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Extending Moodle Across the Institution: Integration Strategies and Methods
Academic Technology, San Francisco State University
Andrew Roderick, Technology Development ManagerClifford Tham, MOODLE Developer Daniel Koepke, Software Developer
Workshop Agenda
• Introduction
• What Is Integration? Worldview
• Case Study – Lecture Capture
• Integration in Practice
Open Discussion, Questions, Comments
About Us
• San Francisco State• 1,500 faculty and 30,000 students• Commuter campus
• Moodle since 2007• Branded as iLearn; customized• Moodle 1.9.9 in Fall• 2,400 courses
Who Are You
• Your name
• Your institution
• Your role
• Why are you here?
• Favorite classic rock song?
An Integrated World
• Blackboard buys Elluminate, Wimba
• Moodlerooms releases Joule
• API’s now a selling point• Key purchasing decision
(“will it integrate with my existing environment”)
“Should I be integrating?” is now“What should I integrate?”
Our Worldview
• Choose the best options for our users• Build, buy, and/or download
• Focused is better than monolithic
• Experience, functionality matter most• Is it nice to use?• Does it do what people need it to do?
Design the Experience
• Understand your environment
• Think about the gestalt
• Pick your pieces carefully
• Don’t just choose what’s available, easy
• Don’t let technology dictate the choices
Take control of your design!
Integration
• Wire together the pieces we have• Loose coupling
• Choose what to expose, what to hide• Façades hide seams between systems• Not all or nothing: might make it seamless
for students, but show the software to faculty
Integration with the LMS
• Bring content and functionality into the learning context• Courses• Activities
• Not just about delivery of static content• Expose content’s functionality• Expose content to LMS’s functionality
Case Study – CourseStream
How it works
• Faculty presents lecture
• Lecture is processed into multiple formats (rich media (flash), video only, audio only)
• Faculty distributes content
Case Study – CourseStream
Workflow w/o Integration
• Faculty login to Echo360 system
• Copy links
• Distribute – via email, web page
• Other options include rss, publisher plugins
Case Study – CourseStream
Integrate into LMS (Moodle)
• Users already using
• Simplify faculty workflow
• Hide multiple systems faculty don’t need to know about
• Automate distribution
Case Study – CourseStream
Echo360’s Moodle Publisher Plugin
• Publishes to Moodle Calendar
• Out of course context
• Out of faculty’s control
• Calendar may not be heavily used component
Case Study – CourseStream
Integrate into Moodle
• Put it further into context of the learning experience
• Give control back to faculty
• Allow faculty to integrate into teaching
• Focus on teaching and course design instead of technical details
Case Study – CourseStream
SF State’s Echo360 / Moodle Integration
• Resource
• Block
• Management Component
• Administrative Component
Case Study – CourseStream
Use Case
Place in topic w/ other resources
Place all in one topic
Block, populating auto
Block, by topic
Reuse
Case Study – CourseStream
Removed faculty’s necessity to acknowledge the existence of echo360 server
Simplified Workflow
Still allowed faculty flexibility
Faculty can focus on course design
Design of IntegrationResource – Method of distributing content (PDFs, MP3, DOCs, Web Page, Text Page)
Blocks – Method of delivery content, activities secondary to course materials
Management Interface – Method of distributing content (PDFs, MP3, DOCs, Web Page, Text Page)
Resource
Integrate lectures into course design
• By topic/theme
• By chronology
• By course materials– Quizzes, Lectures, Assignments, etc
Creating / Editing a Block
Select format to distribute to students Choose the order in which
lectures appear for students
Managing Your LecturesView and manage the captures available for your Moodle courseView list of lectures
available for use
Rename lecture captures
Preview lecture format without placing in course
View lecture capture metadata
Managing Your Lectures
• Preview lecture without placing in course
• Lists lectures that are available for use
• Rename captures
• View capture metadata
Integration in Practice
• What to integrate?
• How to integrate?
• Application readiness
• Moodle readiness
• Prioritize real, known needs• Improve the things people already do• Software people already use
• Why does it make sense…• In the LMS context?• In your environment?• To your users?
What to Integrate?
What to integrate? Getting Input.• Needs assessments/task analysis
• Governance
• Usage/Impact
• Applicability to teaching and learning tasks
How to Integrate?
• Link to or embed• Content, functionality, interactivity
• Many integrations will mix-and-match• Façade for display, common functionality• Jump into application for more
• Where does it belong in Moodle?• Resources, blocks, activities, etc.
Application Readiness
• What does the application provide?• Application Programmer’s Interface (API)• Syndication (Atom/RSS)• IFRAME• Link
• Authentication/authorization
Moodle Readiness
• Moodle provides most extensibility with• Blocks• Resources
• You may need to change core code to handle more advanced cases
• Moodle 2.0 changes things up• Repository API, more
Taming MoodleOption 1•Limit changes to modules, blocks•Avoid changes to core code, work around obstacles
Option 2•Make wholesale changes to Moodle•Re-architect many underlying structures
Best Option•Minimize changes to core code, but change what is necessary for your campus•Balance between changes to core code and foregoing usability, maintainability
Integration examples
• Available API or Custom (roll your own)
• SIS, Authentication, other institutional data
• Syndication
• Repository
• Application