Moodle how tos session 1

How to break Moodle

• Minimise backing up and restoring courses, use of groups to streamline
• Be kind to your server - e.g. local copies of vidoes etc. Have a dedicated server for this material. 
• Watch hard coded links
• Limit access to templates 
• Document things - to learn from mistakes, share with community
• Limit use to custom hacks to 3rd party mods in Moodle - always comment changes, back up changes properly
• Planning server configuration - never code on a live Moodle (always use a dev server!), keep all machines with same version
• No everything works everywhere - bandwidth, requirements (e.g. Flash, admin rights, etc)

Moodle 2.0 files - an inconvenient truth

• a change in the way files are uploaded from 1.9 => there are no course files anymore
• old way - files first then do something with them later; but they were not secure, e.g. students could guess files, deleted files => broken links
• file now owned by a resources or activity - files uploaded to them, can copy to other activities or resources
• costs?? can't choose when to use files, can't link to same file from multiple places
• underlying philosophy is that Moodle is not a file repository but this is how people have used it
• can shift back to legacy course files - but Moodle HQ doesn't want it and won't be supported for too long??? and it has all of the problems as before. Is there a need for content management repositories?

Blog entries on this: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Using audio and video well in Moodle course

• it's about content - can explain and demonstrate concepts with video by manipulating time, e.g. time lapse, editing, repetition, POV cameras
• dynamic, constantly moving - evolutionary instinct
• scaffolding - foundational skills, repetition as skills are always the same
• recording lectures - home access, capture evidence of workplace assessment (video of essay marking for example)
• can embed audio directly - player pops up - but only certain sample rates works, constant bit rate
• Audacity to edit audio
• MP4, MOV, FLV player comes up automatically
• File conversions - SUPER, Format Factory, G-spot
• http://www.delicious.com/colsim/video