An informative single serving webpage from yours truly.

Tomaz Lasic has moved into a full-time position at Moodle HQ as an “Educational Researcher.” Part of his role, he says, is to look for new and better ways to make Moodle work for educators as a simple and effortless tool. Man, I hope he’s successful.

In writing about his vision for usable technology in the classroom, he mentions existing technologies that changed teaching and learning that are now considered boring: pencils, paper, white boards, overheads, etc. While I think commonplace is a more appropriate word for his meaning, his provocation makes you think.

Moodle is still looked at as a complex, shiny tool by most teachers. It’s powerful, sure. But, with all its bells and whistles, it’s not very intuitive for the beginner or veteran teacher. If Moodle is ever going to grow into a widely used tool for teaching and learning, it has to be simplified into something so intuitive and so commonplace that it’s used without the slightest bit of fanfare.

Let’s stop fetishising tech, work out what it’s good for and then use it do get where we want with the people we teach, work with.

It’s amazing how much of this sport I’ve watched this Olympic season without really knowing much about it. Quick and easy infographic.

School officials suspended her for three days, saying she had been “cyberbullying” the teacher[.]

Here’s why:

Throughout 2009, I recorded several dozen statistics about a) the pop culture I consumed, b) the people I talked to, c) the beer I drank, d) the places I visited, e) the vehicles I took to those places, and f) the amount of sleep I enjoyed each day. Those statistics spread across several thousand cells of a spreadsheet, which I then condensed and animated into [a] 2.5-minute video clip … [t]hat process took about a month, all told, which isn’t a ratio I’m proud of, even if I’m happy with the result.

I’ve linked to the Vimeo source of the video. You may also want to check out the post on his blog or another post where he explains how he made the video.

Along with the screenshot, I typically get a message that goes something like this:

There seems to be a bug in your theme causing the sideblocks to run outside the right margin of the background.

Of course, I have a quick response:

This is not a bug, but rather the result of adding a banner (images, table, etc.) that is too wide. Consider reducing the size of your banner.

It can’t be me. It must be you.

Then this past Friday, I had a client ask why I couldn’t make it look like this when a banner was too wide:

(Note the reduced margin on the right with blocks fully encased.)

That was a really good question that I had never really asked myself. So, I started to search for answers.

What I learned was basically this:

The layout model of tables differ from that of block level elements in that they will normally expand beyond their specified width to make their contents fit. At first that may sound like a good thing – and it often is – but it makes it possible for oversized content to make text unreadable or completely break a site’s layout, especially in Internet Explorer. Source: 456 Berea Street

Ok, so once I knew what was causing the problem – Moodle’s outdated use of tables in its layout – I just had to figure out how to fix it. I thought, “If the layout table is breaking the width of its parent DIV (and I can’t get rid of the layout table), how can I recode my theme to prevent this break from occurring?”

My solution is neither pretty nor brilliant, but it does work:

Stop wrapping the layout-table inside a DIV. Wrap it inside another table instead.

Tables don’t break the width of parent tables; they expand the width of parent tables. If you wrap the layout-table inside a single-celled table, then add your margin values to that table, you’re set.

Here’s is an example of how I once did things:

<div id="page">
  <div id="content">
    <table id="layout-table">
      <tr>

Here’s an example of how I would change that code now:

<table id="page">
  <tr>
    <td>
      <div id="content">
        <table id="layout-table">
          <tr>

By using the same ID, my CSS didn’t have to change a bit:

#page {
  margin:15px 10% 0;
}

I realize that this is an ugly hack – the legitimate solution is to eliminate the use of tables in the layout of Moodle altogether. This is coming in Moodle 2.0. In the meantime, this is an easy fix to keep your content inside the page!

It’s possible (and quite easy) to set an enrollment key for a group that is different from the enrollment key of the course. Students who use the group key will be entered into both your course and their group at the same time. Thus, you get enrollment and grouping all in the same single step.

Here’s a step-by-step process for setting this up:

1. Before having your students enroll in your course, set a course enrollment key (Administration > Settings > Enrollment Key). (This is necessary or your students won’t be prompted to enter a key.)
2. Create the groups you need within that course (Administration > Groups > Create Group), setting a different enrollment key for each one.



3. Instead of giving students the course enrollment key, give them their group enrollment key.

That’s it. It’s so simple that I may be the last person using Moodle to realize that this is possible. If not, enjoy!

Instead, under the administration’s proposals, a new accountability system would divide schools into more categories, offering recognition to those that are succeeding and providing large new amounts of money to help improve or close failing schools.

