[aklug] Moodle

freakin iphone ate detailed note about moodle when phone rang - Damn you Apple! lol
OK... let's see if I can remember what I was going to say...

* email is critical to moodle but moodle allows you to use php or system mail
for e-mail
* crontab is needed to run a cron app and can be done via wget, or via CLI
* while moodle does some backup via the cron script, it is pretty lame so there
is a need to look at backup scripts and regimens
* Moodle stores data in mysql as well as in a system directory commonly called
moodledata that is not, for obvious reasons in htdocs, while the moodle code of
course is.
* phpmyadmin is very handy and should be included in the installation
* as with drupal, additional modules are placed in the correct directories,
then db alterations are triggered via the Moodle GUI, so kids need to be
familiar with structure and docs, so
* a mention of RTFM may prove helpful, as everything one might need to know is
already in the docs ;=}
* The only gotcha with php (as long as its latest stable) is making sure you
have everything moodle needs enabled (there is a detailed list) and learning how
php.ini is sourced and tweaking it
* Depending on tools and versions Ubuntu does the whole directory thing which
makes it difficult to know where your conf files actually live if you aren;t
aware of the problem.... but there are notes about that.
* Moodle has some filters which slows everything down, but thats what filters
do... as a result I usually recommend installing asciimathml for math display
and dragmath for equation construction.... but if this is going to be an
academic exercise I might suggest doing a full texlive install (my fav linux
flavor now includes this as some others....) and then ading a pile of macros and
rehashing, then turning tex filter on....
* Authentication is a big issues especially because of profile spam. I would
argue that if the kids really want to mess with things they get a Google domain
and authenticate via google... pretty snazzy and it makes a lot of other stuff
work well together as well.
* while Moodle will install from a zip, it can also be managed via cvs which
provides some neat options vis-a-vis autoupdating.... but that needs to be
addressed before moodle is installed for obvious reasons...

If shane has some good how tos for apache mysql and php then we prolly want to
get kids to get all that infrastructure down pat..... then deicee on the method
to install moodle and do the install, which takes just a few minutes... tweak
all the little crap to get moodle fully functional and then add basic modules
and update.... maybe even install a copy of the moodle feature demos class and
a java class class for them to experiment with.

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Received on Tue Feb 23 13:41:23 2010