07.06.09

Date: 7 June 2009
ETRU Weekly #30


 * [|Link to FlashMeeting]**

Attendees:

 * 1) user:DavidNoble
 * 2) user:daibarnes
 * 3) user:mrslwalker
 * 4) Kerry Turner.
 * 5) user:markclarkson
 * 6) user:JRowing
 * 7) user:istuart
 * 8) user:dneedlestone Popping in but leaving to watch apprentice followed by Euro Election results!

user:andydkemp - Sorry busy tonight - Have left a comment in response to user:daibarnes's question user:dajbelshaw (thought I could get away with driving up to Northumberland tomorrow morning, but it's just not going to be possible!) user:HPSManager - Louise J, I'm going over to a friends for Sunday tea and to watch the Apprentice final! user:grumbledook - Real Life happens. might pop in towards the end. lisibo Alex Bellars Melissa Techman
 * Apologies**:

Agenda:
Carry over from last week


 * 1) Louise J - I'd like to check out people's views on Google Wave, you can check the demo out here [] The demo is quite long (1 hr 20 minutes) but worth watching. Here's the link to Tech Crunch's post about it. [] They think it could be a VLE killer!, A good explanation from Donald Clark here http://is.gd/RyT7
 * 2) If Doug attends I'd love to hear all about his successful integration of Google Edu Apps with Moodle when I listen to the podcast later. - [[image:http://www.wikispaces.com/user/pic/1225463649/daibarnes-sm.jpg width="16" height="16" caption="daibarnes" link="http://www.wikispaces.com/user/view/daibarnes"]]daibarnes (yes, I'd like to talk about this too! user:dajbelshaw)
 * 3) Another Semantic Web type search engine - Google Squared. Questions over accuracy but another interesting way to search. What tools do we have now - Google Wheel, Google Squared, Wolfram Alpha (not actually semantic, closed knowledge engine) - any others missing? user:markclarkson
 * 4) I'm interested in the link between how middle class the intake of a school is and how much innovation r.e. edtech happens there. Correlation? user:dajbelshaw
 * 5) I'd like to gauge what people think about how to set up your VLE. I have set my moodle up to have a place for all different areas of the school (depts, year groups, extra-curricular activities, staff room). However, recently there has been an interest in having a course (web page) for every class on the timetable. This data can be grafted from SIMS and set up for next academic year so that all teachers and pupils are enrolled to only their classes. But integrating this with all the existing content would be a minefield (but not impossible). Ideally in Moodle, I would like all teaching courses to be set up as a master course which may then be backed-up and restored for each particular class. Problem here is that Moodle's limitations mean that, once copied, any updates of new materials to a course must be done separately for each course. If you teach the same unit to two or three classes, this is annoying because it means more repetitive work (time). This is not dynamic and teachers find it off-putting. Solutions? Use the site file repository for all files in a large file structure so materials only need be uploaded once. Host internally and re-direct this file repository to a shared drive on the network. I might be missing some tricks here and wondered how others were answering these questions in their schools.
 * 6) Have written a quick blog post to explain how you can use the bulk upload user tool to populate moodle groups - [|http://www.andykemp.org.uk/2009/06/populating-moodle-groups/]

Further Contributors or Thoughts
Twitter response to point 6. Read from bottom up:


