your Articulate project.  After completing the project your grade should show up in the grade book on the course site.

Hope this helps out and let me know if you have any questions or alternative approaches to using Articulate, Moodle, and SCORM.

Related Posts:

• Using SCORM with Adobe Captivate and Moodle 

Moodle Pros and Cons Update

With all the hype surrounding the upcoming arrival of Moodle 2.0, I thought it might be a good time to revisit what we love and hate about Moodle 1.9.  In a previous post, "Moodle Pros and Cons" I set out on a mission to build a robust list of Moodle Pros and Cons that would be a great resource to someone researching whether Moodle would fit their needs.  I thought a list created on my own would not be nearly as useful as a list created with the help of fellow moodlers who come from different perspectives so I created a wiki page and posted a call for help compiling the ultimate Pros and Cons list.  While the response wasn't enormous there were some great pros and cons added to the list from Joseph Thibault and other fellow Moodlers.  Now that we are getting ready to say goodbye to Moodle 1.9, I thought it would be a good time to post the updated pros and cons list and send out another call for help adding more pros and cons to the list.  If you have any contributions please click on the link below to add your thoughts to the Moodle pros and cons wiki page. 

• Click Here to Contribute to the list of Moodle Pros and Cons

Moodle Benefits	Moodle Drawbacks
Open Source - Free to download and lots of great plugins to customize to your needs. - Joe Deegan	Reporting - There is no simple way to run a site wide report with users grades in multiple courses. You are stuck going into each course site to view one courses grades at a time or using the overview report to view grades for one user at a time. - Joe Deegan
Great Community - There is a great community of Moodlers more than willing to help you solve any problems you may come across. - Joe Deegan	User management - No easy way to manage groups of students. It would be much easier if there was a way to manage groups site wide rather than on a course by course basis. I need to use groups for position and region which requires a lot of maintenance of the groups in each course site. - Joe Deegan
Customizable - There is a huge selection of plugins and add ons freely available to help you customize Moodle to your needs. - Joe Deegan	Takes a little tech savvy - Not just any trainer or teacher can download Moodle and be up and running with a quality LMS. It takes a little tech savvy and access to IT Dept resources to implement. - Joe Deegan
Widely Available - Most low cost hosting solutions on the web will install Moodle for you at no cost through simple scripts or an easy to use interface (which makes starting up much easier than having to know/install php, etc.) - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC )	Closed - if you're looking to create an open repository of information that anyone can browse and engage, Moodle is not necessarily the best tool. You can "open" your Moodle, but most installations require registration, and even more courses require course passwords (enrolment keys) - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC ) Actually, it is possible to set up a Moodle site so that anyone can read without registering and without login. And anyone can edit via self registering.
Sell content - one of the less talked about benefits is that for small businesses, Moodle offers a fully capable course delivery and sales platform. Just plugin your paypal email address and list prices. Though users will have to register before being able to make a purchase (which might be viewed as a drawback) - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC )	the admin side is not very user friendly. many info on the web but its not that easy getting used to the Moodle logic as admin, especially as the whole thing is strictly course oriented (as pointed above). also the "helps" are rather brief and hardly offer help for a begginer. but generally i do like moodle. guess im just a cons kind a guy...
Familiar - During workshops I like to put teachers at ease by letting them know if they've filled out an online application or form, they can master Moodle. All activities and resources are driven by similar form templates (title, description, etc.), if teachers can look past the fact that there are a lot of choices, working with Moodle to build content is easy - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC )	The Real Cost - Upside Learning wrote a good post highlighting some important factors to take into consideration before implementing Moodle. While Moodle is free to download but in reality the costs can add up if you go with a "Do it yourself" approach. - Joe Deegan Click here for article from Upside Learning
Content - Moodle's backup and restore functions are two of my favorites. The shear number of sites and courses on the web is HUGE...so if you're willing to do a little research/searching odds are you can find a pre-constructed course that the author is willing to share with you. Check out sites like Moodlecommons.org and Moodle.org 's course exchange for free resources - Joseph Thibault (MM - GC Related Posts: Moodle Pros and Cons Why Moodle?

Best of Both Worlds: Integrating Adobe Captivate and Articulate Presenter

Adobe Captivate and Articulate Studio have different skill sets and sometimes you need the best of both worlds.  While Captivate is great for software simulations, I think Articulate is better for soft skills projects and tying the whole thing together.  Because Captivate and Articulate have unique qualities you may come across the situation where you want the best of both worlds by using the two programs together.  For example, I'm currently working on a project where branching scenarios lead into software simulations.  I wanted to use Articulate presenter for the branching scenario but I also wanted to use Adobe Captivate for the software simulations.  This brought me to the challenge of embedding an Adobe Captivate software simulation in an Articulate Presenter project.  Through a little research and trial and error I found a way to smoothly embed an Adobe Captivate software simulation in an Articulate Presenter project.  This post includes a Screenr video and written instructions describing how to take advantage of the best of both worlds by integrating Adobe Captivate and Articulate Studio.  Please post a comment if you have any questions or ideas of how to improve upon what I started.

Video Overview:
The Screenr video below overviews how to embed Adobe Captivate Software simulations in an Articulate Presenter project as well as a cool way to transition from a branching scenario into the Captivate software simulation.  Check out my post "How to Create a Zoom and Pan Effect in PowerPoint" for more information on the "Zoom and Pan" transition effect.

(Click Here to View Video on Screenr)

Written Instructions:
Why reinvent the wheel? Dave Perso wrote up great instructions of how to embed Adobe Captivate in Articulate Presenter in his post at the link below.  You may have got the jist from my Screenr video above but if you would like more details or a written set of instructions then click on the link below to check out Dave's post.  I also included a link to my previous post which describes a method for transitioning from a scenario into a software simulation by creating a "Zoom and Pan" effect in PowerPoint.

• Daveperso's Articulate eLearning Blog: Presenter 09 and Captivate 4
• How to Create a "Zoom and Pan" Effect in PowerPoint

How to Create a "Zoom and Pan" effect in Powerpoint for eLearning

I am working on a software training project developed with Articulate where the eLearning course transitions from a branching scenario into a software simulation and I wanted to create a smooth transition from the scenario into the simulation. The scene transitions from the character sitting at a desk in front of the computer to a full screen software simulation developed with Adobe Captivate. I thought it would be cool to zoom in over the characters shoulder for a smooth transition into the full screen simulation but I wasn't quite sure how to approach this "Zoom and Pan" effect using Powerpoint animations. After a little playing around I discovered that by grouping all objects on the slide and using the "Grow/Shrink" animation I was close to achieving this effect. I figured out the Zoom but I knew there was room for improvement. I knew that with a little help from the Articulate community I could improve the effect so I recorded a Screenr video describing how I created the effect I had so far and asking for suggestions on how I could improve on it. As usual the Articulate community came up huge and responded with some great suggestions to improve the effect.

