[Server-devel] Content in Moodle

[Martin Langhoff]

2008/11/26 David Leeming <leeming at pipolfastaem.gov.sb>:
> I would like to understand the vision for content management on the server
> using Moodle.

Understandable - I haven't fleshed that out yet.

> Up to this point (with version 0.4), we have been using browsable folders of
> HTML content (including expanded SCORMs with customised index files, for
> instance from the Wikieducator's IMS package export utility), and also PDF
> material. Both work fine. HTML is more flexible and easier to port – PDF
> material needs reformatting for the XO,to make it more readable.

You can keep doing the same with moodle - upload the html content
zipped up with all it's relative subdirectories, unzip it once it's on
the server. Moodle is careful and will strip js code from it to
prevent xss/csrf attacks.

> I am fairly familiar with Moodle as we have one in our DLCP project
> www.schoolnet.net.sb but the focus is on "courses" not "content" so I was
> wondering how this fits with the OLPC content vision, collections and the
> rest.

Moodle 2.0 has a bold new API for content repositories. I plan on
using it a lot, and doing some interesting stuff with it. The base
ideas are from prototype work I did 2 years ago so I'm fairly familiar
with the API.

The core idea is to be able to talk with many repository backends -
and to allow moodle itself to work as a repository for other moodles.

Also - most repositories currently use very extremely awfully
gruesomely stupid protocols based on soap, xmlrpc, rest and similar.
When they could use something http-friendly, cacheable, mirrorable,
copyable, scalable like the yum repo or the debian apt repos. We are
very likely to have a repo structure that has all these good
characteristics and 'crawlers' that talk to stupid repositories to
extract everything to a static repo in the manner I describe -- which
then becomes reachable to schools with bad or no connectivity.

However, 2.0 is mid-2009 so we'll have to wait a bit. Some bits I may
be able to deliver on 1.9 but the main repository work is very core
code, and hard to backport.

> On another minor point, I want to provide the option to go to browsable
> folders or moodle on first acess to the school server. So far I have done
> this by editing the who.php file and adding a link "click to browse
> folders". But maybe I am missing something that can be better managed by
> Moodle.

One way: make that content part of the 'site course' (the "course"
that holds the content for the homepage) and put a link right in the
homepage.

Very happy to see you've been playing with the moodle install I've
provided there :-) It's very early days -- my plans are to simplify it
_a lot_ and set thigns up so that you don't really need an admin role.

If you know moodle, it'll be a bit surprising ;-)

> I would also like to see a collaboration platform (we used the JoinNet Home
> Meeting one with DLCP, using National Sun Yat Sen University of Taiwan's CCC
> LMS server). That would combine video chat with sharing a whiteboard, with
> ability to post slides, annotate them etc.

_Synchronous_ collaboration I'll leave to the software on the XO. The
XS has to be excellent at async stuff for young kids.

> Also, an offline wiki on the server would be useful.

Very much in my plans. Thinking of combining the smarts of mikmik and
a "thicker" wikislice. But that's not entirely moodle...

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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