Top Ten Posts of 2009

With 2009 winding down quickly, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on 2009, GlobalClassroom and our blog.

In '09 we launched our eSchool services and new homepage. We also had our 100,000th user registered on the site. An awesome staff member left for a full ride at Duke (go Brendan!), another joined us full time (welcome, Evan) and our CEO took a trip to China (nǐ hǎo, Burr). It's been quite a year.

Here on the blog over 130 posts were made this year (more than double the number in 2008). Here are the top ten posts from 2009:

1. Goomoodleikiog (what?!) - which is a great video I found on edublogs.tv. The video was created by Leigh Murrell and Heidi Beezley and you can find a lot more information on their site: http://sites.google.com/site/goomoodleikiog. Here's the great video:
   
2. Moodle Meets Google - actually this is a look at Wookie, which is an engine for running embeddable content. I haven't really figured out what part of Wave is incorporated into the example in the post (and for that I'm all apologies). It'd definitely cool though and if you haven't tried out Wave, also worth the experimenting.
3. Student and Teacher Guide to Moodle - a quick link to both of our handy tutorials (and some embed code to bring them into your own classroom via html block).
4. Five Steps to Moodle Success - which is a recap of a great resource from DigMo.
5. Moodle Tutorials, Great Interactive Video Resources - this is a cool [free] course from MoodleCommons.org.
6. 10 Ideas: What do to with a Moodle Classroom
7. Free Web 2.0 Moodle Course - this one comes from the ICT Guy (very cool)
8. Glogster meets Moodle - the popular web poster site and a quick how to use it as the main page of your course.
9. Real World Moodle: Unseen Resources - how to not display the default links to resources but link to them using hyperlinks using images or embeddable content like Glogster.
10. 10 ways to use Moodle (from Miguel Guhlin) - if you haven't been to "Around the Corner" you should. Or visit his other all-Moodle site: http://mguhlin.wikispaces.com/moodlehabitudes
11. and just for kicks, probably the post that took me the most time to get a handle on and research: SCORM (what it is, where to find it and how to use it).

And my resolution for 2010? Eat less, read more, open education. See you next year!

Happy Holidays: here's a bunch of free Moodle

I find great Moodle stuff on the web every week. I post a lot to Twitter (follow us at http://twitter.com/globalclassroom), but I also accumulate some in my bookmarks. So, in the holiday spirit I wanted to share the most recent clutch of free Moodle resources.

1. Moodle Good Practice wiki: this one comes via Twitter (Thanks, Moodlerific!). The site is pulling together the best completely open--no authentication, registration or login required--Moodles available to look at. So if you're curious what a Moodle course can look like, this site has some great resources that show you what you can do.
2. Moodle videos: http://www.slcedtech.net/moodle.htm (a nice list of flash based Moodle tutorials including backing up courses, adding documents, and uploading zip files)
3. Linux for Education (lots of free courses, all are open to view)
4. Miguel Guhlin: he's always a great resource for Moodlers. I suggest subscribing to his blog which focuses on using Moodle at the district level, the trials and tribulations and how he and his colleagues are able to foster such a successful Moodle. Most recently he posted this resource of backedup Moodle courses: http://itls.saisd.net/km/uploads/moodle/moodle_example_courses/ which you could download and restore and use.
5. UPDATED 12/28/09 - Miguel Guhlin's ALL MOODLE wiki: http://mguhlin.net/moodle which compiles everything he writes, presents, creates about Moodle in one place.
6. LearnCentral.org's Moodle group: if you want to dive a little deeper into Moodle, check out LearnCentral.org and the Moodle group there. Always a lively discussion (about Moodle course creation, using SCORM and more)
7. Finally, if you're interested in learning how to use Moodle in a collaborative 4 week session, consider joining the 3rd Moodle for Teachers (M4T) session at Integrating-Technology.com. It's free! Next session starts January 4th.

From our family to yours, have a wonderful holiday. We'll be open throughout the holiday break (though closed on Christmas and New Years and with somewhat relaxed schedules from now until January 4th), so please contact us if you have any questions.

Image from Flickr (Andrew*)

Digidoug shows us how to use a wiki as a digital locker for sharing student files

I found this great, short and very to the point blog post today which shows how you can use a Wiki to store and share student files. It's like a digital locker, but all of your students can have their own page!

The video is about 4 minutes and the audio is high quality. If you watch Digidoug work I think you'll see how to get rolling with this innovative use of a wiki.

Here's a link to the video:

http://www.screencast.com/users/digidoug/folders/Jing/media/25305de3-8ad7-45de-bac5-dcd134097c7c

Here are some additional tips that I found helpful when creating my own repository:

1. Create your wiki and allow binary files right off the bat (binary files are just another term for files from your computer that you would want to allow as an upload).
2. Seed your wiki's first page with the various pages you want created. For example, say you want to do a file "show and tell" you could ask students to upload their files depending on the file type by creating a list of file types, i.e. [audio], [video], [text]. Note that by putting brackets around the files the terms will automatically become new pages in your wiki.
3. add basic instructions on each of the pages so students know where to click. At the very basic, show students how access the "attachments" and show them how to navigate to their file and upload it (see image)
4. Once the files are uploaded you can click on any of your wiki pages and then click the "this page has attachments" link to access a list of the files.

COOL!

Interested in setting one up in your own class? Contact support@globalclassroom.us

Twitter #tourdemoodle

The #tourdemoodle on Twitter is an activity started a few days ago by @catspyjamasnz. Basically a few twitter users have been sharing their favorite sites so that everyone can get a look at what other Moodles look like. I submitted GlobalClassroom.us (which has a plain theme on the inside, but a heavily modified landing/company website as the landing page) and a few other sites that I know of.

There are some great Moodle sites available on the world wide web. If you have one, and an account on Twitter then do share with the #tourdemoodle tag.

Even if you're Twitter-less, check out all the submissions at http://wthashtag.com/Tourdemoodle.

If you know of a flashy Moodle or one with some free content, please contribute!

Student dreams do come true

I got this email from a student today and thought I would share.

Dear Teacher Support,

I would like to say this website is AWESOME. I also would like to say that I Dream to be the president of the U.S when I grow up. I am studying hard on your website. Please vote for me!

-James

James,

All I have to say is 'you got it, dude'. I can't wait to see your name on a presidential ticket.