The Screenr videos below take you start to finish through the process of creating the "Zoom and Pan" transition using PowerPoint animations. The first video is what started things off and the following videos take it to the next level by using Powerpoint "Motion Paths" to add the "pan" effect and "parallel proximity." With the help of David Anderson, Kevin Thorn, and other helpful Articulate users I now have a nice transition from the scenario into the software simulation. Now that I know how to create this affect I have a lot of ideas of how to use it in other types of eLearning scenarios to bring attention to certain parts of the screen or scene that you are developing. In the spirit of sharing I have included the source files and posted the videos for anyone looking to create a similar effect. Please post a comment if you have any suggestions to improve the scene or ideas of how to use this effect in other types of eLearning scenarios.

I started things off by describing how I created the "Zoom In" effect using the "Grow/Shrink" animation. This was getting close to what I was looking for but there was still room for improvement.

(Click Here to View on Screenr)

David Anderson and Kevin Thorn both responded with the suggestion of adding a "Motion Path" to go along with the "Grow/Shrink" to achieve the Zoom and Pan effect. David Anderson describes this in the Screenr video below.

(Click Here to View on Screenr)

I guess I got David's wheels turning because later in the day he took it to the next level describing how to use the "Grow/Shrink" and "Motion Path" animations to create the "Parallel Proximity" effect.

(Click Here to View on Screenr)

Written Instructions:
I also received a response pointing me to written instructions from Microsoft explaining this and alternate methods of creating the "Zoom and Pan" effect.

• Create Pan and Zoom effects in PowerPoint

Source Files:
If you would like to tinker around with the PowerPoint or use it for your own projects feel free to download the source files using the links below:

• Zoom and Pan.PPTX
  
• Zoom and Pan.PPT
  

Related Posts:
If you are looking for tips on creating an indoor scene in eLearning like you see in the Screenr videos then check out the post at the link below:

• Creating an Indoor scene in PowerPoint for eLearning

Help Me Design Synchronous eLearning

I am working on a project for my Ed Tech class at SDSU which is putting me a little out of my comfort zone. The project requires the design of an eLearning course including a synchronous portion where the facilitator and learners meet online using web conferencing software. I have a lot of experience creating asynchronous "self paced" eLearning courses but rarely have the opportunity to work on eLearning courses with a synchronous session involved. I am excited about the opportunity to try something new and would love your input on the design of the course especially when it comes to the synchronous online meetings at the beginning and end of the course. Below you will find the syllabus which summarizes the design I have come up with so far and the direction I am headed with the project. Help me earn an A+ on this project by posting any suggestions, ideas, or questions you may have about designing synchronous elearning as a comment.

Excerpts from Syllabus

Course Description:
This course introduces Moodle, the Learning Management System and how it can be used to create an online course site and learning activities. Course participants will take a "Hands On" approach to learning Moodle by completing a project based lesson which requires the development of a Moodle course site. Through the development of this project, participants will learn how to take advantage of the Moodle features described below and finish with a course site that can be used for their own courses:

• Customize course site settings for your specific needs
• Add text and graphics to your course site
• Add resources such as web sites or documents to your course site
• Create graded online activities such as quizzes and self paced online lessons.
• Create social learning activities such as Forums, Chats, Wiki's, and Blogs.
  

The course starts and ends with synchronous online discussions while the majority of learning will take place asynchronously using resources available on the course site to complete the project. The online discussions will get you started on the project and provide the opportunity to receive feedback while learning the basics of Moodle through the development of your own course site. Because the majority of the course is completed independently, it is important that you take advantage of the forums on the course site to ask questions and complete your weekly progress reports. Don't wait until the last minute to ask a question, be proactive by posting any questions or concerns on the forums so that you can build the course site of your dreams.

Course Site and Resources:
You are not on your own when it comes to completing this project. By completing weekly assignments, communicating with your instructor and classmates, and taking advantage of resources found on the course site you will learn a lot about Moodle and walk away with a finished product that you can be proud of. Everything you need to attend online meetings and complete the project is found on the course site. Prior to attending our first online meeting, familiarize yourself with the course by reading through each section on the course site.

Course Schedule:
Week 1:

• Online Meeting
• Accessed through course site
• Topics - Moodle overview, Project overview, Discuss project ideas
  
• Post your idea for project in progress report
• Use the "Progress Report" forum on the course site
• Summarize the purpose and content of your course site. Outline what content, resources, and activities will be included in your course site.
  

Week 2:

• No meeting
• Create project course site and begin adding text using resources in section 2 of course site.
• "Add a new course" using resources in section 2
• Assigning participants to the "Student" role
  
• Add instructions for students and outline content of course using resources in section 2.
  
• Post Progress Report
  
• Use the "Progress Report" forum on the course site
• Summarize what you have done so far, lessons you have learned, and any questions you have.
• Post link to your project site in forum posting.
  

Week 3:

• No meeting
• Add resources and activities to course site using resources in section 3 of course site.
• Add a resource such as a web site or document using resources.
• Add a graded activity such as a quiz or self paced lesson using resources.
• Add a social activity such as a forum, chat session, wiki, or blog
  
• Post progress report
• Use the "Progress Report" forum on the course site
• Summarize what you have done so far, lessons you have learned, and any questions you have.
• Post link to your site in forum posting
  

Week 4:

• Online Meeting
• Accessed through course site
• Topics - Project Presentations and feedback

_______________________________________________________

Any Feedback??:
So, what do you think? If you have any ideas, questions, or suggestions please let me know by posting a comment.

