This is the first of a few quick posts about the New Zealand MoodleMoot which was held in Auckland over the last few days.
Firstly a huge thanks to Stuart Mealor and the HRDNZ (Moodle Partner) team, and Unitec team who put on such a great MoodleMoot. There was a packed schedule of excellent talks and I will reflect / provide links about some in a later post.
I did two presentations during the moot, one on a global view of Moodle, and laterly on Repositories and also was the pretty assistant for the admin workshop!
The repositories presentation was a broad overview on the issue of using external document repositories with Moodle.
I broke the presentation into 3 parts:
- Background to repositories focusing on standard repository features and typical Moodle features using a repository and especially on some issues involved in using repositories.
- An overview of where repositories were for Moodle 1.9 and where they are now for Moodle 2.0
- 3 quick overviews of example repository integrations for Moodle including ELIS from Remote-Learner, Equella and Sharepoint.
To help everyone focus on some of key topics, including whether to copy or link from repositories we kicked off the presentation with everyone singing a song to the tune of the Clash “Should I stay or should I go. These were the words, for you to practice for a conference in the future!
Should I copy Should I link
Moodle you gonna make me think
Should I copy , should I link
Cos my files here will be fine
And will be there until the end of time
So you want make me think
Should I copy it or link?
Always tell me to delete
You’re happy when I face defeat
One day I’ll figure all this out
Until I do I will just shout
When I bring backups to the brink
Should I copy it or link
Should I copy it or link now?
Should I copy it or link now?
If link there could be trouble
And if I copy it will double
So come on and be distinct
Should I copy , should I link
The music – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZk_HnE-cdU
We finished off with another song this time to the tune of Another Brick in the wall, by Pink Floyd.
Another file to restore..
We all want more external linking
We want files spread across the net
images from Flickr and videos from YouTube
Teachers need to take control!
Hey! Teachers, you need to take control!
All in all its just a better way to store files
All in all its just a better way to store files
We do need more repositories….
We all need good version control
More crazy workflows in course creation
Developers leave them backups alone
Hey! Developers, Leave them files alone!
All in all its just another file to backup.
All in all its just another file to restore.
I should point out that nearly the whole auditorium were singing for both songs, so well done all!! I believe someone recorded both so will link the recordings once I find them!
Was a fun session with a lot of good questions about balancing the needs of small and large deployments of Moodle and the complexity repositories can bring, however I do feel that the benefits exceed any challenges that may arise.
Here are the slides on slideshare
