Author Archives: squadron

Moodle Learning Management System Overview

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moodle-lmsMoodle is the world’s most popular learning management system. Moodle is flexible and scaleable software designed to help educators create interactive and collaborative online learning experiences. Moodle originated in Australia around a decade ago and has since been internationalised in more than 200 countries and 100 languages. The official community site has more than a million registered users.

There are numerous ways in which Moodle can be effectively used. These include
staff compliance, the delivery of online courses, workplace assessment, continuing professional development and induction training. Being open source software, there is a great deal of community support toward the development of third-party plugins to extend Moodle’s core functionality.

Moodle is free without licensing costs, however, it does take some level of technical expertise to install, configure and secure the software on a web server. Once deployed, it can be easily managed by a qualified system administrator.

Moodle’s key administrative functions include the ability to control authentication, assign roles and permissions, perform bulk user actions, change site appearance, manage accounts, automate course backups and generate various reports. Moodle enables integration with external systems, e-commerce plugins and SCORM compliance. Moodle is proactive with respect to data security and information privacy of its users, hence, patches are released on a regular basis and there are global settings that can be configured by the system administrator.

Course creators can add online activities and resources intended for their learners. Moodle’s standard activities include assignment, blog, chat, forum, messaging, quiz and wiki. The learning sequence may be totally non-linear or controlled so learners engage with online course objects in a structured fashion. User activity and course completion tracking are tracked, moreover, assessment grades and feedback can be reported in real-time via the internet.

Moodle enables online content to be shared in various ways. Course participants can quickly upload existing files from their device, disk, or network. Using Moodle repositories, it is possible to import content and media from Cloud-based services such as Google Docs, YouTube, Flickr, Boxnet and Dropbox. On the same token, content can be export from Moodle to third-party services.

Assess, track and report on your learners via the web. Get started now and learn more today about Moodle Sydney, Moodle Brisbane and Moodle Melbourne providers.

 

How to stop the flood of election junk mail?

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Anywhere on Earth, whether it is a Federal, State, Presidential or Local Council election, your mailbox will groan under the weight of materials aimed at getting your vote. It may be the electronic era, but it seems that a piece of paper in your letterbox is still considered the most efficient way of getting a message across.

While an informed electorate is important for the democratic process, there appears to be huge over-sending of junk mail for political purposes – and no clear way on how to fix this. What’s worse, the content of most of the political flyers is simply mudslinging about their opponents with little to no intellectual substance. Is anyone else reminded of children in the playground?

How can you help stop this frivolous waste of resources? Imagine the strain on our environment and the large volume of greenhouse gases generated from all the trees cut down, electricity and transport of the materials. Grab a cup of tea or your water bottle and let’s get down to it.

We know in Australia that material deemed to be political, educational, religious and charitable is exempt from “No Junk Mail” signed letterboxes according to standards developed by the Australian Catalogue Association. So there is no way to stop it being dumped in your postbox along with the other junk mail catalogues enticing you to buy all sorts of things you don’t really need. It is probably the same in other countries.

Step 1. Incorrectly addressed political mail
A lot of of your mail may be addressed to former occupants of the house. You need to “return this to sender” with the note “no longer at this address”.

Step 2. Contact every political party or politician that is mailing you
There is no central database so you will need to call the office of each individual sender and ask to be removed from their mailing list. Remember to be polite! You catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

Step 3. National Standard to stop political junk mail
Write a letter to the Electoral Commission asking them to implement a National Standard to limit the volume of pieces each political party is allowed to put in each household’s letterbox.

Step 4. Polling day
Don’t forget to recycle any materials you are given on the day – often the Greens Party has a box at the booths for such materials on polling day!

Written by Tracey Bailey, Director of Biome Eco Stores in Brisbane, specialists in water bottles and eco friendly, reusable choices for your home, body and lifestyle.