Open Source Software

Open Source Software Virtual Learning Environments

An online vehicle for teaching and learning Controlled access to curriculum ‘modules’ Modules can be separately assessed and recorded Tracking of student activity and achievement Activities to facilitate, guide and monitor learning Access to learning resources and assessments Communication between the learners and teachers/facilitators, and between peer groups What is a Virtual Learning Environment?

Buy a VLE : Digital Brain Blackboard WebCT VTLE (RM) BT Learning Centre Learning Gateway (MS) Virtual Learning Environments ‘Free’ VLE’s • ATutor • Moodle • Claroline • COSE

An online vehicle for teaching and learning 24/7 Access to resources and information Extends the learning environment beyond the school to the home Encourages parental involvement and home learning Safe, secure and focused learning environment Tailored to the needs of your students Supports individual needs Encourages group learning activities Why bother?

An online vehicle for teaching and learning Develops a community, where information and discussions can be shared. Storage of work of students and teachers Students progress can be tracked and needs identified more clearly. A virtual storage cabinet of resources for all teachers Provides a global focus for education: resources and support for global issues and global citizenship Why bother?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) How can I find the time for all this? It is not the way I work. Why should I try it? Will I need specialist knowledge? Will it raise standards? How can it save time? Will I need access to computers for my whole class? How often will I need access? Is work secure and safe? Why bother?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Can I integrate this into my ‘normal’ course? Can I use it as a complete course? Can I use online assessments and quiz ? Can I upload any file? Can I upload past papers? Can a student access the work of others?? How is feedback provided to students? What happens if the site goes down? Why host it on the internet not an intranet? Why bother?

Are there alternatives to Virtual Learning Environments? Bloggers! (Web log) Entries made from home or at work Point-and-click operation from a browser Upload files for others to download ‘Open Access’ for all users… Link to our bloggers

What is Open Source Software? Open source software is software whose source code is open to public review. It is free to download, free to modify, free to redistribute. Links Open Source Definition Open Source Licenses GNU General Public License More examples of OS Software

Advantages of using Open Source Software Software evolves and improvements can happen with far greater speed than proprietary software. Bugs can be fixed, improvements and new developments can be made available to all.. Freely available, with a global support community. Free to obtain, modify and redistribute High quality, stable, secure software available to all Wonderful gifts for the educational community!

Open Source Software in Education • Total cost of ownership is reduced, • Freedom from being tied to particular products • Lower costs for home-school communities • Customise to fit your needs. • Can be used on older computer systems. • Allows productivity to increase for small outlay • Saves money for cash-strapped schools • Flexibility and adaptability to with changing needs Examples of Open Source Software? • Apache webserver • Squirrelmail webmail system • sendmail, the most widely used email transport software • Python programming language • PHP programming language • Abiword word processor • Linux: the most used Unix-like operating system • Postnuke Content Management System • Moodle Virtual Learning Environment

What are our strengths? What do we need? What can a VLE offer? What is available? What are the teaching and learning opportunities? Do they match our requirements? What flexibility is provided? What other issues need to be considered? Proceed with caution… Do your homework first!

FERL: Further Education Resources for Learning. “An Internet based information service for lecturers and other practitioners in Further Education colleges funded by the FEFC and managed by BECTa.” Links to guidance/help pages: Why have a VLE? Evaluating Learning Platforms Purchasing a VLEStaff Development Piloting a VLE Mainstreaming a VLE Administration Case Studies How to Get it all Wrong List of Case Studies Information and Guidance?

JISC : Joint Information Systems Committee.“An independent advisory body that works with further and higher education by providing strategic guidance, advice and opportunities use to use ICT to support learning, teaching, research and administration.” Useful documents MLEs and VLEs explained Information and Guidance?

Open Source: Case Study 1 A challenge: What else can we be doing to support our students?

