Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Moodle & Mahara and other updates at ASchool.us

System Update:
Moodle has been upgraded to verstion 2.1.

Mahara as been added to the list of programs available at ASchool.us/moodle. Mahara is an electronic portfolio system that can be connected to Moodle through SSO. I've outlined a few of the great features that can make students lives easier.

  • Single sign-on (SSO):
    Allows users to login to moodle and then move straight into Mahara without having to sign in again.
  • Export Activities to Mahara from Moodle:A teacher can specify which assignments may be exported to Mahara.
  • Drag and drop design interface:
    In Mahara students can create their portfolio through dragging and dropping documents, images, rss feeds, journal entries, etc... and add descriptions and comments where needed.
Course Development:
Integrating Technology and Education is a four week course that will help teachers use technology more effectively. It will cover the following topics through discussion, assignments, and group activities:
  • Presentations, projectors, and document cameras
  • Tools for students
  • Managing technology
  • Online resources
Students will interact with each other through a variety of online systems. The tools that you learn to use in this class will be tools that you can take with you to the classroom not just tools that you wish you could have.

Gimp for Educators is a self-paced course designed to help you learn to quickly and easily use different features in Gimp (www.gimp.org) to manipulate images and photos. The course is presented through both written and video instruction with help available through class forums.