Creating a Better eLearning Scene With a Little Help

A great way to create effective eLearning is to throw the learner into a simulation of the task or performance you are training them to complete. Don't just tell the learner about it, make them do it. This often requires simulating the scene where the task takes place which can be difficult to make look realistic in whatever authoring tool you may use. One way to create a realistic scene is to use pictures of the actual environment but in some cases you might want to design a scene that is easier to manipulate so that various scenarios can be constructed from the same scene. The latter is the situation I was in in for an eLearning project I just finished. I was trying to create a scene of the inside of a room and was struggling to make it look realistic with 3D perspective so I turned to the Articulate community for a little help by adding this Articulate forum post and they came through with some quality tips as you can see by the before and after image. This blog post takes you through the development of this scene, and describes some of the lessons I learned along the way with a little help from fellow eLearning developers.

Tools:
The eLearning course was developed using Articulate so most of the work was done in Power point. I did use Photoshop to create the floor and wall textures but other than that it's all Power point.

Before:
I started out by creating floor and wall textures in Photoshop to create the scene in Power Point. You can find images of floors and walls on sites like istock or create your own. In my case I used an image of carpet for the floor, and I created the walls by following the steps in this tutorial to create a drywall texture. You can also find textures on this Flickr site that David Anderson (@eLearning) referred me to. Once you have the images you are going to use for the floors and walls you are ready to put your scene together in powerpoint using the 3D formatting and rotation options. This is where you will need to spend time tinkering with the 3D options to give your floors and walls the correct perspective. The video below describes what 3D options I used and how I got started creating this scene.

(Click here to view the "Before" video)

After:
After posting the Screenr video in the Articulate forum I got some great tips to make the scene more realistic. I learned that there are many different ways to do the same thing and ended up using a variety of tips from multiple contributors to the forum post that helped to improve the scene. The lessons I learned and used to improve my scene are described in the points and videos below:

• David Anderson recommended removing the shadow underneath the wall, moving the floor and wall higher, and adding a person to the scene to add perspective.
• Andrea05, and David Anderson all recommended adding depth and perspective to the room by using a larger image of the carpet and drywall that is not so focused, shrinking the baseboard, adding more objects to the scene, and adding a side wall.
• Jeanette Brooks recommended adding a dark to light gradient on the carpet to add perspective and depth to the room.
  

Tom Kuhlmann demonstrated and described how to implement many of these ideas with the Screenr video embedded below. This was a big help in making the ideas happen.

(Click Here to view Tom Kuhlmanns suggestions)

Bruno De Pace (@evolve4success) suggested an alternative way of adding perspective by using side walls. This is also a great tip that may be a little easier to develop than what Tom suggested. Like I said, there are many different ways to do the same thing and this video proves that point.

(Click here to view Bruno De Pace's suggestions)

Posting this question was a very educational experience for me and I hope others can learn from it. Although I learned a lot about design and power point one of the most powerful lessons learned for me is to not be too proud or embarrassed to ask a question. There are a lot of eLearning all stars out there more than willing to make a contribution to the eLearning community. That being said, I'll bet some of you have more ideas or questions about how to attack this situation. If you have a tip or a question please post it as a comment here, post it in the Articulate forum, or even better do both. I also highly encourage you to jump on Screenr and show us what you are talking about with a short demo. Help make the eLearning world a better place by sharing your thoughts.

Resources:

• Articulate Forum Post
  
• My Screenr demo that started it all
• Tom Kuhlmanns Screenr response with some great tips
• Bruno De Pace's alternative method of adding depth and perspective
• David Andersons Screenr demo that got me started thinking about this in the first place

SCORM Problems Caused by Moodle Review Mode

I ran into a problem this week involving Moodle and SCORM and wanted to share the problem and solution for my own good and for the good of anyone else out there who may be having a similar problem. What I was trying to do is relatively common so I am sure I am not the only one running into this problem with using SCORM on Moodle no matter what authoring tool you are using.

The Problem:
The problem was with a SCORM based course not tracking scores correctly in the Moodle gradebook due to it forcing learners into "Review Mode" after their first attempt. The "Review Mode" feature is designed to allow the user to review the eLearning course without their score being tracked in the gradebook. The problem I was having is that for this course I wanted to allow unlimited attempts and have their highest score tracked in the Moodle gradebook but Moodle did not make that easy on me. Moodle was forcing the user into "Review Mode" on their second attempt no matter what their score was on their first attempt. This was no good because it did not give the user the opportunity to improve their score after their first attempt like I was hoping for. The gradebook only reported scores for the users first attempt due to them being forced into "Review Mode" on their second attempt. This lead me into a scavenger hunt for information on how to disable "Review Mode." What I ended up finding is a better solution.

The Solution:
After digging through Moodle forums I discovered that "Review Mode" kicks in after the user has received a "Passing Score" on the course. At first this didn't make sense to me because in Articulate, I had the passing score set to 100%. If the passing score was set to 100% then why is "Review Mode" kicking in for lower scores? Then I realized that the Moodle gradebook has a "Passing Score" option also. After this light bulb kicked on I set the passing score in the Moodle gradebook to 100% and voila, "Review Mode" doesn't kick in unless the user has scored 100% and at that point who cares because they can't score better anyway. If you have run into this problem you can change your passing score by following the written or video instructions below.

(Click Here to view Video Instructions)

Changing the "Passing Score" to avoid Moodle's "Review Mode":

1. The settings on the SCORM activity can vary depending on your preferences but in my case I used the settings below:
1. Grading Method = Highest Grade
2. Maximum Score = 100
3. Number of Attempts = Unlimited
4. Attempts Grading = Highest Attempt
2. From the Moodle Grade book, turn editing on.
3. Click on the edit icon located in the column for the SCORM activity
4. After clicking the edit icon you will see an option labeled "Grade to Pass." Set this to 100 or whatever you would like the passing score to be.
5. Click Save. After changing this option the user will not be forced into "Review Mode" unless they have received a passing score.
   

Related Posts:

• Using SCORM with Adobe Captivate and Moodle
  

5 Reasons Why I Decided to Buy Articulate Studio 09

I'm just finishing up my test drive of Articulate Studio 09 and I am sold on driving my own version off the lot. As I discussed in my post "Articulate, Captivate, Both, Or....?", I have been using Adobe Captivate but would like something that integrates with Power Point and speeds up the development process. Articulate has definitely proven that it provides what I was looking for and many other benefits that I was not aware of. Here are 5 reasons why I decided to pay the price for Articulate Studio 09.

