Tag: Open Source

MoodleNet Thoughts

December 28, 2023 / Troy / 0 Comments

I posted on Mastodon about the lack of feedback on Moodle Net. Martin replied asking for feedback. I’ve responded, but I thought that I would flesh out my thoughts a bit here.

I love Moodle and what you can do with it. I love that there isn’t a big money-making, data-sucking, privacy-invasive company running it.

A little background. I’m in the US. Specifically, I’m in K-12 education teaching and learning. Moodle is not super popular. There are certainly a few places, but Moodle is much bigger at the University level than K-12. There is much angst over Moodle. Quite simply, teachers find it “too hard”.

There are reasons that Google Classroom has taken over. It really doesn’t do much (thus, much less to learn for teachers). Google Classroom is essentially handing out worksheets and getting them back (another bonus, teachers understand the worksheet process).

When COVID hit, there was a rush for two things, video conferencing and an LMS. Zoom quickly captured the video conferencing mindshare. So much so, that even now it is pretty much the only game in town. Google Classroom captured the LMS market (note that it not an LMS but that doesn’t matter). It doesn’t even matter that it is not an LMS. The District that I was in at the time evaluated Canvas, Schoology, and Moodle (we had Moodle installed and were known internationally for our work in Moodle – due to Chris Kenniburg). The District chose to go with Schoology. It was “easier”.

MoodleNet

So this is one reason I was (still am) hopeful for MoodleNet. MoodleNet should be a great way to share resources, activities, etc. This means teachers wouldn’t have to create all their own material. This alone would make Moodle “easier”. Teachers could get started.

However, I do not find MoodleNet engaging. I’ve posted some things there, but I don’t get any feedback. There is currently no way to provide feedback. I can’t tell someone that I liked their materials or that I used it with changes. Hence. I reached out to Martin.

I don’t think that this needs to be overly complicated. I thought about ratings, 1-5 stars, adding how it was used, tags, and more. Really though, I think a simple comment box would be the way to go. Let users decide how to use it. Let users make comments. Provide a link back to the profile of the user, what date the comment was made, but otherwise, just free-form comments.

I am hopeful that that would provide a bit of social connections. It would provide the opportunity to provide feedback. It may encourage more people to submit resources.

Flashcards

March 1, 2020 / Troy / 0 Comments

Flashcards can be a powerfully learning tool. These are really good for learning material. Popularly, these are used learning languages. But, these can be very useful in many, many other situations as well. Science teachers frequently need students to learn concepts and names. Social Studies teachers need students to learn dates and connections. Language Arts teachers can use flashcards to teach sight words, meanings of words, synonyms, antonyms, etc. Mathematic teachers can benefit from concepts, memorizing multiplication tables, and much more.

Flashcards can be useful for all students in a variety of ways. There are a couple of tips that make flashcards even more powerful:

students should make them
cards should be able to be practiced “both” ways
cards should be randomized
distributed (spaced) practice concepts should be available

Physical Cards

Flashcards orginally come from, well, cards. Index cards can be used. These are easy for students to understand and create. Lots of colors can be used. Students should be encouraged to use pictures and colors. Cards are easy to study either front to back or back to front. On the downside, portability isn’t always the highest. These can be tough to manage as well. These can be shuffled, but it isn’t difficult to manage distributed learning.

Moodle Database

Naturally, you can create flashcards in Moodle. There are actually a few different ways to create flashcards in Moodle. I’ll start with the Database activity. I have instructions on importing a flashcard database preset available for you. The preset -(see an example) is a Database activity that was designed by some friends. This activity allows the students to create their own flashcards. The flashcards can be multimedia as well.

These have several advantages. Cards are created by students. Cards can be shared within a class. At times, this can be useful. Students studying cards other students created can be useful as well. With the preset, there is the ability to randomize the cards. On the downside, there is no managed, distributed (spaced) practice.

H5P

I need to spend time working with H5P. I’m not as proficient with H5P as I’d like to be. So what follows is from their documentation.
From H5P:

The Flashcards content type is a set of cards containing a picture on one side of the card and a corresponding text on the other side. The learner is asked to type a word or expression corresponding to the picture, before turning the card over and revealing the correct answer.

The H5P Flashcards are interesting. You can create a spot for the students to answer the question right on the card.

I’m not sure that the students can create their own flashcards.

I don’t believe that distributed (spaced) practice is available either. Flashcards seem to be structured in one direction (i.e. it isn’t easy to study “back to front” as well as “front to back”).

Remember that H5P can be available within Moodle as well.

Anki

This is actually my favorite. Anki is open source. There are applications available for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and the web. Like Moodle, Anki allows for multimedia options. Anki seems to have all your bases covered in terms of access. This means that students can have access at any time. There are also Shared Decks that can be downloaded and used (but remember that there is power in creating the cards.)

