Moodle 2 Administration - Book Review

This Thursday November 24th marks the first anniversary of the release of Moodle 2. This is a major milestone in the development of the world's favourite Virtual Learning Environment. Not many production sites have yet moved to Moodle 2, at the moment it's probably best to use on new installations only.
I've been running a Moodle 2 installation since September of this year and while it took me some time to get used to I'm now quite comfortable with it. The first major change that one notices are in the areas of site navigation, administration and file handling. I'll go through these in a later post. The changes are improvements by and large and I particularly like the built in content licensing options and the ability to integrate fully with Google Apps.


I dont yet feel quite competent enough to embark on a full Moodle 2 review, but I've been asked to review Pakt Publishing's soon to be released "Moodle 2 Administration" Book. Pakt Publishing have been publishing excellent books for a number of years, often focusing on Open Source Software - I'd particularly recommend "Moodle 2 for Business" by Gavin Henrick, Joanne & Jason Cole. I've just recieved my copy of "Moodle 2 Administration" and will be reviewing it within the next fortnight. This will be a great opportunity for me to really "get my hands dirty" with Moodle 2. To date I've been using a vanilla 2.0.2 installation with very few tweaks. I'm looking forward to learning enough to get stuck in and make Moodle 2 really work for me. Looking forward to a challenging fortnight, here goes...

Free Moodle Training from the Connect Education Community of Practice


Free Beginners Moodle Training available through the Connect Education Community of Practice.

In partnership with Dublin West Education Centre, IT Tallaght, the National Centre for Technology in Education, Camara, South Dublin County Council and St Aidan’s Community School, training in “Creating and Sharing Digital Resources using Moodle” will be provided to teachers by the Connect School eChampion - Ronan Herron.

Ronan has been administering Moodle in St Aidan’s Community School, Brookfield Tallaght for the past 4 years.

The Training takes place over 6 x 2.5 hr weekly sessions culminating in each participant confidently using Moodle in their day to day teaching.

 The Community of Practice provides:

  1. Moodle platform for use by teachers and students
  2. Try-out area where you can build your course
  3. Resources area where curriculum material is uploaded for all to use and share.

Booking fee of €20 is required to reserve your place and is refundable on attendance of +50% of classes.

To take part in “Creating and Sharing Digital Resources using Moodle” send an email to teachers@sdcc.ie with CSDRUM in the subject line.

The 6 Modules of the Training Programme cover:
  1. Introduction to Moodle.
  2. Uploading and managing your digital resources.
  3. Adding Activities and interactivity to your Course.
  4. Multimedia and other content.
  5. Quizzes and online testing.
  6. Moodle in class and from home.


Course Prerequisites.

This Course - Creating and Sharing Digital Resources is intended as a beginner’s course - it is suitable for someone who has never used Moodle before.

After engaging thoroughly with the 6 Modules you should be in a position to create and share engaging interactive eLearning Courseware.

Although the Course is intended for beginners it does make a number of assumptions about the basic ICT skills of participants.

Listed below are a number of competencies
in which prospective participants should be adept.
  • Creating and editing text files.
  • Creating folders and managing files.
  • Cutting and pasting.
  • Using Keyboard shortcuts.
  • Switching between open applications.
  • Using email.
  • Downloading and installing applications.
  • Searching and navigating the Web.
  • Turning on and off a computer cleanly.
There may be one or two competencies listed above in which you are not yet adept, this will not present a problem, just let the Tutor know.

These are the very basic pre-requisites. By participating in this course you should expect to gain further ICT Skills and not just in the area of developing Courseware. You will also gain skills in manipulating audio, video and interactive media. Most of all you will gain a greater understanding of what it is to create engaging elearning material.



Venue:  Course will take place in the Dublin West Education Centre startin Monday 28th February at 6.30 pm.

Hosting: The Community of Practice Moodle server is provided by the Institute of Technology Tallaght and is available to teachers to use not just for training but for use in class and as a sharing repository of resources.


To reserve your place send an email to teachers at sdcc dot ie with CSDRuM in the subject line.