OK, this is going to be a very techie post as it’s aimed exclusively at developers who are interested in integrating Flash and Moodle. If you’ve never written a line of computer code, then this article will most probably bore you to death!

What is the SWF Activity Module?

The SWF Activity Module deploys Flash learning applications as activities in Moodle courses. It uses standards compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict embed code and leverages SWFObject 2.2. For Moodle users, especially non-developers, it’s a quick, easy, reliable, and mostly importantly, non-techie method of embedding Flash.

What’s the developer preview?

I’ve just uploaded a two-part installer package to the SWF Activity Module project site on Google Code. The first part, like any other Moodle activity module, performs the installation in Moodle and acts as the user interface. The second part is the Flash Remoting service library which handles communication between Flash and Moodle. The particular implementation of this is AMFPHP. This package is a developer preview. It has not been extensively tested, has not been proven to be stable and is not intended for installation on public servers.

What does it do?

So far, the activity module does the following:

• Installation
• Backup and restore
• Creates and manages SWF Activity Module instances
• Creates and manages grade items in Moodle’s grade book
• Custom grade reports

The Flash Remoting service library does the following:

• Establishes fast, lightweight, powerful two-way communication between Flash learning applications and Moodle
• Handles user authentication, capabilities and permissions
• Allows Flash learning applications to push and retrieve grades and user data in Moodle’s grade book
• Allows Flash learning applications to retrieve user data such as avatars, VoIP client IDs, groups, etc. to facilitate social networking and web communication between learners and teachers

Accurately track learners’ activities while on-line

The custom grade reports are particularly interesting because they provide a much asked for function in Moodle activities, namely tracking the amount of time that learners spend on activities accurately. The problem at the moment is that Moodle can only record the time elapsed between requests sent to the server while learners are using a module. Between server requests, Moodle can’t tell whether a user was studying or if they went for a tea break, either way the elapsed time logged is the same. Since Flash learning applications run on learners’ computers, they can track mouse, keyboard, camera and microphone actions over any given period of time. If a learner goes for a tea break, mouse, keyboard, camera and microphone actions stop and Flash learning applications can take this into account, for example, by discounting inactive time. I had to create the custom grade reports because Moodle has no provision for this kind of user data.

Open up Moodle to more web services

The SWF Activity Module is far more than we’ve come to expect from Flash based learning interactions. The Flash Remoting gateway opens up Flash and Moodle to a wide range of 3rd party web services. Here’s a few possibilities to consider:

• Deploy web conferencing clients that use open VoIP and chat protocols. Here’s an example of an existing project could be leveraged.
• Deploy Flash clients that leverage Google Wave’s open protocol, when it goes fully public, for real-time multimedia collaborative projects.
• Consume map, video, search and data services from providers such as Google and Yahoo!
• Or any combination of protocols and services for media-rich, collaborative learning interactions. The sky’s the limit.

How can I use the developer preview?

This is where I need your help. I’d like this module to be tested in as many environments as possible except, of course, public servers so if you are a developer and have a development server with Moodle installed, this is where you can help. Installation instructions are included in the developer preview package and the Flash Remoting gateway comes pre-configured for Moodle. There’s also a sample “Grade Pusher” Flash application that simply pushes grades into Moodle’s grade book. Please try it out on your development servers and let me know if you encounter any problems with it.

The SWF Activity Module project site is at: http://code.google.com/p/swf-activity-module/ where you’ll find downloads, documentation, examples, source code and the issues tracker.

The SWF Activity Module is proud to be open-source.

In this article, I’m going to discuss the relevance of social networking to learners of English, some of the developments in learning English as a foreign/second language on-line and how this might shape the future of e-learning and learning management systems for EFL/ESL.

So much to learn, so little time to learn it.