Anki is completely designed for distributed (spaced) practice. Cards are moved into different time patterns based on how well the student knows the material.

Anki is also very powerful. It can easily be used quickly. But, if students want more control, it is very customizable as well. Anki is template based and those templates can be adjusted and modified. There is a ton of documentation available.

Suggestion

I would strongly suggest that you introduce your students to the power of flashcards. As different learners have different preferences, some of them may really be effective with flashcards. Naturally, I would suggest that you experiment with flashcards as well. This will help you help your students.

Even though I believe that Anki is the absolute gold standard, using Flashcards in Moodle can be a good introduction to the students. Plus, the more times students deal with information the better chance they have for remembering and learning that information.

Free vs Free vs Paid

December 27, 2018 / Troy / 1 Comment

Everyone wants something for free. But what really is free? In terms of web sites, information and more on the internet, free seems to be the standard. Like the old adage, there is no free lunch, things are really aren’t free on the internet. There are costs to host and produce web sites.

Let’s take a look at how this impacts us as educators. Here is a look at Free vs Free vs Paid.

Free (We’ll make money somehow)

The first free is sites or applications which look like they are completely free. These are usually supported by ads, a Freemium model or a “future revenue model”. Let’s take a look at each of these:

Ad Supported

Here, ads are sold to pay the bills. This is generally pretty straight forward. This somewhat follows the old TV model. For decades, TV was free because the producers and deliverers of TV sold advertising space. Your half hour show was actually about 22 minutes of content and 8 minutes of advertising. Advertising was an effective way to create desire and thus sales.

However, please note that advertising has changed. With the internet, tracking and coordination of information is possible. Thus, advertisers may get more information than we understand and expect. Facebook is the poster child for how this information can be used. There is a lot of discussion around information security. This can be a complex subject. Certainly though, we know that information is being used to ever more effectively to manipulate us (similar to how advertisers have always done).

Freemium

Here, free sites are supported by those willing to pay for extra features. These extra features can come in a wide range of products. One general example of freemium products tend to be casual games. These can generally be played for free, but there are real advantages to paying to “level up” or purchase in game clothing.

How about an educational example? Edmodo followed a freemium model for a while (more about that in a minute). Edmodo was (and is) free to use. They decided to “skip the bureaucracy” and market directly to teachers (this is a pretty common marketing tactic). Their hope was that the teachers would then pressure the districts to pay to adopt the platform. That didn’t work out so well, so they also implemented a marketplace. The Marketplace offered additional features and professional development at a cost. One of those products was “Snapshot”. This promised district level administrators a “real time” look into how Edmodo was being used. They also offered individual teachers a variety of tools that could be purchased for roughly $10 per year per class.

However, neither of those methods seemed to have worked out. Thus, Edmodo took the next popular option: selling themselves. Currently, Edmodo is owned by the Chinese gaming company NetDragon. (Hm, why would a Chinese gaming company want a Learning Management System focused on the K – 12 marketplace? Could it be that they have an interest in the demographics and data about those users?).

Future Revenue

Finally, many companies want to develop a really large user base. Once they have that large user base, they will “figure out” how to monetize those users. This is largely the model that Twitter followed. Some of these will end up turning to Ad base revenue, some will sell out (literally).

Class Dojo is an interesting example here. Class Dojo is owned by a private company (Class Twist). Thus, their financials are not publicly available. However, there are estimates available. Estimates are revenue of $880,000 per year. Their last funding round was for $21 million dollars. At some point, those investors will expect to get more money than they invested. Class Dojo has recently announced that they will sell the service to parents to be used at home. (*Personally, I’m doubtful that this will produce enough revenue to support the company). Parent payment certainly hasn’t worked out for another K-12 darling: Remind. Remind has struggled to hit upon a revenue model that will pay the bills and return the investment from investors. Remind tried “Activities” which provided permission slip services and payments with a cut of every transaction going to Remind. They are now on their second method of monetization: premium services. Remind is leveraging their popularity with teachers to entice districts to pay for premium services. This is a familiar script. Provide a free version to teachers. Get lots teachers using the service. Then start charging districts for the service. (After all, there will be popular support for the districts to pay for the service.)

Free (Open Source or OER)

Open Source

Another “free” option is open source. In one sense, open source truly is free. But, it’s free as in “free like a puppy”. There will be costs associated with open source. Generally, one needs to host the software. Hosting can be done through paying for hosting space or equipment. There is also a cost in knowledge and knowing how to update the software.

Open source has many advantages. The software won’t “go away”. Once it is open source, it is available for others to develop or adapt. There is no on going costs for the actual software. There is the ability to change, modify or extend the software to meet your specific needs. Frequently, there is a community that develops and shares plug-ins, themes, features, etc. That community can be very helpful and passionate. You have the ability to own your data. Don’t underestimate the power of a passionate community. Open source also means that data portability is an option. If you want to move to another system, you can.

