some random moodle stuff

Some Random Moodle StuffRecent Developments at South Devon College

Kevin [email protected]

South Devon College

22 October 2008

Kevin Hughes South Devon College

Some Random Moodle Stuff

SDC Webteam

Lead Web Developer New Media Officer

Web Developer Assistant Web Developer

We have a vacancy

Web Developer

To design and develop web systems closelyintegrated with the college network, withparticular responsibility for the VirtualLearning Environment (Moodle) forE-Learning.

Salary: £21,275 — £22,940

Is this someone youknow?

http://www.southdevon.ac.uk/jobs

Upgrade 1.7→ 1.9

Mostly trouble free...

Odd problem with SCORM (that no-one else has!)

A little trouble with slideshow, scheduler and feedbackmodules

Upgrade 1.7→ 1.9

Mostly trouble free...

Odd problem with SCORM (that no-one else has!)

A little trouble with slideshow, scheduler and feedbackmodules

Moodle and Git

ProblemWe’re making changes to the Moodle code (even if this is justinstalling new modules) but we also want to track the changes fromupstream...

SolutionGit lets us track our changes, and those upstream, at the sametime in our own repository

Moodle and Git

ProblemWe’re making changes to the Moodle code (even if this is justinstalling new modules)

but we also want to track the changes fromupstream...

Moodle and Git

Catalyst have done the hard work for us

git clone git://git.catalyst.net.nz/moodle-r2.git

Moodle and Git

Catalyst have done the hard work for us

git clone git://git.catalyst.net.nz/moodle-r2.git

Torbay Moodle Network

A VLE is needed to support bay-wide diploma courses

South Devon College chosen as the best place to host it

There are issues with authentication and enrolment

I don’t want to do it!Not a big problem now – only one diploma running – but morediplomas will start next year

Thanks to Gavin Pidgley at SchoolCare

Lessons learnt:The Moodle network is picky!It cannot connect out through a proxy [MDL-14624]

But there is a patch... [MDL-15125]

A connection directly to the moodle’s IP address must workA reverse-lookup of the IP must resolve to the correct address(not a local one)

Lessons learnt:The Moodle network is picky!It cannot connect out through a proxy [MDL-14624]

But there is a patch... [MDL-15125]

A connection directly to the moodle’s IP address must workA reverse-lookup of the IP must resolve to the correct address(not a local one)

By the way...

The Graph Statsblock is cool

But it doesn’tcount networkedlogins

So lets fix it

By the way...

So lets fix it

By the way...

So lets fix it

By the way...

Now you can select to count unique logged-in visitors instead.

Deploying Moodle with Capistrano

ProblemNow I’ve got two moodles and two databases across four serversto look after with all the associated duplication of work

, and I’mmuch too lazy for that.

SolutionCapistrano (and a bit of cleverness) will let us administer all ofthem at the same time.

ProblemNow I’ve got two moodles and two databases across four serversto look after with all the associated duplication of work, and I’mmuch too lazy for that.

Capistrano:Rolls code out cleanly straight from a (git) repository to manyservers at once with one command1

Keep old versions handy and rollback to them instantlyCan run any job on parallel across all servers

Possible problems:You need a UNIX-like serverMoodle gets confused by symlinks in its path

1Told you I’d get back to thisKevin Hughes South Devon College

Capistrano:Rolls code out cleanly straight from a (git) repository to manyservers at once with one command1

Keep old versions handy and rollback to them instantlyCan run any job on parallel across all servers

Possible problems:You need a UNIX-like serverMoodle gets confused by symlinks in its path

1Told you I’d get back to thisKevin Hughes South Devon College

A recipe

RESTian XML auto-enrolment

ProblemNone of Moodle’s automatic enrolment plugins are of any use tome.

SolutionOur new in-house eilp can supply enrolment data in simple XML ina RESTful way. Lets write a new plugin which pulls enrolment datafrom that.

ProblemNone of Moodle’s automatic enrolment plugins are of any use tome.

SolutionOur new in-house eilp can supply enrolment data in simple XML ina RESTful way. Lets write a new plugin which pulls enrolment datafrom that.

The plugin has some issues:It doesn’t currently unenrol anyoneIt finds courses on their shortname for historical reasons

A new version coming soon, which...Fixes both those problemsCan link more than one real course to one moodle course

The plugin has some issues:It doesn’t currently unenrol anyoneIt finds courses on their shortname for historical reasons

A new version coming soon, which...Fixes both those problemsCan link more than one real course to one moodle course

Any questions?

”It is impossible to speak in such a way that youcannot be misunderstood.”

Karl Popper

http://www.slideshare.net/kevtufc/some-random-moodle-stuff-presentation

some random moodle stuff

Travel

south devon college

moodle code

college network

south devon college22

torbay moodle network

torbay moodle network

moodles ip address

hard work