Weblog of Wesley Fryer

Wes:

I have to agree with you about Moodle. I have been using it for two years now in all of my classes and it is wonderful.

I used Moodle for the first time this year for a university educational technology class. I teach another edtech class using blogs. I have to agree that the blogging platform is way more open for one kind of sharing, but Moodle has also worked very well. Wikis, for example, can be embedded in Moodle, videos embedded, docs uploaded and shared, and forums are easy for people to contribute and share back and forth. As an instructor, I really like the fact that I can display all of the postings of a single individual. I also found Moodle to be very easy to configure and construct exactly the way I want…

But back to blogs – I like them also and use them with elementary kids as well as with college students. I think I’ll try out Moodle with the little kids next year just to see what happens. — Terry

In response to Terry Smith’s post. A good friend and colleague of mine, Rhonda Curtsinger, will be presenting a couple of student showcases of how she has used Moodle and other Web 2.0 tools with her elementary students Sunday night June 29th at NECC.

Four of her students were also invited by NECC to come and show how they use these tools. It should be very interesting. If you would like some more information, I would be happy to get it to you, or if you are planning on attending NECC stop by on Sunday night.

Be sure to check out the Drupal in Education group — http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-education —

RE: “If Drupal is better, I’d certainly like to know more about it.” — Drupal and Moodle are both excellent tools. Moodle provides the initial structure, and that allows people to get up and running more quickly. Drupal, however, requires more time up front, but is incredibly flexible. This type of flexibility allows for an enormous range of teaching and learning to occur –

Using Drupal to replace Moodle, or as an alternative to Moodle, is silly — Moodle exists, it’s stable, and does a great job managing a classroom structure. If you want what Moodle does, replicating Moodle in another platform is a waste of time. When you want to move beyond a classroom structure, or want to work with broader swaths of the web, or want to import content via rss, or want to clean up the user interface, or want to give students greater control of their learning, want more coherent and flexible tagging of content, or [fill in the blank here], then Drupal starts to make more sense. But they are different tools, used for different purposes.

The Elgg/Moodle integration is interesting as a proof of concept, but is hardly replicable on a broader scale. It requires a degree of expertise that will be taxing, both during setup and over time. To the best of my knowledge, the original integration is no longer actively maintained, and the group that wrote it subsequently wrote Mahara to provide the eportfolio functionality. If you’re looking to to that road, a Mahara/Moodle link will probably be easier to maintain, as the Moodle/Mahara integration is under ongoing development.

And all of this goes to my original point: there is an incomplete understanding of what Drupal offers in the K12 edtech community — and perhaps this is part of a larger issue involving perceptions around using open source tools, and when it makes sense to use different tools to support different goals.

Bill,

I’d encourage you to submit a proposal to the K12 online conference on just such a topic. Sounds like we all could use a more in depth look at this tool and even as a comparison to Moodle which is likely the more popular and familiar.

@Bill, thanks for clarifying your view. I absolutely agree with you, Moodle really isn’t designed as an open content management system. As you have stated, Moodle is class centered and calendar driven, which aligns nicely with the structure of school today. Drupal’s core functionality, on the other hand, is “taxonomy centered”, revolving around the subjects (tags) of each piece of content. As you have stated, this creates an environment of open-access to information, which can certainly be a good thing.

That said, you and I both know that setting such a system up with Drupal is far from easy. In fact, it can be downright nasty, which explains why we don’t see more of them in the wild. What Drupal gives in flexibility, it takes back in ease-of-use, even for the end users. Uploading files and pulling in media from multiple sources can be a real chore for even the most tech savvy end user. Add on layers of input filters, node types, taxonomy, etc, and you can find yourself with quite a confused group of content creators. Sure, you can hide much of it from them, but eventually someone asks to do something that requires them to have access.

Also, while Drupal is great at delivery, it’s only so-so at creating a social media environment. Social media tools are generally “people centered” and are far more loosely structured. While Drupal can be a great platform for building a blogging infrastructure, our experience has been that Drupal is just OK for creating a real social environment, where the links between people are the key. The indexed, search-able, free-tagging capability is great, but is somewhat sterile with regard to audience (ie friends, groups, followers, etc.) This is OK, considering it is primarily a content management system, but is less than ideal for creating a social system.

Don’t get me wrong, we love Drupal. We have just found that when you start to step outside the bounds of content delivery and aggregation things start to get a bit scary. Moodle might as well not have a blog at all, it’s so useless. I’m just not sure Drupal is the right choice for an alternative.

Now there’s a thought! I’ve always wanted an excuse to learn Python

@Jim — thanks for the comments — I’ve been thinking about them off and on through the day. I have a blog post in here somewhere, but until I can de-contextualize it enough to have it stand on its own merits I’ll leave this comment here — as this conversation has developed, it feels less like we’re talking about function, and more like we’re talking about design.

RE: “Drupal’s core functionality, on the other hand, is ‘taxonomy centered’, revolving around the subjects (tags) of each piece of content.”

I’d actually say that, at the outset, Drupal is balanced between users, content, and taxonomy — and some simple sites don’t use taxonomy at all. But, once the process of building out your site begins, even this simple relationship can get muddled, as any one of these elements can have many different relationships to one another. Content can be related to other content, to users, and through multiple taxonomies; users can be related to other users, and categorized via taxonomy, etc. But once the site admin figures out the relationships between the different elements of the site (and this should happen before the real work of building the site begins), they should craft a design that makes the conceptual framework governing the site intuitive to the point of invisible.