There is the possibility that it will stop being developed AND that no one else will continue developing the product.

Moodle is a great example of open source software. Any educator (or institution) can download and use Moodle. Moodle also has a revenue model. They recognize that not every district wants to run their own Moodle server. So Moodle partners with primary providers and receives a percentage of their revenue. That is some companies provide the servers and support to run Moodle and charge districts for that service. Moodle also has a particularly passionate community that extends Moodle even further. Moodle has been around for almost two decades now. The future of Moodle looks very bright as well.

OER

A quick word about OER (Open Educational Resources). These are generally resources (right there in the name) as opposed to services. OER frequently comes from teachers and artists creating resources for their own use. OER can also come from the Public Domain. OER can also come from individuals being paid to produce the work for another purpose and shared.

Paid

This one is the most straight forward. You pay a price and receive a product. Paid products mean that as long as you pay, you have access. This is a very traditional model and easy to understand. One thing to be aware of though is “introductory pricing”. With “introductory pricing”, a “low” fee is charged in order to get the customer to buy in. Once that pricing period ends, the fees generally sky rocket. This can mean the loss of data, resources and skills. Thus, sometimes, paid products can be even more costly than one realizes.

Paid products generally have really good sales team support. A good sales team will be able to highlight the advantages (and ignore the disadvantages) of their product.

There are lots of examples of paid products. Take a look at Pearson’s many, many offerings. There are lots of curriculum offerings that make sense.

Canvas as an example of “introductory pricing”. Canvas traditionally offers a three year contract at “low cost”. Once that three year period is up, the cost goes up. (The idea here is that is expensive to change once you have committed to them). Canvas has never broken even much less made a profit. Canvas makes the claim that “large losses now mean large profits later”. At one point, for every $1 in revenue, they spent .63¢ in sales and marketing.

Right Choice

Which is the right choice for educators? Any of the above. Different situations call for different solutions. In some cases, the paid version is absolutely the correct choice. Pay the price, get the service. In some cases, free (open source) is absolutely the correct choice. (I’m a believer in open source software. I truly believe that if educators would work together a bit more, this could be an even more powerful option). I’ve also written previously about being thoughtful about investing (Invest In…) Sometimes, the free (we’ll make money somehow) is the correct choice (though I worry most about this one). I worry because educators frequently fall into this one. After all, who doesn’t want free?

All of these need to be consciously decided upon. Educators need to understand the bigger picture and the WHY of choosing one over the other. We need to be sophisticated consumers.

Manipulation of Facebook information the tip of the iceberg (http://www.arabnews.com/node/1283526)
Things You Need to Know About Facebook and Mass Manipulation (https://hackernoon.com/things-you-need-to-know-about-facebook-and-mass-manipulation-bed5c92806f1)
Online Manipulation: All The Ways You’re Currently Being Deceived (https://conversionxl.com/blog/online-manipulation-all-the-ways-youre-currently-being-deceived/)
Edmodo: Using freemium to disintermediate the education procurement process (https://www.hbs.edu/openforum/openforum.hbs.org/goto/challenge/understand-digital-transformation-of-business/edmodo-using-freemium-to-disintermediate-the-education-procurement-process.html)
Chinese Gaming Giant NetDragon Acquires Edmodo for $137 Million (https://marketbrief.edweek.org/marketplace-k-12/chinese-gaming-giant-netdragon-acquires-edmodo-137-million/#annotations:LgOCDj5IEei1OcN5w34yzQ)
Class Twist Financials (http://www.buzzfile.com/business/Classdojo-650-646-8235)
Remind revenue (https://digit.hbs.org/submission/remind-creating-and-monetizing-an-edtech-platform/)
Moodle (https://moodle.org/)
Canvas financials (https://ir.instructure.com/investors/news/news-details/2018/Instructure-Reports-Third-Quarter-2018-Financial-Results/)

An Open Letter to the Michigan State Board of Education

November 18, 2018 / Troy / 0 Comments

It’s time for Michigan to invest in the wonderful teachers, educators and support staff of Michigan public schools. One way to do this is to fully commit to supporting the implementation and development of open source throughout the state. Let the state be a leader to provide excellent resources to all of the districts.

Michigan has a goal of being a Top 10 in 10 state. Several of the touch strategic goals could be addressed or further assisted by the adoption of open source options.

The State has actually kind of begun the process. Michigan has committed to become an OER (Open Educational Resources) state. The Michigan OER site is now open. Michigan has started to develop some OER textbooks. This is a good start. But, there is so much more to do. We can go way deeper than materials.

First of all, Michigan needs to make educators aware of the power of OER. There also needs to be a real PR campaign to get teachers involved.