The menu that I’ve found has been under my nose the whole time. It’s the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) Menu included in every Moodle download since 2006. I’ve always known the YUI library was there, but embarrassingly hadn’t looked into it’s menu support until just this past week.

Here’s why it’s a superior menu:

1. It’s built on the only javascript library officially supported by Moodle.
2. All of the needed javascript and CSS files are included in the core. The only thing to do is reference them in your theme.
3. Being built on the YUI framework ensures your menu is future-proof. Moodle is committed to sticking with it through 2.0.
4. The YUI library offers great documentation.
5. Since it’s Moodle’s supported javascript library, it works without conflict in all browsers (I’ve personally tested Safari, Firefox, IE7, IE8, and Chrome – same behavior and appearance).
6. It’s completely customizable and offers as many levels of submenus as you’d like to include.

Before you tell me why this is an inferior menu to [insert your favorite menu here], let me stop you and say, “I know.” There are a lot of great menus out there. The problem I’ve found with other menus is their instability in relation to the wide array of code that comes out of and goes into a Moodle installation. I’m just sick of testing menu x on page y of module z.

Download a demo theme

To make this as easy as possible to share, I’ve created a blank theme that includes nothing more than the dropdown menu with basic styles.

Get the Base Menu YUI theme

What I’ve done

If you’re like me, you probably want to know what I did. Here you go:

1. A single line of code was added to the head of header.html to pull in all the javascript and stylesheets from the /moodle/lib/YUI/menu/assets/ directory in the core.

   <head>
       <?php echo $meta ?>
       <meta name="keywords" content="moodle, <?php echo $title ?> " />
       <title><?php echo $title ?></title>
       <link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php echo $CFG->themewww .'/'. current_theme() ?>/favicon.ico" />
       <?php include("$CFG->javascript"); ?>
       <?php include("js.php"); ?>
   </head>
   

   Of course, you could just add the javascript and CSS includes in header.html directly, but I find this method to be a bit cleaner.

2. The menu was pulled into the body of header.html. If your theme uses conditional statements to differentiate between the front page and other pages, you’ll have to add the include twice (as shown):

     <?php if ($home) { ?>
   
       <div id="header-home" class="clearfix">
         <h1 class="headermain"><?php echo $heading ?></h1>
         <div class="headermenu"><?php echo $menu ?></div>
       </div>
   
       <?php include("menu.php"); ?>
   
     <?php } else if ($heading) {  ?>
   
       <div id="header" class="clearfix">
         <h1 class="headermain"><?php echo $heading ?></h1>
         <div class="headermenu"><?php echo $menu ?></div>
       </div>
   
       <?php include("menu.php"); ?>
   
     <?php } ?>
   

   This menu.php file contains the HTML markup for the dropdown menu. It’s a daunting file even if you’re accustomed to looking at such code. But, the logic isn’t too tough to figure out. Dropdown menus are simply unordered lists nested inside list items of parent unordered lists. Spend some time looking at my dummy menu and you’ll figure it out.

3. I added styles_yui_menu.css to the theme folder. This is a modified version of the styles found in moodle/lib/yui/menu/assets/menu.css. If you prefer the styles in that file, by all means use it instead of this one. I chose to create my own menu stylesheet so it’d be easily customized. I’ve commented wherever possible.
4. Based on my Stripdown theme concept, I added a single stylesheet to config.php called styles.css. If you look in that file, you’ll see the only thing in it is the line calling up the menu styles:

   @import "styles_yui_menu.css";
   

   Of course, there are other ways to include this stylesheet. I chose this one only because I like it. You can add your personal styles right underneath.

5. The YUI stylesheet calls up some images for the menu and submenu icons. I moved those images into /base_menu_yui/images/menu/. There are currently more than are called; I just pulled all that were in the YUI menu assets folder.

I sure hope I didn’t leave anything out. My feeling is that the file will be more helpful than my description, but this should provide some narrative to my code and some insight into the choices that I’ve made.

Since I’m not a programmer, and my understanding of javascript and PHP is lacking, if this code can be improved in any way, please let me know so I can update it.

Your feedback is always appreciated. Enjoy.

Well, as the story goes, in looking for a system to manage my content, I stumbled upon Moodle 1.5, and before long I was administering my own online learning environment. It was fantastic.

I only used mrmalley.com for online learning for one year before my district asked me to install and develop Moodle for use in our upper grades. Since then, my old site has been missing a purpose.

