Online ELT & CALL activities in Moodle

Great news! For those of us who use Moodle to create online English language learning/teaching (ELL/ELT) activities & courses, things just got better. Previously, I’ve held off from writing about H5P because, although it is very useful & has great potential, I found the Moodle integration problematic & difficult to manage, but with the latest Moodle upgrades I think that we can take online ELL/ELT to a whole new level.

Instant, simple video conferencing for free

The following is a quick, simple “How to… ” guide for setting up instant, free, “no frills”, easy to use, multi-way video conferencing and chat in Moodle for up to 8 people at a time. It also works on any web page as you see in the embedded room at the bottom of this article.… Continue reading Instant, simple video conferencing for free

Free and low-cost Moodle hosting options

Every year, web hosting and installing web apps becomes less technically demanding, quicker, and simpler and it’s getting to the point nowadays where it’s a consumer level endeavour. Here’s a few of the easiest low-cost options for hosting Moodle that I’ve seen so far. [Please note: This article is now out of date & Moodle… Continue reading Free and low-cost Moodle hosting options

Ratings systems on social platforms can have unexpected effects

This is a quick post to share a recently published paper, How Community Feedback Shapes User Behavior, that examines the effects of ratings systems and up/down voting on social networking platforms and services. I go on to discuss some questions it raises for online social learning. Abstract Here’s the abstract to How Community Feedback Shapes User… Continue reading Ratings systems on social platforms can have unexpected effects

Implementing star-ratings in Moodle

Following the upsurge of interest in gamification* of learning (not to be confused with “edugames”), this is a quick “How to” article for a question that seems to come up a lot these days: “How can I implement star-ratings in Moodle?” How to implement star-ratings in Moodle Moodle already has an elaborate, editable, and adaptable… Continue reading Implementing star-ratings in Moodle

Specifying elearning resources and strategies

A common challenge facing those about to embark on elearning projects is knowing just what their options are and what they have to offer. Novice project managers, teachers, and curriculum developers often find themselves at a loss as to where they should start and what they should be looking into. This article is not intended… Continue reading Specifying elearning resources and strategies

Free and open source concept map app for Moodle

I’m pleased to announce that the  Concept Map app is now available on my Github.com repository as a free and open source project. It works with the SWF Activity Module for Moodle 1.9 and 2.5+ and a compiled version of the app is included pre-installed with the latest version of the SWF Activity Module for… Continue reading Free and open source concept map app for Moodle

Moodle.org introduce their first MOOC

This is just a quick annoucement about a project that may be of interest to teachers who are new to Moodle. Moodle for teachers: An introduction is a 4 week introductory course with a recommended total of 8-12 hours participation time. Registration opens on 19th August 2013 and the course starts on 1st September 2013. There… Continue reading Moodle.org introduce their first MOOC

Update on the free online interactive c-test generator

In January of this year (2013) I published an article on my C-Test Generator which I made freely available for everyone to use so that they can generate their own c-tests quickly and easily. Since then, it has occured to me that it would also be useful to be able to generate text versions of… Continue reading Update on the free online interactive c-test generator

I’m moving my open source projects from Google to GitHub

This is a quick announcement concerning my open source project hosting. On the 20th May 2013, Google Code posted the following announcement; “Starting today, existing projects that do not have any downloads and all new projects will not have the ability to create downloads. Existing projects with downloads will see no visible changes until January… Continue reading I’m moving my open source projects from Google to GitHub