Michigan could do so much more to help the educational process. (This would end up impacting the kids, the very reason that we do the tough work that we do). If Michigan were to commit to using Open Source resources where it makes sense, so much good could be done. There could be so much collaboration around the state. There could be long term planning and work that is meaningful.

There are a couple of challenges faced by educators and districts across the state. One of those challenges is the “shiny object” challenge. As humans, we are generally attracted to “shiny objects”. In technology, this ends up being played out in terms of teachers and other educators chasing the new, heavily PR’d technology movement of the day. This is not being critical of educators, rather this is an acknowledgement of the real world. However, our kids don’t need the latest shiny thing, they need real education.

Real education takes real work. Sorry, but there is no easy, substantive, game changing, student effective magic bullet out there. Real education is messy and hard. It takes work. Real work. Real education takes time, talent, effort and understanding.

Michigan could help by supporting open source software. Districts have many similar needs. By supporting the implementation and development of open source projects, Michigan could reduce friction, free up resources, and increase support across the state.

Michigan provides some terrific support for teachers to continue learning through EduPaths. EduPaths is built on a commercial provider’s system. This is a commercial provider who has never actually made a profit*. They are somewhat famous for offering a great three year deal on their product. After the three years, the cost skyrockets. This leads many educational institutions to drop that provider and move to something else. Thus, this leads to investing in someone else instead of investing in ourselves.

Rather, I would like to see Michigan take a longer view and invest. Invest in the kids. Invest in the teachers. Invest in the Technology Directors.

So what are those investments in open source resources? Well, let’s start with a few suggestions.

WordPress. Every district in Michigan needs to meet ADA requirements for web sites. By implementing WordPress, Michigan could help create a network of support for districts.

Moodle. This is a powerful LMS (Learning Management System) that has incredible power to fundamentally change (update) how teachers provide educational experiences for students.
Mahara. Student portfolios. Put the students in charge of their own learning. These can be exported by the student for their own use.

Joget. This provides powerful workflows. This could be used for approval processes that are online (saving time, money and effort) with full accountability.

There’s more open source out there for us to evaluate and discuss. The good news is that Michigan has a terrific organization that they could tap for help. MAEDS runs a great conference. Technology Directors from around the state get together to discuss challenges and solutions.

This is not my first time to challenge the State to invest in us instead of investing in others. I’ve written about this before. This time though, I’m challenging the State Board of Education.

* Instracture Financial Results – For the full year ending December 31, 2018, Instructure expects revenue of approximately $204.5 million to $209.5 million, as compared to previously stated guidance of $203.5 million to $209.5 million, non-GAAP net loss of ($32.0) million to ($30.0) million, up from ($32.3) million to ($30.3) million, and non-GAAP net loss per common share of ($0.94) to ($0.88), up from ($1.03) to ($0.97).

ISTE 2018 & Open Source

August 18, 2018 / Troy / 1 Comment

I’ve been ruminating about ISTE 2018. I’ve held off on posting this for a while. Now it’s time.

When I went to ISTE 2018 this year, I had a couple of goals. One goal was to look at Sketchnoting (which I’ve written about). Another goal that I had was to check out some of the Open Source opportunities that exist in education.

Now, I know that ISTE is a conference largely driven by the Sponsors and Vendors. We need sponsors and vendors in education. Districts can’t afford to only be open source. Many districts don’t have the technical background to implement very much open source at all. That is something that I was hoping that ISTE 2018 would be able to help address.

Keep in mind the Vision of ISTE:

Our Vision

ISTE’s vision is that all educators are empowered to harness technology to accelerate innovation in teaching and learning, and inspire learners to reach their greatest potential.

For me, empowering all educators involves open source options as well as the paid, proprietary ones.

Now I was able to attend one (yes, one) session that was an open source session. The session was quite good with lots of resources. However, I would like to see more. Much more.

A Proposal

I would like to see a track or least notation of open source presentations. I little bit of support and acknowledgement could go a long way. There are some open source alternatives that could help empower all educators and students.

This would not be the end of the Sponsors and Vendors. They would still have a role. They would probably have an even bigger role. Vendors could tout how much better and easier to use their product is. They could solve issues and provide opportunities that open source just wouldn’t.

There is currently a push to incorporate OER (Open Education Resources) into curriculum. This has taken a long time. It still has a long way to go. But, at least that push has started.

ISTE has a lot of educational leaders attending. (This is always interesting to me. I always expect more teachers to be in attendance. There seem to be a lot of Technology Directors/Coordinators and Technology Coaches in attendance). These groups should be leading the way for knowing our options. Not just the “shiny” ones, but all of them.

I would like to throw down the gauntlet to the wonderful ISTE leaders to use their influence and power to make open source truly part of the educational process. This will truly help EMPOWER all educators.