I’ve just completed a little project to reuse that space.

Using Expression Engine, I’ve built a lesson plan repository that will collect, store, and organize my lesson plans for the next few years.

I plan to start with my Introductory Psychology class (because it’s in need of an overhaul). Then, I’ll post my AP Psychology plans, and finally my plans for U.S. History. I’m going to take my time posting them to prevent fatigue and to give each class it’s due attention.

I’ve organized Expression Engine into three weblogs – one for each course – and have created custom fields that make writing lesson plans as easy as filling out an online form. Here’s an example of what the backend looks like:

As you can see, this isn’t fool proof. I still have to enter some HTML into the content boxes to get lists to display properly on the page, but it works great for a guy like me who is fine with such a thing.

The front-end is organized into three parts. The first shows a table of academic units (which are just weblog categories), the number of lessons in that unit, and a short description of what will be taught.

Selecting a unit shows another table of all the lessons in that unit with objectives. They are ordered by “day.”

Selecting a lesson plan from within that unit will show the contents of the plan.

I’ve used conditional statements in Expression Engine to only show fields that contain content. For example, if a particular lesson has no “practice” or “anticipatory set,” it will not be included on the page.

In total, I’ve put about 20 hours into creating this new system from top to bottom. In the end, though, I think I’ve created a system that will save me a great deal of time and effort. Since this is a rather geeky way of creating and sharing lesson plans, I thought I’d share. Enjoy!

Dates for this year’s Goshen MoodleMoot have been set for July 26-28. Last year’s Moot was a great success, and I’m happy to have been so involved. Goshen College is only a 45-minute drive from my house. The facilities and catering there are fantastic, and last year’s Moot offered something for everyone who attended.

The highlight for this year’s Moot?

Martin Dougiamas, Moodle Founder and Lead Developer, will attend the Midwest Moot and present the keynote address. There will be informal opportunities to meet Martin in person and to discuss the future of Moodle.

My wife is due to deliver our second child around the weekend of this Moot. I’ve contacted Floyd Saner, the Moot organizer, to let him know that I plan to attend and hopefully present at the Moot. But, of course, I can’t make any commitments. We’ll have to wait and see.

Here’s a quick video from Dave Mozealous that goes through the process of finding, changing and installing Moodle themes.

In it, he says that Simplicity is a core theme. That’s not true. However, there is a good chance it will be included in the core for Moodle 2.0.

My new home page.

Abilene Christian University has just completed the first year of a pilot program to give incoming freshmen their choice of an iPhone or an iPod Touch to use in their classes.

The verdict? It’s working quite well. 2,100 Abilene students, or 48 percent of the population, are now equipped with a free iPhone. Fully 97 percent of the faculty population has iPhones, too. The iPhone is aiding Abilene in giving students the information they need — when they want it, wherever they want it, said Bill Rankin, a professor of medieval studies who helped plan the initiative.

Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust:

“Our research suggests a strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing”

So, I called Apple to see if this is any indication that they are shipping the iMac soon. The representative I talked to informed me that their practice to charge only once the products ordered are ready to ship. He followed this by saying that this probably means that my iMac will be on its way within the next couple of days.

Now, I’m not typically the type to get excited about such news. But, I put my old 24″ iMac on Craigslist the night that I pre-ordered this new one thinking that it might take a couple of weeks for it to sell. I sold my old iMac within two days and have been working exclusively from my laptop for the past week or two.

This might be nothing, but I thought I should put the word out there.

Update: This was nothing. When I made my purchase on Oct. 26th, Apple held onto funds in my account for a couple of days, then released them. They did the same thing here. On Nov. 6th, they held my funds. This morning, they are back in my account. No iMac for me yet.

Update 2: I woke up this morning to a shipping notice from Apple. My iMac is in transit and should arrive this Friday.

Fascinating use of technology to help students learn from the University of Utah.

And, if you’re too busy to check the site, there’s even an RSS feed.

Good to know.

There’s a lot of good tips in this article by Paul Haigh. Here’s my favorite:

The best system is to use one public site as a portal for all stake holders to use. This way the site gets all the traffic through one initial front page and this can be used to promote the ethos and character of the school.

Edit: It appears that the author of this article has taken his site private.

Best argument I’ve read for an act that is sometimes tough to defend.

My blog represents me not as an edited professional voice, but as a human being struggling to express ideas, thoughts, reactions, dreams, and general b.s. via a means that uncompromisingly allows for the immediate feedback of strangers and fellow wanderers.