3 Categories of Moodle Wow Factors for the English Teacher who is new to Moodle

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I've had a flash of inspiration vis-a-vis Moodle Wow factors. Assume you were to give a demonstation of Moodle to an English Language teacher with no or limited current experience of using Moodle. Think about it. Which features, blocks, activities, or technology of Moodle would you show?. To my mind, there are 3 categories of Moodle Wow Factors when it comes to English language learning.

Each category contains a set of Moodle tools and/or activities. I, personally, would spend more time demo'ing the first Wow Factor category as it is the easiest to grasp and, quite possibly but subjectively, the easiest to get excited about.

'Student' Wow Factor Category.

These activities are familiar to the English teacher. They are online exercises where students who take them are graded. These activities mirror or are an online version of exercises given in class. 

Figure 1. MILAs on Matt Bury's website

Ten Moodle Wow Factors! All together now, let's say "Fuiyoh!"

I'm compiling a list of Ten Moodle Wow Factors. In Malaysia, we say "Fuiyoh!" instead of "Wow". So this post is called the Fuiyoh Factor. My goal in this post, and over the next one month, to identify at least ten things about a Moodle coursepage that are awe-inspiring, foot-tapping, finger-snapping, jaw-dropping, all-singing-all-dancing and simply bodacious to Moodle newbies. Specifically, English language teachers. 

If you had a choice of presenting three of your favourite things about Moodle to excite a crowd who have never used Moodle before, which three things would you choose? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettle and warm woolen mittens?

"Things that you can with Moodle" to me include what's inside Moodle, and what you can achieve by linking Moodle with outside Web or Internet services either via embed codes or other means. If I miss any Moodley stuff with a Wow Factor, please shout it out on the rooftops by commenting in the comments section.

Before I continue with my list, I would like to say that Moodle and its collective code by the Community is already a HUGE Wow Factor. Every piece of code written by a developer, enthusiast or teacher is already a gift and a gem to educators and students worldwide. I salute all coders, testers, end users and students who have given their time and effort in creating the world's best and most-used Learning Management System. Okay, here we go then. In no particular order.

Giving the Davo Smith's Realtime quiz a pie chart

I've blogged on Davo Smith's excellent Realtime Quiz for Moodle 1.9 before here. Today's post is about my latest enhancement to that plugin - a pie chart to visually show the breakdown of scores. After all, doesn't every table cry out for a pictoral representation like a graph or a chart?

Back in February 2012, I was tinkering around with a pie chart code I found on the Net. Here's what I came up with for the Realtime Quiz for Moodle 1.9.

Seems that the table data is crying out for a chart of sorts to display visually summary information. The pie chart code is by Rasmus http://www.peters1.dk/webtools/php/lagkage.php?sprog=en
You can download the file piechart.zip. It contains the two files, responses.php and piechart.php, which allows the pie chart to appear. Both files, when extracted, should go inside the /mod/realtimequiz folder.

Have fun with this new makeover for Moodle 1.9,
Frankie Kam



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Rev up Moodle 2.3 and 2.4.1 usability with Davo Smith's "Drag and Drop Image into labels" improvement

On of the major weaknesses of Moodle over the past few years is usability and ease of use. Compared to what? Well, compared to Facebook or Google Plus. A major archilles heel of Moodle is the sheer number of mouse clicks you need to add an image to your course page. 14 steps to add an image? That's enough to put any harrassed teacher off Moodle initiation. But Moodle's really getting better, ever since Moodle 2.3 came out.
                    Today's post will introduce you to yet another improvement to core Moodle 2.x code that will make your life, as a course teacher, easier. If you liked Davo Smith's or Moodle 2.3's built-in drag and drop file upload, you will love his new, yet-to-be core Drag and Drop Image (DaDI) improvement update. It works on Moodle 2.3 and 2.4.1. I've installed the 5-file-patch on my Moodle 2.4.1 production site. And I'm loving it. It makes my Moodle course administration experience all-the-more enjoyable.

DaDi in action on my brand new Moodle 2.4.1 production site.

Figure 1. Dragging an image file to my coursepage,
Seconds after releasing the mouse button.

Enhancing Davo Smith's Realtime Quiz plugin for Moodle 1.9. More time-savings for the teacher.

Davo Smith's RealTimeQuiz plugin for Moodle 1.9/2.0 is a real gem. It simulates a Clickers-type technology that allows the teacher to gauge the level of understanding of a class on a topic or question. Minus the clicker hardware. In this post, I show you how I enhanced the already-excellent software plugin to save me time in the classroom.

"Overall I think clickers increased student satisfaction and participation in the course. It also allowed me instant feedback on student comprehension. They also seem to engage students more fully in a large lecture course. They can also stimulate discussion in a class where that does not occur often." (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee faculty member)

Now I don't use Clickers (and all this imported quality technology costs money for my humble education institution), and I think that Davo Smith's plugin meets my needs in the classroom. In this plugin, the quiz is conducted on a student's computer rather than a hand-held device. I use it in my classes when I want to test the student's understanding of a topic. It helps to break the monotony of a class lecture and the nice thing about it is that it gives instant feedback to the student.

Drag and Drop Upload for Moodle 1.9.x and 2.x by Davo Smith - whatta time-saver!

Here's a MAJOR productivity and user acceptability tip: get Davo Smith's Drag and Drop Upload plugin today, if you haven't already done so!

All the while I thought that the Drag and Drop Upload by Davo Smith was only for Moodle 2.x. After all, the link on the Moodle.org's old plugins page states that it is for Moodle 2.x.