Author: Hal

Moodle search box

Hal

For one reason or another, I’ve been very much involved in setting up Moodle based sites lately. We have a project rolling out eLearning platforms to most Local Authorities in the East of England, and the foundation for these is Moodle 2.1

In the way Moodle is configured a search tool only really exists for courses if you add a list of courses to the front page of the site. It is included as part of that, so I was hunting through the code looking for ways to put the search box in other places.

It turns out to be quite simple. All you have to do is add a new HTML block to the menu bar and type in the following:

<form action="http://www.sitedomainname/search.php" method="get">Search Courses: <input type="text" name="search" size="12" alt="Search Courses" /> <input type="submit" value="go" /></form>

This creates the search box, passes the entered string to the built in Moodle searh scripts and returns the result to the main part of the page.

Very easy, very good to have. Of course, you could also add this to individual pages, courses and whatever, but with a block in the menu you can specify whether it appears only on the front page, or throughout the site. Moodle can’t get much simpler… 🙂

Busy times

Hal

Well, it’s been a busy few weeks for me, and when my head is down getting work done I tend not to write very much here.

Most recently I have been to Ahmedabad in India.

Ahmedabad is a city in Gujerat, north of Mumbai by an hour’s plane flight (about the same as London to Glasgow, then). The city is as you might expect any Indian city to be – full of colour, noise, activity and people from all walks of life. The biggest surprise came as I was being driven around – the roads are simply chaotic to anyone who is not from there! Cars, tuk-tuks, lorries, motorbikes, pedestrians, cattle, dogs all intermingle in a seemingly disordered way, with people simply driving where they want and in many cases heading the wrong way on the carriageway! Roundabouts seem optional.

However, whilst this felt amazingly dangerous, I didn’t see one mishap – not even a slight nudge. The rule seems to be if you get to the give way line first, you don’t give way. If you approach alongside a vehicle, sound your horn to get them to move left. In fact, sound it repeatedly. Eventually, they will move left, (and in doing so only just miss taking out a motorcyclist). Amazing!

My over riding memory is of a town with people who are helpful, friendly and dead keen to talk to you…

From the middle of Gujerat I returned to Heathrow and found instant order on the roads, calmness, orderly queues and absolutely no-one to talk to despite there being easily as many people around!

So what about the quality of the work the team are doing for us? Actually, I am sure it is as good as any done in the UK. There may be one or two things to fix – but all software has bugs when it is written – there may be some issues relating to scalability (in time we will see)… but no matter what we find I know that the team will fix it quickly, simply and without fuss… that’s the work ethic they have got over there. They are all keen to get things working correctly, and with the minimum amount of time spent doing it.

What we have done is manage the process with weekly Skype calls, visits to India, careful documentation, clear wire framing and being as unambiguous as we can be… then raising issues clearly and politely as we find them. If you can find a way to do those things then I’d heartily recommend outsourced work.

In the mean time, back in the UK the project which is using this revised software continues apace – lots of work with end users, training sessions, documentation, testing, more meetings, more demonstrations and more training. It’s full on (but I wouldn’t change it)!

Country Ways, Devon holidays

Hal

I had to write a little bit about the place I’ve been staying in just outside Great Torrington in Devon, called ‘Country Ways’ .

I arranged a very last minute trip to the west country to try to find a relaxing space to do some thinking and a bit of work. The Country Ways web site came up with a late availability, and I thought it looked good. I was not mistaken – this is a collection of small cottage buildings within a farm that offer the visitor a really good standard of accommodation. The units are all converted out buildings, by the look of them, and inside they are very well appointed. My residence for the last few days has been the ‘Dray’ – big enough for two people, with one double bed a bathroom (en-suite) and a modest but very comfortable living area complete with kitchen.

The ‘resort’ (if you can call it that) also has a laundry facility, a gym, pool room (the table based game, not a swimming variety!) and a whole load of open space, swings and walkways, etc.

Located between Dartmoor and Exmoor, south of Barnstaple, it is ideally located for North Devon walking and trips to some of the best coastal resorts, such as Westward Ho! and Bude, amongst many others.

The units are self catering, so bring food! There is no supermarket nearby – the closest being in Torrington which is around 8 miles away. There is no nearby petrol station either – again, you go into Torrington. This suits me, but if you are hoping for all the mod cons of living in the London area, or any urban area for that matter, you’ll be left wanting! This is Devon, and life is different here!

Just to add, last night I was able to see more stars in the night sky than I can remember ever seeing – a truly awesome sight – no light pollution, just the outer spiralling arm of our galaxy. Wow….

Google Mail, Calendars and Apple iPhone

Hal

A while back I wrote about a neat little app called NuevaSync which pretty much handled all that was needed to get iCal, Google Calendars and mail working seamlessly together. Today I want to share a different way of doing things.

It all started when NuevaSync wanted to charge money. I decided I didn’t want an account and started looking at alternatives. For a long time now I have been running my email through Google servers, and setting up an ‘MX’ record with my domain hosting company to send all company mail through GMail. This is brilliant – I get a domain based email address with all the power of Gmail behind it… and I can collect mail through IMAP on my phone, laptop, desktop or through a web browser. Lovely.

However, calendars have always been a bit of a problem. Until recently, NuevaSync took the hard work out of things, but I needed a new way of doing things.

When you use an iPhone to collect mail and link to calendars you have to add an account to the device. It is superbly easy to just go with the ‘Google’ option as it is already pre-defined and all you do is enter your username and password. It works a treat, but there are some drawbacks – for example, when you want to delete mail it only allows you to archive it instead. Calendars only gave you one main calendar, and I run several. SO what to do?

First of all, *don’t* set ‘Google’ as the new account. I choose the ‘Other’ option and fill in the details manually. It’s pretty simple stuff, but it only gives me Mail and Notes. In order to add a calendar I have to go through the same process a second time but select calendar account as the option. Apart from that small inconvenience, everything works really well.

I can now get my calendar through the iCal app on my phone or laptop, collect email through the mail app on either device, or of course use any computer and connect through the web.

Adding events on any device pushes them to all others within a few minutes, and as you’d expect, editing and deleting are just as easy.

So, no need for NuevaSync anymore… it’s all built right in.

Creative Learning Systems

Hal

Creative Learning Systems logo
New company, new logo

Just a quick note – Cleveratom has closed (we went into voluntary liquidation after a run of particularly bad luck, and some less than satisfactory decisions). In the mean time I have set up a new company called ‘Creative Learning Systems’. Does just what it says on the tin…

www.clsystems.co.uk

I am very sorry to lose Cleveratom – such a cool brand! I wish my former colleagues well in their new endeavours, and will look forward to carrying on doing some excellent learning based consultancy, learning space design and web application development with Matthew Eaves as a co-director.

Since we have no development team anymore, we will be looking for excellent individuals who have a lot of skills and want to work in a dynamic way. If you know of anyone, do send me their info (or send them mine!).