Learn Geography with Alex Little's Online Users Map block for Moodle 2.x

Source:  PikiWiki - Israel free image collection project

This is one great block to show off to your users! Alex Little's Online Users Map block for Moodle 2.x.

Figure 1. Online Users Map using
OpenStreetMap set to on.

After installing in click on Site Adminisration | Notifications. Then go to Administration | Site Administration | Plugins | Blocks | Online Users Map. Here is a subset of settings:

FIgure 2. My settings for Malaysia!

Okay, now how does one get the latitude and longtitude (L&L) of a country? To get the L&L of your location or country in decimals, surf to a site like this one shown below:

Figure 3. This is how you find the latitude and longitude, dude!
Just enter the name of your country.

Figure 4. You need to be careful about the digits. Do not copy blindly.

Be careful. Don't enter a value like 101.975766000000020000. Just 101.975766 will do! Otherwise the block won't work. It seems even the block's PHP code as limits when it comes to parsing long string values.

Figure 5. Beautiful Malaysia, my home.
It's really fun zooming in and panning around.

You will notice that none of my maps shown have the user icons dotting them? It's because I haven't got many users on my Moodle 2.5 test site. If you have users on your site, your users should show up as icons, something like this:

Figure 6. Have you ever been to Greenland?

Give this block a try and I am sure that it will put a smile on your face. Plus, it might ignite a keen interest in geography in your students, including you!

Happy Moodling!

Frankie Kam

Credits - The Online Users Map block

Alex Little 

http://alexlittle.net/ 

alex@alexlittle.net

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