In the meantime to continue on with the ‘What’s new in Moodle 2.0’ theme here is a quick introduction to two of the most talked about new features, designed to help students manage their learning:

1. Conditional Activities
2. Completion Tracking

Conditional Activities, developed by Sam Marshall of the Open University, will appear as a standard feature in Moodle 2.0 onwards, enabling teachers to restrict the availability of any activity according to certain conditions such as date, grade obtained, or activity completion.

There are arguments for and against this form of control over a students progress throughout a course as opposed to allowing them to find their own paths, but that is another blog post altogether.

Completion Tracking allows teachers to specify conditions that define when an activity is considered to be complete e.g. when a certain number of posts have been made, or a grade has been reached or a choice has been made

The Completion systems itself will consist of 2 parts:

1. Activity Completion
2. Course Completion

Activity completion enables teachers to specify conditions that define when a student has completed an activity, for example when a certain number of posts have been made or a grade has been reached

Course Completion enables teachers to specify conditions that define when a student has completed a course.

For more information on all of Moodle 2.0’s features you should read the Moodle 2.0 Release Notes on Moodle.org.

For more information on implementing Moodle 2.0, or on any of the Synergy Learning services email info@synergy-learning.com.

Congratulations to Caroline Kennedy, Synergy Learning’s Multimedia Designer, for her recent success in the Moodle 2.0 Themes Competition.

Caroline says, “I just want to say a massive thank you! I am really delighted. It has been a huge learning curve for me over a short period of time and a great opportunity to get to grips with Moodle 2.0.  Well done to everyone who entered! I’m really excited to see the theme in the Moodle 2 core, along with the others.”

I will add more information on Caroline’s role and expertise to the blog shortly, at the minute she is up to her eyes designing themes for our clients…

To view Caroline’s winning ‘Splash’ theme click here

Caroline Kennedy submitted the ‘Splash’ theme, which has been well-received so far, with positive feedback and constructive criticism a plenty.

Caroline told me, “This has been a brilliant chance for me to work with themes in Moodle 2.0 and a welcome opportunity to spend some time exploring the possibilities. I am glad of all the opinions shared via the contest, that’s what the Moodle community is all about. I would be very happy to see Splash become a standard Moodle Theme in Moodle 2.0”

Click on the image above to view the custom settings of ‘Splash’

For a demo version of the site click here.

To vote in the Moodle 2.0 Theme Contest click here.

You can also use the new HTML editor to embed media from other sites such as youtube or Flickr.

Moodle.org lists the benefits of the new HTML editor as follows:

1. It is a new editor based on TinyMCE
2. It works on more browsers
3. There is a resizable editing area
4. There’s cleaner XHTML output
5. Full integration with configured external repositories to import and embed media into a text

If you require any more information on upgrading to Moodle 2.0 email me at joel.kerr@synergy-learning.com or contact Synergy Learning on Facebook.

According to Moodle.org, My Moodle initially could come with specific pages:

1. home page / dashboard – A completely user configurable page where the informational blocks can be added and moved. Users could have items such as news-feeds, calendars, etc.
2. profile – The same function that currently exists on the user profile page. It will provide options for the user to assign what information can be visible by what roles.
3. blog – Access to the user’s blog (like the current tab on the user profile page).
4. course list – A better version of the current My Moodle page.
5. report – Access to various reports and logs on your activities.

Each page would be available to be enabled or disabled to the My Moodle interface.

The release of Moodle 2.0 is drawing ever nearer.  If you are interested in upgrading your current version of Moodle email me at joel.kerr@synergy-learning.com.

There are four main focuses for development and testing this week – the Community Hub, Usability, Themes and Performance and Upgrade.

Full docs are still being written for the Community Hub, but according to Moodle.org you can help out by trying the new features:

1. Try MOOCH at http://hub.moodle.org/
2. Use the Admin registration page to register your own site with MOOCH.
3. Add the “Community” block to your site, and use it to search MOOCH for courses, either to enrol in or to download. Note that you can’t yet restore downloaded courses in Moodle 2.0.
4. If you are interested in playing with the hub software, get the plugin from [1] and unzip it into the “local” directory of an up-to-date Moodle 2.0 site, then visit admin page to install it.

You can also discuss what you see in the Hub servers forum on moodle.org.  For information on testing other features click here.

If you are interested in upgrading to Moodle 2.0 with Synergy Learning email me at joel.kerr@synergy-learning.com.

According to Moodle.org the goals for Cohorts are:

1. Simplify manual enrolments – instead of enrolling students one by one, it would be possible to enrol a cohort with single click.
2. Cohort enrolment plugin – new enrolment plugin synchronising users in cohort with enrolments in a course (including role assignment and group membership)
3. Synchronisation with external systems – some external systems do not know the actual courses, they only contain some user groups, at present we do not have a simple way to reuse these groups in Moodle.

Additional benefits of the Cohorts feature include the ability to add users to more than one cohort and teachers being able to add single users to a course as well as cohorts.  Should the occasion arise the name of a cohort can be changed.