 * 1) **[|andykemp]**[[image:http://assets2.twitter.com/images/icon_lock.gif caption="Icon_lock"]] @[|moodlefairy] Mary, do you manually create the groups or do you use enrolment keys to populate groups? @[|daibarnes]  [|12 minutes ago] from [|Tweetie] [|in reply to moodlefairy]
 * 2) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/127036801/IMG_6659_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="andykemp" link="http://twitter.com/andykemp"]] **[|andykemp]**[[image:http://assets2.twitter.com/images/icon_lock.gif caption="Icon_lock"]] @[|daibarnes] Not at present- See [] and vote for it on the tracker [] - Currently in Roadmap but req Funding  [|15 minutes ago] from [|Tweetie] [|in reply to daibarnes]
 * 3) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/68845573/moodlefairy3_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="Mary Cooch" link="http://twitter.com/moodlefairy"]] **[|moodlefairy]** @[|daibarnes] global groups will be feature of 2.0 -we haven't needed it as sets are often different in different subjects  [|15 minutes ago] from web
 * 4) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/127036801/IMG_6659_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="andykemp" link="http://twitter.com/andykemp"]] **[|andykemp]**[[image:http://assets2.twitter.com/images/icon_lock.gif caption="Icon_lock"]] @[|daibarnes] If you have some money to spend then Salamander Moodle will auto create and populate courses direct from SIMS - about £1K/year...  [|18 minutes ago] from [|Tweetie] [|in reply to daibarnes]
 * 5) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/127036801/IMG_6659_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="andykemp" link="http://twitter.com/andykemp"]] **[|andykemp]**[[image:http://assets2.twitter.com/images/icon_lock.gif caption="Icon_lock"]] @[|daibarnes] You are correct. I think u would setup metacourse for year groups to enrol - the manually recreate groups within each course...  [|19 minutes ago] from [|Tweetie] [|in reply to daibarnes]
 * 6) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/127036801/IMG_6659_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="andykemp" link="http://twitter.com/andykemp"]] **[|andykemp]**[[image:http://assets2.twitter.com/images/icon_lock.gif caption="Icon_lock"]] @[|moodlefairy] @[|daibarnes] As a result they must be recreated for each course... 2/2  [|21 minutes ago] from [|Tweetie] [|in reply to moodlefairy]
 * 7) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/127036801/IMG_6659_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="andykemp" link="http://twitter.com/andykemp"]] **[|andykemp]**[[image:http://assets2.twitter.com/images/icon_lock.gif caption="Icon_lock"]] @[|moodlefairy] @[|daibarnes] The problem with groups at present is they are not sitewide nor inherited via metacourses... 1/2  [|21 minutes ago] from [|Tweetie] [|in reply to moodlefairy]
 * 8) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/125415829/ThomasDeacon003008RT_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="Jonathan Sim" link="http://twitter.com/jonsim29"]] **[|jonsim29]** @[|daibarnes] I use class sites on the vle and it works very well... my class then has a shared documents section and a blog... it works well  [|29 minutes ago] from web [|in reply to daibarnes]
 * 9) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/181313053/jan_avatar_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="theo kuechel" link="http://twitter.com/theokk"]] **[|theokk]** @[|daibarnes] like to know what they mean by 'content'?  [|30 minutes ago] from [|Tweetie] [|in reply to daibarnes]
 * 10) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/68845573/moodlefairy3_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="Mary Cooch" link="http://twitter.com/moodlefairy"]] **[|moodlefairy]** @[|daibarnes] a course for every class? Huge overload! why not use groups and all groups in one course?  [|36 minutes ago] from web
 * 11) [[image:http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/127036801/IMG_6659_normal.jpg width="48" height="48" caption="andykemp" link="http://twitter.com/andykemp"]] **[|andykemp]**[[image:http://assets2.twitter.com/images/icon_lock.gif caption="Icon_lock"]] @[|daibarnes] This way you have one course, but activities are split into groups... With Conditional Activities in M2, parts could be hidden..

My tweets:
 * 1)  Thanks to @[|andykemp] and @[|moodlefairy]  [|3 minutes ago] from [|iTweet]
 * 2)  @[|moodlefairy] @[|andykemp] Moving to 1.9 this summer. Hopefully M2 summer after. No fix till then :O( #ETRU  [|13 minutes ago] from [|iTweet] [|in reply to moodlefairy]
 * 3)  @[|andykemp] Don't see how salamander do it differently to moodledo (my provider)? Issues are the same. Unless groups can be made from MIS data  [|17 minutes ago] from [|iTweet] [|in reply to andykemp]
 * 4)  @[|jonsim29] What level do you teach? Age? At secondary (UK) classes are usually different due to streamlining (sets). Hard to keep it simple.  [|19 minutes ago] from [|iTweet] [|in reply to jonsim29]
 * 5)  @[|andykemp] Yes. But can u create groups at top level that might be available throughout site? i.e. can I do the donkey work? #ETRU  [|20 minutes ago] from [|iTweet] [|in reply to andykemp]
 * 6)  #ETRU [] .8 to see what the scope is. #moodle #vle  [|22 minutes ago] from [|iTweet]
 * 7)  #ETRU Looking to set the VLE for every class in the school. Like groups idea but not sure who might do what (do I do it all?). Reading...  [|23 minutes ago] from [|iTweet]
 * 8)  @[|andykemp] @[|moodlefairyHave] played with groups but can't 'extract' that info from SIMS directly. D'u mean admin set up all classes as groups?  [|25 minutes ago] from [|iTweet] [|in reply to andykemp]
 * 9)  New on #ETRU agenda for tonight: 6. What people think about how to set up VLE. Read full item here: [] Thoughts via twitter