My Moodle Module Mantra (A Few Ways to Improve Moodle)
You’re going to hear this increasingly often in classrooms:
“Make and share a presentation.”
When I was briefly in California, I had a chance to stop by my old high-school and talk to some teachers. I get the sense that they’re moving toward something akin to “Google Jockeying” - a model of routinely assigning students the task of creating a presentation of a few minutes in length, and sharing them. All within a class period of just over an hour.
Moodle already does have some modules that make it easier for teachers and students to make and share presentations. But while open source utilities in general continue to encroach into key market sectors, the efficiency of a web-based software such as Moodle can be increased by an order of magnitude if it’s able to successfully leverage outside sources
While I have primarily proposed changes to the RSS block implementation in the Summer of Code application - and while RSS is easy to get right and adds a huge amount of value it’s just the beginning.
Here’s a few simple ideas for improving Moodle through service integration:
- Opensocial. Moodle needs a solidly implemented social API module. The obvious choice would be OpenSocial, now that it has some time to mature its initially embryonic stage of development
- Visualization Services. Data mashups will happen in the classroom as soon as there are really easy, intuitive ways to create visualizations of data on the fly. Assignments will be based on digging through information and creating visualizations to show their most compelling findings. Google has the lead, although Trendrr has excellent potential, as does Swivel.
- Docs and Ppts. Google Docs, Zoho, Scribd, and there are more - all with similar REST interfaces. In fact, I’ve already made libraries in PHP for Box.net that could easily be converted into a plugin for Moodle.
- Games. Robert X. Cringely nails this one in his latest podcast for PBS. The bridge between education and entertainment is narrowing through video games, but the tipping point is coming somewhere in the intersection between MMPORGs and casual games. Zyanga, the Social Game Network, and are all obvious choices for modules.
By hooking into other services in focused ways that add significant value on both sides of the interaction , Moodle can increase its utility as a cloud-computing era application.
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