Cohorts are one of the most requested missing features in Moodle and will be considered a very welcome addition to Moodle 2.0.

If you are interested in upgrading to Moodle 2.0 or want more information on what is involved email me at joel.kerr@synergy-learning.com

1. Navigation in Moodle 2.0 is now implemented consistently with a navigation block on each page that can be hidden by the user until needed.
2. Users also have much more control over where they can position blocks.
3. The new text (HTML) editor offers more opportunities for embedding content from other sites, such as Flickr and youTube. It will also work with web browsers such as Safari, Chrome and Opera.
4. The Portfolio API offers the opportunity to send uploaded work to other sites eg ePortfolio Mahara, Google Docs etc.
5. The workshop module has been improved to offer advanced grading methods and peer-assessment.
6. The quiz module is user-friendlier with improved display and search facility for the quiz question bank.
7. External blogs can be included within the navigation of Moodle 2.0
8. Comment blocks can now easily be added to blogs
9. In fact you can add comment blocks to almost anywhere on Moodle 2.0
10. Moodle 2.0 includes 20 brand new themes
11. The new conditional activities feature allows teachers to set certain criteria which must be met before students progress within a course
12. The new completion tracking feature is a way for Moodle 2.0 to store whether or not an activity has been completed
13. The new community hub feature will allow students to easily find courses around the world they want to enroll on
14. The community hub will also make it easy for educators to find and download course templates from other educators

As Moodle 2.0 is currently only at the stage of Preview 3, all of these features are subject to change depending on how site testing goes.

For more information on upgrading to Moodle 2.0 email joel.kerr@synergy-learning.com.

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jmachemer: RT @edumoodle: The amount of effort on #Moodle 2.0 over the past few weeks has been stunning! 6 days to go to Moodle 2.0 Beta.

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tutor2u_econ: Moodle 2 just a few days away from beta release! Getting quite excited by the thought of developing fresh courses for Sept 10 #moodle #vle

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catspyjamasnz: RT @lasic: All hands on deck for loads of last minute testing at Moodle HQ today, #Moodle 2.0 Beta landing imminent. <– huzzah!

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MariaMoodle: RT @lasic: RT @ghenrick Each journey begins with a step, #moodle 2.0 beta is the first step in redefining the image of the LMS as an island

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moodleman: @smoky_stu #moodle 2 is ready when it’s ready. Beta is this week. But how long it takes depends on how many help test and report bugs.

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daniellynds: looks like #moodle 2.0 is going to gel very nicely with google apps that UoN will use soon! how lucky are we?

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colinnapier: RT @lasic: Anxiously waiting Moodle 2.0 release? Here is a great clip by @moodlefairy about some of its main features http://trunc.it/7mk6g

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smoky_stu: @woojm am waiting with baited breath for Moodle 2.0 to come out, its fantastic

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moodler: OK, I’m going to call that Moodle 2.0 Preview Release 1. Just need to write up some release notes now. Hmm, 2 am.

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moodler: Working on Moodle 2 PR1 release notes and announcements.

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markdrechsler: Waiting patiently for #moodle 2.0 Preview release notes so I don’t put bugs in the tracker which relate to known-incomplete code…

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andrew_affinity: Moodle 2 release notes from Martin. http://bit.ly/97Sf4b more or less finished, now working on http://bit.ly/ayRn7y

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moodlehelen: Moodle 2.0 Preview Release 1 is here! http://qa.moodle.net http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_2.0_Preview_1_release_notes #moodle

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ghenrick: Having fun with #Moodle 2.0 Preview 1, done some screencasts on some features uploading them to a preview page.

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moodleman Have you played with the #Moodle2 testing site recently. If you havent, its now better and more stable than ever. http://qa.moodle.net/

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moodlehelen: Help needed making Moodle 2.0 the best ever! See our current dev/testing focus http://tinyurl.com/34z7hhe

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marxjohnson about to do a test #moodle upgrade to 2.0 Preview 1. Wish me luck!

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moodlehelen: Questions about Moodle 2.0? Attend our online dev meeting next mon/tue for 2.0 Q&A http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=148843 #moodle

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tutor2u_econ Currently reading – Moodle 2.0 Test and Preview Site is now Live! http://is.gd/bXf9q #moodle #moodle20 #economics # vle #tutor2u

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tim_hunt Who says nothing good ever comes of politics? I’ve been cleaning up my #Moodle 2.0 bug list while watching the #ge2011 results.

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tim_hunt My #Moodle 2.0 bug list now down to 20, whereas it was about 50 last week. A mixture of fixing things, and re-prioritising.

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TO BE CONTINUED…

Moodle 2.0 will look even better, is more user-friendly and has additional features that will benefit teachers and learners alike!

I have added two presentations detailing the key additional features in Moodle 2.0 to date (nothing is set in stone). Presentation 1 is all about Usability and Appearance (click here), and presentation 2 details the Upgrade Information, Databases and Administration (click here).

If you want to find out more about implementing or upgrading to Moodle 2.0 with Synergy Learning you can find all our contact details at www.synergy-learning.com/contact

I will be keeping you updated with all the latest news so keep posted.