Case Study 1 : Providing more support • More Individual support within lessons • Additional support at lunchtimes and after school • Individual programmes of study • Exploring new teaching methods and learning styles • Increase number and range of choices • Home/School links • Parental involvement Initial Ideas

Case Study 1: Providing more support • Making it all fit into scheduled lessons • Commitments of staff and students outside of scheduled lessons • Mismatch between timetables between teachers and students for additional support. Constraints

Case Study 1: Providing more support VLE: Initial questions • What are our needs? • What new opportunities for teaching and learning can a VLE provide? • Can we match our requirements with a VLE? • Is it flexible enough to change with us! • What INSET is required? • Is 24/7 access available? • Can a VLE be applied and used in context with our courses? • Do we have the infrastructure to make it accessible to all students • How much will it cost?

Case Study 1: Providing more support VLE: Why Open Source? • Open Source • No ties • Flexible • Meets our requirements • Easy to install and backup • Easy to create, change, modify courses • Select range of facilities • Ability to save our courses • Overall costs are low • Provides a range of new teaching opportunities and learning styles

Case Study 1: An Open Source solution Moodle it! MOODLE is an acronym for…. “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment “ It is also a verb that describes the process of… “lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity …..”

Case Study 2: A Teachers’ Support Facility http://www.scienceblog.org/support/ • Upload or download your work. • Share work with colleagues. • Have access to your work on a 24/7 basis, • Never lose work again. • Share ideas, thoughts with colleagues. • Go to the Online Library of resources. • Work together, according to your schedule • Learn how to develop new learning resources • Embark on a global educational adventure!

Case Study 2: A Teachers’ Support Facility A place to save and share resources. Access from home or at school

What is Moodle? • A software package –designed to help educators create quality online courses. • A course management system (CMS) –or Learning Management Systems (LMS) or Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). • Supports social constructionist pedagogy • Open Source software • FREE to download it, use it, modify it and distribute it ( GNU General Public License). • Supports a range of platforms Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, Netware and any other system that supports PHP, including most webhost providers. • Data is stored in a single database: such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. Can also be used with Oracle, Access, Interbase, ODBC and others…. • Available in 34 languages

Who created Moodle? Martin Dougiamas Martin Dougiamas created Moodle Martin is Australian, living in Perth. Moodle started out as a hobby for Martin, and grew into the subject of his PhD thesis: "The use of Open Source software to support a social constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reflective inquiry", Moodle is now being used in many schools, universities and other educational communities. More Information is available from Using Learning Communities to Create an Open Source Course Management System Moodle’s Home

Who uses Moodle? Coolwebschool’s Moodle Openschool’s Moodle North Chadderton School Supporting 21st Century Science

Teacher to Facilitator? • Moodle supports a change of role from ‘teacher’ to a ‘facilitator’ : • A change from ‘source of knowledge' to being an influencer and role model of class culture, • Facilitator connects with students by - addresses individual learning needs, - moderating discussions and activities - collectively leads students towards the learning goals of the class. • The future developments of Moodle provide more support for this approach

The Philosophy ? Constructing Collaborating Creating Sharing “Social constructionist pedagogy“ A social group in which the focus is on both group and individual activities :

Moodle: Site Management • An administratorControl of the site is by an administrator user defined during setup • Plug-in "themes"The administrator can customise the site colours, fonts, layout etc to suit local needs • Plug-in activity modulesThese can be added to existing Moodle installations • Plug-in language packsCurrently there are language packs for over 34 languages. These can be edited using a built-in web-based editor.

Moodle: Course Management (1) • A teacher administrator has full control over all settings for a course, including restricting other teachers • Choice of course formats such as by week, by topic or a discussion-focused social format • Flexible array of course activities – Forums, Journals, Quizzes, Resources, Choices, Surveys, Assignments, Chats, Workshops • Display recent changes to the course since the last login can be displayed on the course home page • Easy editing of text for resources, forum postings, journal entries using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor

Moodle: Course Management (2) • Grades for Forums, Journals, Quizzes and Assignments can be viewed on one page (and downloaded as a spreadsheet file) • User logging and tracking – full activity reports for each student are available with graphs and details about each module. Also a detailed review of each student’s involvement including postings, journal entries etc • Mail integration – copies of forum posts, teacher feedback etc can be mailed in HTML or plain text. • Custom scales – teachers can define their own scales to be used for grading forums, assignments and journals • Courses can be packaged – as a single zip file using the Backup function. These can be restored on any Moodle server.