1. Rapid Development - Yes, it still takes time and effort to design and develop a quality eLearning experience but Articulate has definitely sped up the development process for me. I went into this just hoping to eliminate the steps I was taking to convert my power point into a Captivate file but got more than I was expecting with Quizmaker and Engage. I was expecting these tools to speed up development but I was not expecting the quality results. Before diving into this I thought these tools were just for cookie cutter eLearning and not as flexible as you see in the Screenr videos here and here and here.
   
2. Community - I had been following Tom Kuhlmann's Rapid eLearning blog for quite a while and have learned a lot from him but I had no idea about all the great Screenr videos, blog posts, and forum posts from other Articulate gurus such as David Anderson (@eLearning), Dave Mozealous (@dmozealous), and Jeanette Brooks (@JeanetteBrooks) all of whom have already helped me troubleshoot an issue or sparked a creative idea for a project after only a month of using Articulate. The community's ability to show me the potential of Articulate products and quickly help me troubleshoot an issue is what truly sold me.
   
3. Bandwidth - The learners in my organization are what I like to call "Bandwidth Challenged." You may have read previous posts of mine describing the problems I have with learners computers freezing on SCORM based Captivate projects. This is no problem with Articulate. SCORM based projects are running like a dream even for my "Bandwidth Challenged" learners. I believe this may be due to Articulate producing a package of smaller files compared to Captivate publishing one big .swf file. However, I am using Captivate 3 and I have heard that this is not as much of a problem in Captivate 4.
   
4. PowerPoint Integration - I often find myself doing the majority of the work in power point then importing those slides into Captivate to make the final touches and publish. I felt like I was taking extra steps by jumping between the different programs and thought I might be able to save time and possibly get better results using a tool that integrates with Power Point. I was right about saving time and pleasantly surprised about the difference in results of the published files. I have noticed that power point slides with Articulate come out with a cleaner, crisper look and smaller file size compared to Captivate.
5. Flexibility - Compared to other tools that integrate with Power Point, Articulate is more flexible. There are many more options giving you control of the navigation and behavior of each slide and the overall template. I've only completed a couple of projects so I feel like I am just scratching the surface with all of the customization options available.
   

I am excited about the potential for future projects now that I am able to leverage the best of what both Articulate Studio and Adobe Captivate are best at. I'm sure not everyone will agree but from the perspective of a busy eLearning Developer in a smallish organization, Articulate will definitely improve the quality of many projects and reduce the time it takes to produce those results. Please help others lost in all the software options by posting your take on Articulate, Adobe Captivate, and other eLearning development tools.

Related Posts:

• Articulate, Captivate, Both...or?
  

Articulate, Captivate, Both, or....?

I've been using Adobe Captivate for a while now and I am very happy with it for technical training projects but I can't help but wonder if other tools like Articulate may be a great addition to my toolbox. Since I already have Captivate, I need to determine whether it would be worth the investment to purchase new software when I may be able to get along just as well with what I already have. I'm hoping you can help me make this decision by commenting with your thoughts on the skill sets of Articulate, Captivate, or a different eLearning authoring tool altogether.

In my humble opinion, Captivate is second to none when it comes to software simulations and technical training projects but I believe there is a little left to be desired when it comes to soft skills projects that don't require screencasting. I often find myself creating most of the content in Power Point, then importing those slides into Captivate to add interaction and publish as flash. Being that Articulate integrates so well with Power Point it makes me wonder if maybe I would be happier with it for certain projects. But then there's that price tag that comes along with Articulate that makes me think I should just stay with what is already working okay for me. So, what do you think, is Articulate worth the investment when I already have Captivate? Before I jump into the trial version of Articulate to test it out I'd like to hear your opinion on eLearning development tools. Here's a brief description of some of the requirements that will come into play in the decision making process.

Requirements:
This is definitely not an exhaustive list of requirements but my main concerns going into the research stages.

• Works well for low bandwidth users - You could say that my learners computers are bandwidth challenged. I have a difficult time using SCORM with Captivate because of the added bandwidth. Keeping bandwidth to a minimum is a huge concern for me.
• Moodle friendly - If you've read this blog before you know I am using Moodle so it is important that whatever tool I use is Moodle friendly.
• SCORM works well on Moodle - I've had my challenges using SCORM with Captivate and Moodle due to bandwidth issues. Hoping a different tool might be able to handle this better.
• Budget Friendly - I don't have much room in the budget so it needs to be something that's not going to leave too much of a dent in it. The price tag on Articulate is pushing it. Although I do have a student discount so I may be able to find a better deal then what is advertised on the web site.
• Branching Friendly - This year I will be working on a lot of scenario based branching eLearning tutorials. I'd like a tool that is designed well for laying out a branching tutorial and makes it easy to create menu screens with variables based on the users path.
  

Moodle Pros and Cons

Making the decision to go with Moodle over other Learning Management Systems can be a very difficult decision, especially when you don't have the experience to know the benefits and drawbacks of Moodle. Something that can be very helpful in this decision making process is feedback from Moodlers on the Pros and Cons of Moodle. In an effort to help those struggling with this decision I am looking for your help constructing a list of the pros and cons of Moodle from multiple perspectives and opinions. A list created on my own will not be nearly as complete as a list constructed with your help. Help make the Moodleverse a better place by sharing your experience.

I have kick started the list with a few pros and cons on a wiki page. All you need to do to contribute is click on the link to the wiki page below, click the "Edit" option on the wiki page, and add your contribution to the list. There are a few more details on the wiki page but wikispaces has made it very simple for all of us to collaborate on this list. Also, don't be shy to get a conversation about the pros and cons of Moodle started by leaving a comment here or using the "Discussion" option on the wiki page. So, what are you waiting for? Make the Moodleverse a better place by clicking on the link below and contributing to the list.

• Click Here to contribute to the list of Moodle Pros and Cons

I kick started the list with the pros and cons below. These are some of the major pros and cons that stick out for me from the corporate perspective. Hopefully this will spur some ideas for you so that the list of pros and cons can grow. Thanks in advance for your contributions.

Moodle Benefits	Moodle Drawbacks
Open Source - Free to download	Reporting - There is no simple way to run a site wide report with users grades in multiple courses. You are stuck going into each course site to view one courses grades at a time or using the overview report to view grades for one user at a time.
Great Community - There is a great community of Moodlers more than willing to help you solve any problems you may come across.	User management - No easy way to manage groups of students. It would be much easier if there was a way to manage groups site wide rather than on a course by course basis. I need to use groups for position and region which requires a lot of maintenance of the groups in each course site.
Customizable - There is a huge selection of plugins and add ons freely available to help you customize Moodle to your needs.	Takes a little tech savvy - Not just any trainer or teacher can download Moodle and be up and running with a quality LMS. It takes a little tech savvy and access to IT Dept resources to implement.

