mOOdle_ation[s]

Here’s a cool video of an integration available from Paradiso Solutions (note that this has not been released on Moodle.org). The integration allows you to launch Hangouts directly from Moodle. The possibilities for tutoring, class discussions and other communication objectives are endless. If your school or organization uses Google Apps, this might be a great low cost addition to providing online students a way to connect with you outside of the classroom (regardless of their device).

With 68 million users worldwide (larger than UK’s population!), Moodle is hands down the most-widely used learning management system (LMS) by organizations of all shapes and sizes. But Moodle is not the world’s best LMS just because it’s so widely used—Moodle is the world’s best LMS because it is user-friendly, highly-configurable (flexible), and feature-rich. Oh wait, did we also mention that Moodle is free?

SLOODLE is a free and open source project which integrates the multi-user virtual environments of Second Life® and/or OpenSim with the Moodle™ learning management system.

SLOODLE provides a range of tools for supporting learning and teaching to the immersive virtual world; tools which are fully integrated with a tried and tested web-based learning management system used by hundreds of thousands of educators and students worldwide.

Tools and Features

* Connect to a chatroom with the Web Intercom. Students can participate in chats in Second Life using the accessible Moodle chatroom. Discussions can be archived securely in a Moodle database.

- Make presentations with the Presenter. Slides can be quickly uploaded to Moodle in a variety of formats, then viewed in-world as part of a live presentation or asynchronously in Moodle.

- Gather feedback with the Choice.

- Manage in-world assignments with the Assignment Drop-Box. Review grades quickly and easily in the standard Moodle gradebook.

- Distribute inventory with the Vendor.

- Link identities of Moodle users and avatars with the Reg-enrol booth.

- Take quizzes in-world with real-time feedback with the in-world Quiz Chair, integrated with the Moodle gradebook.

- Track points in in-world quizzes and games with the Scoreboard.

- Manage scenes of different objects with the Rezzer. 3D objects and activities can be easily arranged, saved and recreated.

- See the full list of tools for more.

Moodle 2.9 aims to make Moodle simpler and friendlier for teachers to use, from streamlined navigation to improved activities.

Hola: Una infografía sobre Moodle: qué es y elementos. Un saludo

Packt Publishing is running a free book download giveaway from February 16th through March 2nd and this Sunday it will be giving away Moodle 2.0 Elearning Course Development for free to Moodlers worldwide. Get your own copy!

Learn about Moodle for free

Packt Publishing is encouraging customers to develop new skills and try new technologies with 18 days of Free Learning. For 18 days throughout February and March the publisher is inviting customers to claim a free eBook everyday to learn a new skill.

Today [2/22] is Moodle’s turn!

So follow the link to download Moodle 2.0 E-Learning Course Development but hurry, the offer is only available for 24 hours!

If you are an existing Packt customer, all you have to do is simply click on the free eBook link and it will instantly be added to your account. New customers are also encouraged to sign up and take advantage – this is a great opportunity to get to know Moodle a little better.

Get free downloads daily until March 2nd at https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning

Learn Moodle by the Numbers Infographic present the open online activity-based learning course for teachers new to Moodle.

It gives me great pleasure to officially announce Moodle 2.9, our latest major release that packages up all the new things from the past six months of work.

This release has a lot of new things in it (over 360 issues), ranging from some great interface improvements in many areas such as navigation, messaging, lesson and quiz, to things in the backend that designers and developers will be happy about, such as full support for jQuery and the mustache templating library (which I hope explains the Moodle kids photo for this release! )

For the best overview of everything new start with our New Features page or watch our series of explanatory videos below:

For more technical details see the full Moodle 2.9 Release Notes and our Upgrading page.  And of course to download it just go to our download page or use Git.

As always, thanks so much to the entire community of developers, teachers and others who contributed towards this release, and especially our dedicated team at Moodle HQ and the Moodle Partners who support us.

We are now already busy on Moodle 3.0, due in November!

How to gradebook and grades in the Learn Moodle site - an introduction to powerful grading tool, Gradebook, in Moodle.

4 ways to use Youtube with Moodle

Youtube and Moodle play beautifully together, meaning teachers can incorporate into their courses the best of Youtube’s educational videos to enhance and develop their students’ understanding. Making sure you use reputable channels and check out the video content first, here are four ways to use Youtube and Moodle in teaching about major historical events:

How to use private files in the Learn Moodle site - an introduction to private user files in Moodle.