FreeEmbedChat - you've never seen a free PHP chat like this for your Moodle site before!

Julie slaps Frankie with a large trout.

Remember the line "...slaps... with a large trout"? in the good old days of the 1990s of the Internet when text ruled the roost and Internet connections were mainly dial-up lines, chat clients like mIRC and ICQ were all the rage. in this post, I unvei a modified version of PHPFreeChat that caters for Moodle and Web 2.0. You are cordially invited to read on!

I. Introduction

For the last 3 weeks I've been working on an embedded chat widget for my Moodle 1.9.7  site. I am sure that it can be easily modified to suit Moodle 2.x.

My improved chat is based on modified PHP code of Stephane Gully's excellent phpfreechat, Eloy Lafuente's Multimovie filter  and Simon Karpen's Voicethread filter.

I call this modified chat, "FreeEmbedChat".

        Sample screenshot1.

Two more third-party Chat widgets for your Moodle site

For the past two weeks, I've been experimenting with Chat for Moodle. I've looked at some cool tools that are Web 2.0 chat services that you can embed into a Moodle block, as well as free PHP chat programs. Why would I want to "waste" my time with this quest? Didn't Moodle already have a standard, inbuilt Chat module? The meaning behind this madness was two-fold:

1. Moodle chat is resource-hungry and is one of the ways to bring a Moodle site to a grinding halt when many users are chatting. So I was curious to see if other chat systems could be faster;
   
2. Moodle chat opens up as a separate window. I wanted a chat window within my Moodle course. Could I have a chat window open up in a block? Or be embedded as HTML code within a Moodle label or webpage?

As a result of my Chat Quest, I've since discovered PHPFreeChat of which I created a modified version that I christened "FreeEmbedChat". I have also modified the interesting ShoutPro shoutbox so that it is easier to use and more integrated with your Moodle site. I've modified that one too and christened it "Whisper".

Now I want to turn my attention to some third-party chat widgets that are easily enabled on your Moodle site by copying-and-pasting their embed code. Fasten your seatbelts, here we go!

1. Chatango

Type: Web 2.00 service.
Install method: Just copy the embedded HTML code (http://http://chatango.com/creategroup) into your Moodle HTML block.

Ajax Replacement Chat - an improved chat room for your Moodle 1.9 site

I was thinking about Moodle's chat module yesterday. I thought about how my Moodle 1.9.7 site's chat module could be improved. This post is all about chatting in Moodle. Ah yes, online chatting. A major addictive time-waster in most cases. Raise your hand if you have ever wasted more than an hour chatting with others online. My right hand is up. Along with games like Tetris, Lemmings, Counterstrike (pretty old games, I know), chatting is one big time sinkhole. Despite this, some academicians do use it in a controlled and constructive manner.

In this post, I show how you can improve your standard Moodle 1.9.x chat module with Ajax Replacement Chat (ARC, May 2010). If you surfed to this post looking for a chatroom for your Moodle course, you will feel like a kid in a candy store. Sorry to keep you in suspense, but I will reveal more about ARC in a moment. First, a brief review of some more-commonly known chat methods or modules currently available for Moodle. At least one is a commercial offering, whilst the others are free.


Standard Moodle 1.9 Chat Module

 

 Figure 1. The standard Moodle 1.9 chat

Some tutors feel that the standard Moodle 1.9 chat is too slow and that it is a bit of a resource hog. I seldom use it because I find it slow and sluggish. In additon, it opens up as a separate window. I prefer if the chat interface were embedded within a Moodle course page itself.

Leeds City College - Moodle 2 Beachhead secured

If you have been following Lewis Carr's blog you would have known that the intrepid VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) manager and his technical team have been on a quest. To be exact, a Moodle 2 upgrade quest of epic proportions. But they've done it. By George they've done it! I'm talking about Lewis Carr, Sukhwant Lota and the VLE development team at Leeds City College.

 Great theme. Love the exciting colours. Leeds City College's Moodle 2 site as of 22nd July 2011.

How did it start?