Related Posts:

• Moodle Pros and Cons Update

Moodle Reporting and User Management: Is MOOMIS the answer?

Moodle does a lot of things great, but site wide reporting and bulk user management are definitely not included in those great things. If you are a Moodle administrator for an organization I am sure you know the pain of having to go into each course site to produce grade reports for multiple courses. In my case, I have to send out a weekly report listing every users grades in every course they have taken on Moodle. This means I have to go into each course site and export a grade report to an excel spreadsheet and then merge all of those separate spreadsheets into one big grade report. To complicate things even more, I have to maintain separate groups within each course site so that users can be sorted by position or location. To my horror, if a user changes positions or locations I have to move them to a new group in each course site. When you have a lot of users and a lot of courses this can become a very time consuming process. This puts me in the position of desperately needing a Moodle plugin that will make it easy for me to export site wide reports, and manage site wide user groups rather than having to complete these tasks repeatedly in each course site.

What is MOOMIS?
My Moodle administration despair lead me into a search for some kind of plugin or modification that will help me overcome these challenges. I was surprised to find that there aren't a whole lot of options out there until a conversation with Barry Sampson led me to the open source option called MOOMIS by aardpress. Keeping in Moodle style MOOMIS is open source and an acronym for Modular, Object, Oriented, Managed, Intelligence, System. It's not just one plugin but a suite of the business tools listed below:

• Communication - Moodle already has messaging and email capabilities but it's nothing special. Moomis' communication tool adds a few bells and whistles so you can do things like send emails to groups and add attachments.
  
• Competency Manager - This looks like a great tool for regulated markets such as insurance or health care. The competency manager allows you to setup "competencies" that can be linked to job titles. Users then complete coursework to work toward achieving these competencies. When they do reach the competency level for their position they have verified that they are competent for their position.
  
• CPD (Continuous Professional Development) - This tool is key for creating site wide reports with Moomis' "Report Creator." Every course on Moodle needs a CPD which is awarded to the student for completing a course. When the user makes it to the end of the course they have to click on the CPD activity which will then award them a CPD for either achieving a certain score on a quiz or by clicking a box verifying that they have completed the course.
  
• Events Manager - The "Events Manager" allows you to allocate "Real World" events such as instructor led training to users without having to create a course site specifically for that event. This is a nice feature which makes it easier to integrate instructor led training with eLearning and track it all in one place. As a big advocate for "Blended" training programs this is a feature that intrigued me.
  
• Groups - The "Groups" feature had me drooling when I first started researching Moomis because of it's ability to create site wide reports. In my situation I am dependent on groups so that I can sort users by region or position when looking at the gradebook. This tool allows you to create site wide groups so that you can then create site wide reports sorted by those groups. I was hoping that this feature would save me from having to manage separate groups in each course site on Moodle.
  
• Performance Manager - The "Performance Manager" is appealing to us corporate folk because of it's ability to tie learning objectives in with business objectives. We all know that the key to proving ROI in training is to tie learning objectives to what the overall business is trying to achieve. The performance manager allows you to setup business objectives in Moodle and then link users and courses to those objectives. This tool makes it obvious which courses or learning objectives are contributing to achieving business objectives.
  
• Report Creator - This is where the rubber meets the road. The main goal I am trying to achieve is to find an easy way to create site wide grade reports and that is what the report creator is designed to do. The report creator allows you to produce reports in a variety of different formats listing CPD's awarded to users in all courses they have taken on the site. I was hoping this would save me a lot of time by not having to go into each course site to export a grade report and then merge all those together to create a site wide report

What MOOMIS doesn't do

Before diving in and installing MOOMIS so that I could take it for a spin I thought it was going to be the answer to all my problems. In particular, I was drooling over the "Groups" feature and the "Report Creator." Unfortunately these features don't quite work the way I was hoping for so I am going to have to continue my search for a plugin that will address my issues. However, MOOMIS does have potential and with some enhancements I think it could take the corporate world by storm. Here are my suggestions for MOOMIS that would make it the Moodle add on of my and I am sure many other Moodle administrators dreams.

• Groups - The idea of being able to manage groups site wide rather than course by course is fantastic. However, MOOMIS groups do not cascade down to the course sites. MOOMIS groups are great for creating MOOMIS reports but if you need to use separate groups for any course activities or to sort through the gradebook then you will still need to manage those groups on a course by course basis. MOOMIS groups are only helpful for MOOMIS tools such as the report creator and communication tools. I would love this tool if the MOOMIS groups automatically imported into each course site so that I could manage all groups from one spot instead of in each course site. Unfortunately, MOOMIS groups do not address the problem I was hoping to overcome because I still need to manage groups in every single course site.
• Continuous Professional Development(CPD) - Here's another great idea that just needs a little tweaking. CPD's work a lot like units for college courses. Students are awarded a specified number of CPD's for completing a course. My problem is with how course completion is determined. The only options for awarding CPD's are to automatically award the CPD for passing a certain moodle quiz or by having the student click a box verifying that they completed the course. This isn't ideal for me because I try to avoid quizzes and usually use other graded activities in courses such as Moodle lessons and SCORM modules developed with Adobe Captivate, but none of these activities are recognized by MOOMIS. If you are going to use any graded activity to determine completion it has to be a quiz on Moodle and can only be one quiz. Or else you can use the verification option where learners click a box to verify that they completed the course but I don't really trust my learners to not just scroll to the bottom of the course and click it no matter how engaging the eLearning course is. MOOMIS could overcome this option by awarding CPD's based off the "Total Score" in the course. This way you could ensure that learners completed all activities in a course because all of the activities contribute to the total score. It doesn't make sense to me to determine completion of a course solely on a final quiz rather than the culmination of everything the student has done in the course.
• Report Creator - I think the Report Creator would be great if CPD's were based off the courses total score. The report creator produces reports based off of CPD's, enrollments, or quiz scores, so really your only producing a report of what users have done on quizzes in each course. I was hoping that the report creator would produce reports based off of all activities including SCORM and Lessons but it does not. All MOOMIS needs to do to overcome this problem is to award CPD's based off of the courses total score.

