Moodle Development Moodleposium 7th September 2009

Community-driven development towards...? Martin Dougiamas Lead Moodler Executive Director, Moodle Pty Ltd

Open Source Software Free to download Free to use Free to explore, modify and extend Free to distribute (under GPL) And you are... Free to help with development Free to choose your service supplier Free to make money from it Free to use something else! Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

Statistics Over 37,000 registered veriﬁed sites in 202 countries Registered sites contain over 25 million users, 2.5 million courses and 1.1 million teachers About 500 sites have more than 10,000 users Interface translated into 75 languages 50 specialised Moodle Partners Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Community roles There are over 740,000 registered participants in the Moodle Community at moodle.org (about 1000 new accounts being created each day) Other 8.0% Software Devs 8.0% Teachers 35.0% Researchers 11.0% Educational Admins 16.0% System Admins 22.0% Source: Moodle Community 2008 Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Moodle Economics Clients (Institutions, Government, Companies, Teachers) Services Contracting Royalties n atio ns moodle.com Do Contributing Contributing Community Developers Code Discussion etc moodle.org Software Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

History 1999 0.0 First prototype versions 11 / 2001 0.9 First pre-release version on the web 8 / 2002 1.0 Forum, Survey, Journal, Resources, Quiz... 8 / 2003 1.1 Backups, Workshop, Chat, Scales... 3 / 2004 1.2 Filters, Groups, Glossary, Lesson ... 5 / 2004 1.3 Calendar, Blocks, RSS, Media plugins ... 8 / 2004 1.4 Installer, Resources, Enrolments, Wiki... 6 / 2005 1.5 XHTML, Themes, Blocks, Gradebook ... 6 / 2006 1.6 Unicode, Database, Docs, Blogs, Reports .. 11 / 2006 1.7 Roles, Admin, Oracle and MSSQL, AJAX .. 3 / 2007 1.8 Accessibility, MNet, Forms, Multi-auth... 3 / 2008 1.9 Gradebook, Outcomes, Performance, Tags, Notes.. ? 2.0 ? Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Administration Create/remove courses Create/remove users and roles Move people in and out Manage activities within courses Structure the site (courses, blocks, etc) Increased modularity Alternative interfaces such as Flash, iPhone, etc Remote control of Moodle Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Web Services API SOAP External XML-RPC Server Application REST Moodle Core Functions AMF External Client Application Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Control Any CMS/LMS/VLE is a system of control Many educators want to increase their control Others want to give more control to students Course completion and progress tracking Conditional activities Individual permissions Privacy restrictions General security Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Integrations Pull content into Moodle Push content out of Moodle Exchange data with other systems (SIS, HR) Blend with institution web sites Support of standards for interchange of data Encourage mashups using feeds (in and out) Duplicate functionality where required inside Moodle Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Google Integration Moodle users are automatically created in Google Apps • Log in to Moodle -> logged in to Google Apps • Gmail block in Moodle shows recent Gmail messages • Apps block show links to all the Google Apps • Google Widget shows a link to Moodle on iGoogle and Gmail etc Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Usability Consistent navigation Consistent layout and structure Beautiful themes No dead ends More AJAX where appropriate More early testing on real users Accessible on a wide range of devices Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

My PhD thesis An exploration of the use of an Open Source software called Moodle to support a social constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reﬂective inquiry Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Pedagogy 10. Share ideas, active research, communities! 9. Use Survey tools and logs to study / reﬂect 8. Use peer-review modules like Workshop 7. Introduce external activities and games 6. Combine the activities into sequences 5. Facilitate active discussions in the Forum 4. Use Wiki, Glossary, Database (collab content) 3. Use Quizzes/Assignments (less management) 2. Provide a passive Forum 1. Publish some content (Resource, SCORM) Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Community Hubs Ordinary Moodle site Building a course Taking a course Template User Community User Restore In Search Search Download E D 2 Publishing site Course Community site List C 3 Enrol cache zip Backup B A 1 Enrollable course Downloadable course Register as Register as enrollable downloadable Moodle Hub Server eg hub.moodle.org Administration Control Integrations Usability Pedagogy Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

2.0 Major Rewriting Major New Features •Database access / data handling •Repository integration •File storage and handling •Portfolio integration •Roles and enrolments •Conditional activities •Wiki 2.0 •Course completion •Messaging •Progress Tracking •Backups •Feedback module •Gradebook and Roles •Blog 2.0 •Navigation and Blocks •Resources 2.0 •Themes •Site-wide groups •Text formats •Secure RSS feeds •Commenting •Web Services •Javascript handling •IMS CC •Lesson 2.0 •Community Hubs •Workshop 2.0 •Totally ﬂexible user ﬁelds Copyright 2009 © Martin Dougiamas

Moodle long-term future Moodle 2.0 Rewrite of the underlying platform Infrastructure, connectivity etc Moodle 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 .... 2.x Pedagogy, teaching, learning, usability And then ... Single huge web service? Copyright 2008 © Martin Dougiamas

Moodle Development Moodleposium 7th September 2009

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