For learners studying English in their own country, it is often difficult or inconvenient for them to get enough exposure to and practice with English. Classroom time with small groups (i.e. twelve learners or less) with a native speaker tutor who can give guidance on what constitutes “authentic” English at schools, colleges, universities and academies in most countries is at a premium and most only provide between two and four hours per week, although in some cases this can be as high as six. In my opinion, between two and four hours of small group classes per week is not adequate for students to learn the language and develop the communication skills they need.

The majority of EFL/ESL coursebooks include workbooks that provide further written grammar, vocabulary, reading and sometimes even listening activities for learners to do outside the classroom in their own time. Also, tutors often encourage or require learners to read, listen to English radio programmes, watch English films and TV shows, keep diaries, etc. These are typically solitary activities that place the emphasis more on passive understanding or grammatical understanding of language than on active production and communication skills.

Using the Internet as a learning resource.

Growing numbers of learners are now taking the initiative for themselves and using Web 2.0 technology to practise their English. As well as passive comprehension practice such as watching videos on YouTube, listening to English language radio stations such as BBC Radio 4 and BBC Learning English.com, reading on-line magazines and news sites, learners now have an assortment of social networking sites to choose from where they can get in touch with other people with similar learning interests to their own. Currently, there is a bit of a “land grab” going on as small start-up companies such as Babbel and Live Mocha create social networking sites especially for EFL/ESL learners. Currently, learners can keep in touch with each other through instant messaging (chat), bulletin boards (forums), VoIP (Internet telephony) and, of course, video conferencing and shared on-line whiteboards.

How do social networking sites affect learning management systems?

Quite rightly, EFL/ESL learners just want to “get on with it” with what they already know. Many have already spent a considerable amount of time exploring and learning how to use the software applications on social networking sites for activities such as instant messaging, bulletin boards, VoIP calls and video conferencing. Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to insist that learners learn to use yet more, often poorly designed, social networking application interfaces. So why not just let them use the ones they already know?

There’s a wide variety of software and services available and often the most widely used and known ones are free. Google and Yahoo! are popular and particularly good at supporting open protocols and open source (i.e. free and adaptable) software. It’s much cheaper and easier to use 3rd party web services provided by Google, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN Messenger and Skype because they have established networks that have been developed by highly skilled and talented teams of developers over several years.  The really hard work has already been done for us so we get the benefits of reduced development time, huge, stable, well maintained and powerful networks, well documented APIs and public support forums for both developers and users. Having all this available for free has brought the cost of creating and running social networking platforms for e-learning effectively, within the reach of even small schools and academies.

So, allowing learners to stick with their favourite social networking applications and services and integrating these with learning management systems effectively kills two birds with one stone:

#1 – Learners are already well-versed in using the software and so are more likely to engage with their classmates on-line,

#2 – The most costly parts of developing, maintaining and improving the services are expertly taken care of for free.

Keep up or fall behind

I think that in the near future, LMSs will have to incorporate and integrate more 3rd party social networking services or risk becoming irrelevant to EFL/ESL learners as they migrate to social networking sites for their communicative language practice. I’m sure that many learners will welcome the opportunity to link their own personal social networking spaces within LMSs so that they can share their blogs, comments, etc. with their classmates. They’ll also have the added benefits of having all their applications available from a single website, i.e. their school’s learning management system, and developing their English communication skills with topics and ideas that are genuinely relevant to them in a safe environment with people they already know and see in class on a regular basis.

I’ve been playing around with Google Maps API for Flash. I’ve maintained all the usual controls that we expect from Google maps and I’ve added a search bar which accesses Google’s Geocode web service to convert addresses into latitude and longitude coordinates and then find those locations on the map.

Of course, it would be relatively easy to add a list of addresses either from an external XML data file or by accessing a custom database, so that users can quickly and easily find specific addresses without having to search for them themselves.

One advantage of Flash over regular web pages is that we can use full screen mode, whereby Flash Player takes over the entire user’s screen. Ideal for map-reading. Click on the “Full Screen Off” button on the bottom right to enter/exit full screen mode. Please note that in full screen mode, Flash Player disables the majority of keyboard input.  You can also exit full screen mode by pressing the escape key.