In the end, MOOMIS isn't the answer to my issues at this time but I am happy to hear that they will be continuing to make enhancements and are actually coming out with a new release in January. If you are thinking about implementing MOOMIS you might want to wait until the new release in January. In fact, if you want to test out MOOMIS try doing it on a test version of Moodle or at least make sure you back up your database before installing it. Luckily I tested MOOMIS on my test version of Moodle which now has CSS problems. My columns are all over the place after installing it. I've included links below to the aardpress site describing Moodle and to the download on SourceForge. If you decide to try it out please let me know what you think of it or if you have any suggestions for overcoming the hurdles I described in this post.

Resources:

• Aardpress description of MOOMIS
  
• SourceForge download (Be Warned: Back up your Moodle first!)

Related Posts:

• Managing Users in Moodle
  

Telecollaboration and Project Based Training

I just finished another course in the Ed Tech program at San Diego State called "Advanced Teaching with Tech." Being that the class is called "Advanced Teaching with Tech," I thought we would dive deeper into using technology but unfortunately we didn't dive much deeper than Google Apps and Questgarden. However, I did pick up some new instructional design skills that I will be able to apply at work right away. This post describes a couple of projects I developed for this class and what I learned from them.

Early in the semester we were assigned to develop a Telecollaboration lesson using Google Sites. This was the first time I had heard of a telecollaboration lesson so I was curious to hear about something with such a fancy name. A telecollaboration or telecollaborative lesson is an educational project where participants learn by sharing information with other groups of people over the internet. This is an ideal project for me because a large part of my responsibilities at work involve developing eLearning courses and I am always looking for new ways to facilitate collaboration with others through eLearning. A common hit on eLearning is that it does not have the benefits gained through face to face interaction and collaboration with others that ILT can provide. However, telecollaboration lessons can help eLearning courses overcome the challenge of facilitating interaction and collaboration online.

The telecollaboration activity I designed for this project is called the "Handling Customer Objections Showdown." I wanted to develop something that I could also use at work where the majority of my learners are retail sales professionals. Participants of the showdown will improve their ability of overcoming customer objections by competing to post the best solutions to customer objections on a discussion board. Not only will this facilitate the sharing of best practices but it will also contribute to a database of solutions to customer objections that can be used as a job aid. I've been trying to come up with way's to take advantage of forums in Moodle and this will be a great lesson to do so with. Check it out and let me know if you have any suggestions.

Another focus of the semester was designing project based lessons where participants learn through working on a project in a group or individually. I love this type of lesson because it focuses on learners demonstrating the performance and generally there is not much lecture involved. To sum it up there is less telling and more doing. Project based lessons are definitely something I can take back to work as they work well as part of a blended training approach including both instructor led and eLearning solutions. In the past I have had success using eLearning to teach the pre requisite information that learners need to know before attending an Instructor Led course where they will apply what they learned in the eLearning with a project based lesson.

The Project Based Lesson I created is called "Selling Sleep Disorder Relief" and is designed to help sleep products salespeople improve their performance with customers who suffer from Sleep Disorders. The lesson is designed so that participants are broken into groups according to the retail store or region they work in and are assigned to research a sleep disorder then deliver a presentation about the disorder to the rest of the class. The presentation must include a "Role Play" simulation of an ideal sales presentation for a person with the sleep disorder. This improves learning due to the fact that they are going out and researching the information then forming a hypothesis on their own of how that information can be used back on the sales floor to improve their performance. This lesson personifies the notion of "more doing, and less telling."

Although the class didn't cover as much technology as I was hoping for I did learn a lot about instructional design. Learning about Instructional Design may not be as fun but we have to take our medicine in order to use technology effectively. I look forward to implementing these lessons at work and please leave a comment if you have suggestions.

Personal Learning Network 3

An assignment for my "Tech for Teaching" class at SDSU requires us to follow Ed Tech related blogs on our reader than write up a summary of what we learned from reading these posts and how these lessons apply to our professional goals. This is the third of 3 Personal Learning Network reports on some lessons I have learned lately through blogs I follow in Google Reader.

Over the past year, I have been working on the major project of transitioning my organization from only instructor led training to a "Blended" training approach consisting of eLearning, Instructor Led Training(ILT), and Job Aids. The blog posts highlighted in this Personal Learning Network (PLN) report provide valuable information that will help improve the effectiveness of my organizations training solutions by transitioning to a "Blended" approach. The first article, "When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom" tells the story of a school that is maximizing the potential of a "Blended" approach by banning power point from the classroom and the second post titled, "Best Moodle Modules and Plugins" provides information on useful ways to customize Moodle. Together, these posts provide ideas for improving the effectiveness of a Blended training approach and the tools to help make those ideas happen.

I believe that there is no one best way to deliver training, and that in most cases, a blended approach is the most effective. ILT, eLearning, and job aids have different advantages that when used in combination can result in a more effective training solution. The article "When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom" featured on "The Chronicle of Higher Education" website describes what a Dean at Southern Methodist University is doing to push instructors towards a blended approach. I found this article intriguing because I think it hits the nail on the head of the best way to take advantage of ILT in combination with eLearning. By removing power point from the classroom and taking advantage of computer based resources, instructors are given the freedom to facilitate a more interactive session resulting in an improved learning experience.

A valuable tool in implementing a blended training approach is the learning management system, Moodle. As a Moodle administrator, I am always looking for customizations to help Moodle fit the needs of my organization. The post, "Best Moodle Modules and Plugins" describes tools that can improve the effectiveness of elearning. By using modules discussed in this post such as "Book" and "Questionnaire" we are improving the effectiveness of our ILT courses by making them more interactive. In the past, a portion of the ILT course would be reserved for lecture to introduce the topic. This type of information is now delivered via Moodle prior to the ILT course so that learners are familiar with the topic and ready to practice the skill they are learning when they arrive at the instructor led course.

Migrating to a "blended" training approach from nearly 100% ILT is a difficult battle and the posts highlighted in this PLN report are helping my organization's training dept reach it's goal. By taking advantage of tools such as the modules and plugins described in the blog post, "Best Moodle Modules and Plugins," while embracing the theories discussed in the article, "When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom" we are improving the effectiveness of our "Blend" of training solutions. I can't wait to see how what I have recently learned from my PLN helps my organization get closer to our goal of a blended training approach.

