E-learning Curve Blog at Edublogs

I’ve been discussing podcasting in some depth recently: today I’ve decided to take a break from the topic, and tell you about a related subject.

Now read on…

Let’s pretend for a moment that you’ve followed all my advice, tips, and suggestions about creating, authoring, recording and producing podcasts with alacrity. Your content needs to be stored somewhere to be distributed to your audience. In the e-learning world we use learning management systems (LMS) to manage this task.

An LMS (or the related Learning Content Management System) is software for delivering, tracking and managing training/education. LMSs range from systems for managing training/educational records to software for distributing courses over the Internet and offering features for online collaboration. LMSs can also automate record-keeping, as well as for:

• Registration of learners for classroom and online courses
• Student self-service (e.g., self-registration on instructor-led training), training workflow (e.g., user notification, manager approval, wait-list management)
• The provision of on-line learning (e.g., Web-Based Training, podcasts)
• On-line assessment
• Management of continuous professional education (CPE)
• Collaborative learning (e.g., application sharing, discussion threads)
• Training resource management (e.g., instructors, facilities, equipment)

One of the most popular, effective, and easy-to-use LMSs is Moodle. Moodle has been taking part in the Google Summer of Code, and it looks like some interesting new plugins have emerged from the project. Among them are the Nanogong and the Riffly plugins for Moodle 2.0.

The Nanogong plugin allows audio-only recording inside the Moodle repositories. The wav files are stored into Moodle using ImaACPCM or Speex codecs. Recorded files and the recording applet are available in all places where the repository is used to select files.

The Riffly plugin allows audio-only or audio-video recording inside the Moodle repositories. The flv files can be stored on riffly.com servers or downloaded into Moodle. Recorded files and the recording flash object is available in all places where the repository is used to select files.

Note that Moodle 2.0 is under development version, and is UNSTABLE. It should NOT be used for production sites. For developers, testers and any other people who helping create the next generation of Moodle. The latest stable release of Moodle is 1.9.5. I recommend that your download, install and have a play with the platform if you haven’t done so already.

Next time: Back to podcasting

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