The Distributed, Web 2.0 VLE? Incorporating External Content Platforms

into the Institutional VLE

Dr. Ian Glover (ian.glover.1@city.ac.uk),Shane Wohlers (shane.wohlers.1@city.ac.uk)

City University London

ALT-C 2011, University of Leeds, UK – 7th September 2011

Topics

• Background

• Advantages/Disadvantages of Using External Tools

• Usage of External Tools at City

• Presenting External Content through VLE (Moodle)

• External Content Presented Outside the VLE

• Recommendations/Thoughts

Background

2008 Working at University of Hertfordshire on bespoke MLE, StudyNet. Beginning work on integrated ‘social’ platform to supplement MLE (Glover &

Oliver, 2008; Oliver & Glover, 2008).

Subsequent Findings/Observations Developing towards ‘Gated Community’, rather than ‘Walled Garden’ or

‘Open Space’• e.g. Moodle 2.x Repositories

Mostly a controlled space• drawing in some external data and allowing some re-publication.

Most data still held on institutional systems.

Advantages of Using External Tools

• Many good, free tools Cut down on IT costs (possibly)

• Do one thing, and well

• People may already be using it

• Wider promotion of work/ideas Increase visibility/’findability’ (Peter Morville, findability.org)

Disadvantages of using External Tools/Content

• No/little control Resource could change over time, System down at critical time

• Future changes to licensing/availability Ning – free service revoked Google Wave/Lively – completely shutdown

(The Top Ten Dead Google Projects Floating About In Cyberspace)

• Security/Privacy/Copyright/IP issues

• Additional training required?

• Duty of Care issues?

Principal External Tool Usage at City University London

Common Some use Growing Integrated into Moodle modules

Facebook - Flickr - Maps/Mashups - - PebblePad - - -

RSS Feeds - - Twitter - Wordpress - -

YouTube/Vimeo -

Trend: Content-focussed, not activity/process oriented

.

Surfacing through the Moodle VLE

• Twitter Feeds

Surfacing through the Moodle VLE

• Twitter Feeds

• Flickr Streams (Custom feature developed in-house – see Glover, 2011)

.

Surfacing through the Moodle VLE

• Twitter Feeds

• Flickr Streams

• RSS News Feeds

Surfacing through the Moodle VLE

• Twitter Feeds

• Flickr Streams

• RSS News Feeds

• Maps/Mashups

Surfacing through the Moodle VLE

• Twitter Feeds

• Flickr Streams

• RSS News Feeds

• Maps/Mashups

• Embedded video YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Semantically-wrapped videos

• PebblePad Accessed via Moodle Little integration

• Wordpress Posts brought into Moodle via RSS Accessed via link to separate server

• Facebook Some presentation through Moodle Mainly used as separate system

• Mobile Twitter + RSS Aggregation(Currently in development -

http://www.cityunihealth.co.uk/ian/twitter_app) Intended for mobile Accessed via separate server

Surfacing through Other Means

Try it:

Recommendations/Thoughts

• Aggregate content when possible Pull content in, don’t push people out

• Investigate any legal/moral/ethical issues first

• Check long-term viability of platforms

• Consider how it will ‘integrate’ with VLE Functions exist already?

• Avoid chasing students into their social spaces Pick the tools based on your needs instead

Questions?

A couple from me:

“What are the key points in the learning experience where external tools can add value, and what thoughts do you have of using such tools?”

“Can we use these tools to challenge our own (and others’) preconceptions and inertia about the types of activities used with students?”

References

• Glover, I. & Oliver, A. (2008). ‘Hybridisation of Social Networking and Learning Environments’. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (Ed-Media 2008), pp. 4951-4958 .

• Oliver, A. & Glover, I. (2008). ‘The (Possible) Future of MLEs’. Presented at ALT-C 2008. Online: http://www.slideshare.net/drandyoliver/the-possible-future-of-mles

• Glover, I. (2011). ‘Integrating Flickr-based Images into Moodle to Increase Visual Appeal and Dynamism of Teaching Spaces’. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (Ed-Media 2011), pp. 768-772.