Related Posts:

• Personal Learning Network 1
• Personal Learning Network 2
  

Adobe Captivate: "Continue" or "Go to next Slide."

I have a confession to make. I was making a stupid mistake in Adobe Captivate 3 that was seriously affecting the performance of my eLearning tutorials. When I first started using Captivate I was under a tough deadline for my first project and did not have the time to take any classes or tutorials. I bought a book and dove right in. I was confident in my skills with Powerpoint and Captivate's not that much different, right? Wrong, Captivate has different options for advancing the tutorial with action buttons and thanks to the power of Twitter, I found out I was using the wrong option. Here's the story...

I was having a hard time figuring out how to reduce the bandwidth requirements for published flash files. My projects didn't have a lot of bells and whistles but when I used the "Bandwidth Analysis" option, I was finding that the KB/Sec were through the roof on every slide. In a few tweets about this with @JFDragon, he recommended to simply extend the length of my slides. The problem I had with that is that I didn't want to make the user sit around and wait for the timeline to finish out. @JFDragon pointed out that I don't need to make the user sit around if I have the slide advance using the "Go to next slide" option rather than "Continue." I was making the simple mistake of using the "Continue" option when I should have been using "Go to next slide."

The big difference is that the "Go to next slide" option advances to the next slide when clicked, no matter where the slide is at on the timeline. The "Continue" option will play out the rest of the timeline before advancing to the next slide. By using the "Go to next slide" option you can extend out the length of the slide but the user is still able to advance when they are ready. This allows more time for each slide to load in turn reducing the KB/Sec of each slide and the overall bandwidth requirements. Because I was using the "Continue" option, I had to make each slide only a few seconds long and pause at the end of each one so that the timeline would finish out before the user clicked on whatever they needed to click to continue. This means that each slide only had a few seconds to fully load which really ramped up the bandwidth requirements.

This small change has made my Adobe Captivate tutorials run much smoother and has dramatically reduced any kind of performance problems such as freezing. Now I am spending time going back and making this change to Captivate projects I have put together over the last 6 months. Hopefully this blog post will prevent another Captivate user from making the same mistake and having to waste time revising old projects. This problem was solved thanks to the power of Twitter! Follow me @joe_deegan so that we can learn from each other.

Related Posts:

• SCORM and Bandwidth
• SCORM and Bandwidth Part 2
• Adobe Captivate: The Dreaded Right Click
  

eLearning Learning Upgrades

Dr. Tony Karrer strikes again with more improvements to the eLearning Learning site. I've mentioned in previous posts how useful the eLearning Learning site is as a research tool and it just got better with a few nice upgrades.

• Best of - I used to subscribe to the "Full" RSS feed for eLearning Learning but that can be difficult to keep up with. Now there is an RSS option for the "Best Of" feeds which according to to Tony, "consists of feeds that are limited in number and point to the content that is the best stuff based on social signals." Now, I subscribe to the "Best of" feed so that I can keep up with the hot posts and don't have to do as much skimming.
• eMail Subscription - If you follow RSS feeds through email, I highly reccomend you stop the madness now and switch to a reader like Google Reader. If you still want to stick with your emails then you can now subscribe to eLearning Learnings feeds through email.
• Wordpress - The site is also now integrated with Wordpress which opens the door to more improvements in the future.

Thanks Tony for making it a great site and I hope you all find it useful as a one stop shop for eLearning research.

Related Posts:

• eLearning Learning
• eLearning Learning Widget
  

Manual Grading in eLearning

We all love multiple choice, true/false, matching or any kind of quiz questions that can be graded automatically by an LMS. We also know that these types of questions are not very effective but we keep on using them because they are easy to come up with and don't require manual grading. This leaves us with the dilemma of cutting corners and using auto graded questions or sucking it up and putting in the hard work to manually grade essay questions and assignments submitted to the LMS. I've decided to suck it up and sacrifice automatic grading for more effective assignments that will need to be graded manually. Now I have the challenge of coming up with a plan to manage the grading of these assignments for +1000 employees.

My plan of attack for managing the manual grading of these assignments is to have supervisors grade and provide feedback to their subordinates. This will take the load off of me and I believe learners will get more out of the experience because they will receive more valuable feedback from their supervisor rather than some guy they barely know(me). Sounds like a simple plan but now I have to put on my "Trainer" hat and train supervisors how to grade these assignments submitted through Moodle. Although this plan does still require work from me to train supervisors how to grade and provide feedback on the assignments through Moodle, I believe the benefit of learners receiving valuable feedback and coaching from their direct supervisor out weighs the work required to train supervisors and definitely beats grading them all myself.

I'm curious to hear how larger organizations handle the manual grading of assignments submitted through the LMS, or do large organizations avoid anything that needs to be manually graded? The +1000 employees that I am dealing with is small beans for a fortune 500 organization but they also have a lot more resources at their disposal.

At this point, I can't imagine handling the manual grading of assignments any other way than having supervisors take on the task but I am very curious to hear what other organizations are doing to handle this task. Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions of how to handle this challenge.

What's in a name?

I ran into a strange problem using an html file produced in Camtasia by TechSmith and delivered through Moodle that must be common amongst Camtasia and Moodle users. Hopefully this post will prevent others from making the same easy mistake.

I uploaded all of the necessary files produced by Camtasia to Moodle then created a link on the course site to the html file but received a strange error when opening the link. I had no clue what was causing the problem because I wasn't doing anything different so I did a quick search and found this post on the Moodle forums that helped me solve the issue. After reading this post I realized there was something different about this file, I left a space in the title. Apparently Moodle doesn't like any spaces or special characters in the file name because Camtasia uses windows naming conventions while Moodle uses Linux. It was the stupid space that I had in the title causing the error!

Quick Fix:
The quick fix for this is to rename the Camtasia project without spaces or special characters, reproduce it, then upload the new files to Moodle. Create a link to the new html file without spaces or special characters and voila!

Long Fix:
If you are like me and no longer have access to Camtasia or just feel like doing a little extra work you will need to go with the long fix. Because I don't have Camtasia anymore and can't reproduce the project, I had to go into the html and XML files to manually edit the file names. It's really not that difficult but is a little more tedious. After renaming the files, open the html and xml files in an editor (I used Dreamweaver) and run a "find and replace" for every file name that you changed. It's not just the flash file that you need to change the name of, you also need to change the names of the javascript and XML files. Once you have changed all of the names you can upload the edited files to Moodle, then create a link to the html file and you are in business.