Moodle: Course structure • Weekly formatEach week consists of activities. Some might have deadlines, others might be open. • Topics formatPresented and organised into topics. A topic is not restricted to any time limit. • Social formatAll activities are presented and organised into a single forum. Could also be used as noticeboards

Moodle: Modules • Assignment • Attendance • Chat • Choice • Dialogue • Exercise • Forum • Glossary • Journal Modules available for Moodle • Quiz • Resource • Survey • WebQuest • Webwork • Workshop More details

Moodle: Assignment Module • Can be specified with a due date and a maximum grade. • Students can upload assignmentsThey are date-stamped. Different file formats are allowed • Late assignments are allowedThe amount of lateness is shown clearly to the teacher • Whole-class assessment Grades and comments provided for each assignment, on one page in one form. Viewable by assigned teachers • Teacher feedback This is appended to the assignment page for each student. Notification is sent by e-mail • Resubmission of assignments This can be allowed by teachers after grading (for re-grading)

Moodle: Forum Module • Different types of forums are available,teacher-only,course news, open-to-all, one-thread-per-user. • All postings have the authors photo attached. • Discussions can be viewed as nested, flat, threaded, oldest or newest first • Every registered user can join, or the teacher can force subscription for all • The teacher can choose not to allow replies • Discussion threads can be easily moved between forums • Attached images are shown inline

Moodle: Journal Module • Journals are private between student and teacher. • Each journal entry can be directed by an open question. • The whole class can be assessed on one page in one form • Teacher feedback is appended to the journal entry page, and notification is mailed out.

Moodle:Quiz Module (1) • Teachers can define a database of questions for re-use in different quizzes • Questions can be stored in categories for easy access, and these categories can be "published" to make them accessible from any course on the site. • Quizzes are automatically graded, and can be re-graded if questions are modified • Quizzes can have a limited time window outside of which they are not available • At the teacher's option, quizzes can be attempted multiple times, and can show feedback and/or correct answers • Quiz questions and quiz answers can be shuffled (randomised) to reduce cheating • Questions allow HTML and images

Moodle:Quiz Module (2) • Multiple-choice questions :single or multiple answers • Short Answer questions ~words or phrases • True-False questions • Matching questions • Random questions • Numerical questions (with allowable ranges) • Embedded-answer questions (cloze style) • Embedded descriptive text and graphics Administration Panels

Moodle: Assignment Module . • Assignments can be viewed online, or downloaded • Teacher can attach feedback comments • Notification is sent out by e-mail • Resubmission can be granted for assignments, for re-grading

Moodle: Assignment Module • Assignments can be specified with a due date and a maximum grade. • Students can upload their assignments (any file format) to the server - they are date-stamped. • Late assignments are allowed, but the amount of lateness is shown clearly to the teacher • For each particular assignment, the whole class can be assessed (grade and comment) on one page in one form.

Installing Moodle Fantastico! http://www.webschool.org.uk/science/powerpoint/moodleinstall.ppt

Installation: requirements • Choose a hosting company which provides a MySQL (open source database) and PHP (embedded scripting language) • Make sure they offer Fantastico. • No special technical knowledge is required for the installation of Moodle • It is all controlled using 'point and click' operations. • Once installed, you can build your own Virtual Learning Environment, to suit the needs of your school.

Installing Moodle : Using Fantastico Fantastico! is usually installed on Linux hosting accounts with CPanel • 1. Logon to the Control Panel • Use the username and passwordsupplied with Welcome Mail! bse33ugo **************

Installing Moodle : Using Fantastico Select Fantastico! From the Control Panel

Installing Moodle : Using Fantastico

Open Source Software