RE: “our experience has been that Drupal is just OK for creating a real social environment, where the links between people are the key.” — I’m not sure what you’re describing here in terms of functionality. The Buddylist module, BuddyList2, the Bio module, the Friend module, the Advanced Profile module, the Activity module, the User Relationships module (to name a few) all allow for extended connections to be created and navigated between users within Drupal sites. Drupal’s use of OpenID offers even greater possibilities here. In reading through your comments, I get the feeling we’re talking more about the UI exposed to the user than about actual functionality. But more on that later.

RE: “What Drupal gives in flexibility, it takes back in ease-of-use, even for the end users.” — and this is where I get the distinct impression that we are talking more about design, and less about functionality. And when I say “design” I’m talking about more that simple look and feel; I’m talking about Block and Menu visibility (based on role, url path, content being viewed, etc), and the way that the goals of your site have been described before you started building the site. This is also an area where graphic design has a lot to offer education — some of this filters down through instructional design, but even within instructional design there is a lack of emphasis on creating the cleanest, simplest online learning space possible. In thinking about Drupal, I encourage people to think about the modules/functionality as a starting point. This starting point gets refined by a skilled use of the theming layer. Using the theming layer is well outside the realm of the end user, but it falls clearly within the realm of a site admin. From what you are describing, it sounds like there are some tools available within the theming layer (and also among the available codebase) that you are not using to your full advantage. Having built social learning environments within a variety of platforms, I feel very comfortable saying that rich social environments are very achievable within Drupal. I’d love to hear about the elements you were not able to achieve within Drupal; feel free to contact me off-line (so we can stop trespassing on Wes’s blog — sorry, Wes).

But finally, this thread has been incredibly valuable wrt my initial question/comment: “While Moodle is a great tool, reading posts like this reinforces how poorly Drupal is understood within the edtech community.”

One of the things that has emerged from this thread is that Drupal needs to do more with design, and default options. Moodle provides a clear set of options. While the UI is less flexible than many other open source applications, new users are presented with an array of pre-set options. In short, there is *something* to click, and the paradigm of Moodle (course-centered) is familiar enough to get people started. Drupal, on the other hand, presents a blank slate – the options are what you make them, and making them requires a degree of familiarity with how Drupal works.

RE: “you and I both know that setting such a system up with Drupal is far from easy. In fact, it can be downright nasty” — I don’t know — one person’s nasty is another person’s fun All kidding aside, from some of what you describe, it sounds like you are facing issues that could be effectively and efficiently addressed via some quality time with Drupal’s theming layer. The job of the webmaster is creating simplicity, and it ain’t easy. The idea of simplicity unmasked is one of the things I’ve actually been enjoying about the issues with Twitter: Twitter is a relatively simple service, but the Twitter outages have done some work raising awareness about the complexity behind applications that appear simple.

Obviously, your average Drupal site doesn’t need to address the issues of Twitter, but the analogy holds: making something easy and simple and intuitive requires planning and work. It doesn’t happen by accident. “Easy” is often a function of design, and good design is hard to explain, While most people know it, or at least feel it, when they see it, they cannot explain what it is. While I’m not holding Moodle up as an example of good design, it is familiar. One of the things I’ve gained from this conversation is a greater appreciation of the role that design needs to play in Drupal’s adoption.

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Come on in the water is fine….
I’m beginning to settle into my new job at the K20 Center as the new Director of Technology for Learning Support. So this is my first real diversion in about a month. And, oddly enough I find myself back in the middle of this conversation about the “killer app” for education. It’s like…. “ladies and gentlemen in this corner wearing orange trunks we have Moodle and in this corner wearing blue trunks we have Drupal.” It’s a pressing issue here at the center as we try to make the best decisions possible on how to establish and scale a vibrant learning community.
I’m finding myself trying to listen to my colleagues more than I speak. I’m listening to the various visions of how Drupal can be designed and modified and molded like clay to fit (it sounds like) anyone’s vision of the perfect learning/social environment. And, please believe me, I’m not opposed to keeping an open mind about the potential of great and intelligent people to do great and intelligent things every day. In fact, I see evidence of things I never dreamed of as possible every day. Things like a gas-powered blenders for backpackers who enjoy that late evening Smoothie in the outback.
When I do get around to opening my mouth, I tend to lean toward educational tools which appear to be practical to me – the slightly aged trainer of teachers. I find myself talking a lot about Moodle and it’s “extraordinary fit” for the educational environment as we know it. Moodle in it’s current form, is sort-of like the “Model T” of social-constructivists learning environments. I think Martin Dougimas is the “Henry Ford” of open source course management systems.
In essence , Martin has given the world a vehicle that everyone can drive and will have a profound effect on the way many of us teach and learn and share information. We can have any color of Moodle we want, as long as it is orange and those of us who use it know where all of the controls are. We can drive it around, we can back it up, we can leave the keys in it and let everyone in the neighborhood drive it around, without concern of breaking it. It’s familiar… you can get in it and go.
This is my point, (about Moodle) it’s ready to use. The transition from the physical traditional classroom to the virtual classroom is not a stretch for most folks. Perhaps we might think of it as a course management system with training wheels. Although, I’ve seen a number of Moodle sites with enough bling and polish to impress most anyone. And, the Moodle support community is incredible along with a number of Moodle hosting services like MoodleRooms.org
This posting started as a discussion about “Killer Apps” a notion that I think I gave up on some time ago.
However, if I were asked about which course management system I would lean toward deploying in the current k12 learning environment, I would have to go with Moodle.

As for Drupal, my mind is open to it. I’m learning and exploring its potential every day. But, will someone please show me where the hood-release is located?