It was an annoying issue but easy to resolve with the help of the Moodle community and it always feels good to solve a problem. Now that I have this bit of knowledge I'll make sure to avoid spaces in any files I use that will be going on Moodle just to avoid the trouble.

Continuous Learning Experience

Through experience I am learning that training should never be a one time event, it should be a continuous learning experience. As a corporate trainer it can be all too easy to facilitate the class (off or online), collect your smiley sheets, and check the class off the list as done forever. It feels great to mark the task off the list but it can also be a recipe for disaster. This raises the question, "What are the best "Continuous Learning" solutions?" This post highlights some of the wins and losses I have had in creating continuous learning experiences.

I have recently been working on a lot of technical training projects for a recent software implementation. The learners completed a series of eLearning tutorials and a day long instructor led training class but that was not enough to help learners retain the knowledge needed to use the software fluently. In an effort to provide a continuous learning experience I implemented a Wiki using MediaWiki. Myself and a few others filled the Wiki with detailed instructions covering every procedure the software is used for. It is now a great resource for quickly finding answers especially in the first couple of weeks after the software implementation. The instructions in the Wiki served as a great reminder of what they learned in the eLearning and instructor led courses to get them through the tough times.

However, the Wiki did not fulfill all of the learners needs. Many learners had a difficult time fully understanding the in's and outs of unique situations by reading instructions on the Wiki. They needed to interact with somebody who could answer their questions and provide perspective unique to the situation they are dealing with. The problem with this is that the technical support staff was too busy to provide the one on one coaching that many people needed. To address this issue I implemented a help forum on the organizations Moodle LMS where learners could go and post their non urgent questions. At first I thought it would mainly be the tech support staff answering questions in the forum but it turned out to be other tech savvy learners who caught on to the software quickly that were able to lend a helping hand to their colleagues by answering questions. The great thing about this is that the quick learners who were answering questions were learning more by answering questions. The forum turned out to not only be a great tool for reducing tech support calls, but it was also a great tool for both novices and experts to learn about the software.

The wiki and help forum turned out to be great resources but this was not until I could overcome the major hurdle of getting people to use these resources. In any organization, it can be difficult to attract participation for tools like this even if the information is valuable. I still don't have the participation I would like but as I continue to advertise within the organization, I'm gaining more and more visitors in each of these resources. The bullet points below highlight some of the advertising successes I have had:

• Cover Resources in Formal Training Courses - I made sure to include training on using the Wiki and help forum in the formal eLearning and Instructor Led courses as a form of advertising and to set expectations of when to use these resources. In the past, employees of the organization have had a tendency to quickly call the tech support staff when they didn't know how to do something so we needed to break this habit.
• Advertise anywhere and everywhere - The more chatter there is about the resources the better. I had success by advertising in the company newsletter and the internal company intranet. Employees refer to the newsletter and intranet for the latest news so these were ideal places to advertise the successes people were having using these resources.
• Get the power users involved - I mentioned that there was a tendency in the organization to rely on the tech support staff when you have a software question. To break this habit we needed to change the habits of both the employees and the tech support staff. Rather than firing off the answer to the question I encouraged the tech support staff to coach the employee on how to find the answer to their question using the Wiki and Forum. Once employees realized that if they call tech support, they are going to be coached on using the Wiki and Forum the calls start dwindling and participation in the resources increases.
  

After a lot of hard work the Wiki and Help Forum turned out to be great resources for creating a continuous learning experience. I am still learning more about Wikis and Forums and will be exploring other ways to continue the learning experience after the formal training is complete. What have you done that worked well? Please share your experience by posting a comment.

Moodle 1.9 eLearning Course Development by William Rice

As I have been working my way through a Moodle implementation I have used several different resources to find answers for my Moodle questions. While the moodle community is fantastic for finding quick answers to random issues, I have found that Moodle 1.9 by William Rice is a great resource for support from installation to setting up class pages.

Other Moodle books I have used in the past are either directed to the LMS admin installing and maintaining the database or the Trainer/Teacher creating class pages. William Rice does a great job of covering all aspects for those of you out there who are doing it all which I am sure is more and more in the current economy.

Something I like about this book is the plain language it is written in. Often times when I am reading forum posts in the Moodle Community I get lost in the "Techno Speak" and it seems like some of the Moodle gurus out there are trying to show off how much they know by explaining in a way that few people will understand. The downside to this plain language is that in many cases you don't get the whole story from the instructions in the book and will need to refer to the Moodle community to fill in the blanks.

Overall it's a good book to get you started with Moodle but it's also important to know that not all of the issues you will come across are covered in this book. It's a great reference to have on your desk while working your way through a Moodle implementation but you will also want to have the Moodle community bookmarked for the unique situations that are not covered in detail in the book.

Exploring Second Life

This week in an Instructional Design class I am taking in the Ed Tech program at SDSU we will be discussing Second Life. I've been hearing so much about using it as an instructional design tool and now that it has come up on the class schedule my curiosity has reached it's tipping point. I decided to sign on and see what it's all about.

I was hoping to get set up with my avatar and figure out how to "teleport" around in about an hour because that is all the time I had to play around. Well, I ended up spending that whole hour trying to perfect the look of my avatar. I left frustrated trying to use the options available in the default inventory. I decided to give up on my Avatar and try and explore all the great islands I have heard about it and could not get off of "Avatar Island" when my play around time expired.

I'll be spending more time learning the ropes of Second Life because I would like to use it for eLearning projects. Tom from the Rapid eLearning Blog sparked my interest with his post "Create eLearning scenarios by bringing the virtual word into the real world." The post covers how to use virtual worlds like second life to build realistic scenarios. Just create a few avatars and set them up in different environments to create snapshots for your eLearning scenario. So far I am not finding this as easy as it sounds considering it took me an hour to play around with the look of one avatar and I am stuck on avatar island.

I am sure there are some very basic elements that I haven't caught on to yet that will make my second life much more fulfilling. The key seems to be adding landmarks and avatars to my inventory but I haven't figured out how to do that. As time was running out I found the second life showcase tutorials which got me headed in the right direction but I'll need to spend more time with the tutorials to figure how to add to my inventory. I am sure with a little more research I'll be able to whip together those scenarios that Tom makes look so easy.