Learning Spaces Wiki

CLAMP : Liberal Arts

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:05:59 GMT

When an ad-hoc group of Moodle enthusiasts from NITLE colleges gathered together in the Fall of 2006 to work on improvements to the popular Open Source Course Management package Moodle, little did they realize that their efforts would crystallize into the gem that became CLAMP. For CLAMP itself became a poster child for the dexterity, thoughtfulness, and sheer synergy with which its members, steeped in Liberal Arts tradition, pursued their goal of shaping Moodle destiny according to Liberal Arts education principles.

CLAMP seeks both to improve Moodle qua learning management system (LMS) – we mustn't forget that efficient course management is in and of itself an efficacious aid to effective education – and forward Moodle qua collaborative learning platform as a vehicle for higher order learning.

Dissecting CLAMP

The lexical components of the CLAMP acronym have profound significance:

Collaborative:: True participatory collaboration between Steering Committee members and Hack/Doc participants is the motor of the project greased by an implicit consensus process. As alluded to above, artifacts collaboratively produced from online and in person gatherings are also a desired outcome of project's goals. Thus 'Collaborative' is both a vector and a consequence of the project dynamic.

Liberal Arts:
While liberal arts education, in a generally accepted sense, is almost solely represented by institutions geographically constrained to the United States of America we can assert that the 'Liberal Arts evangelion', is one which many educational institutions worldwide, at least implicitly if not overtly, strive to become disciples of. Indeed, a prospecting dig into the support forums of the moodle.org mother site will expose rich seams of Liberal Arts values in the strata of developers, users, and managers. Thus it is that “the core characteristics of liberal arts education — critical thinking, broad academic interests, and creative, interdisciplinary knowledge” are reflected in both the outcomes and the artifacts of CLAMP activities (such as Moodle Liberal Arts Edition, bug fixes, documentation) and the process by which these are produced.

Moodle:
As the premier open source learning management system, Moodle is a model of the Open Source sharing, cooperative and empowering collaborative ethic. And for CLAMP the relationship with the larger moodle community is purely symbiotic and synergistic – all bug fixes are reported back to the Moodle tracker for inclusion into the core, the 'Liberal Arts Moodle Edition' is made freely available and CLAMP members take an active role in voting on issues raised in the development community. Not for us the possessive hoarding of the products of our collaborative enterprise; freely have we benefited from Moodle's open philosophy and freely will we repay our debt to the community at large.

Project
While the NITLE group has nurtured CLAMP with the sustenance of a small grant, the universal approach of CLAMP broadens its appeal beyond NITLE membership and perhaps beyond the confines of the North American continent. (A hoped for consequence of this proselytizing is that more institutions may wish to join NITLE itself). Nevertheless, our focus is clear and intransigent; our concerns are exclusively for Liberal Arts educative goals and thus we intentionally exclude K-12 concerns, research university needs and distance education imperatives, where these are limited in their locus of applicability. Nonetheless, any educational institution or institutional component which wholeheartedly embraces our residential Liberal Arts goals and is prepared to actively collaborate will be welcome.

1. The Dangers of Just-In_Time Education by Michelle Glaros, Centenary College of Louisiana Posted June 10th, 2005 http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/jit-education

CLAMP : Leadership

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:04:21 GMT

As we organized ourselves into CLAMP, the steering committee, consisting of the six authors of the grant and the NITLE Moodle Representative, met twice in person and bi-weekly to weekly in order to organize the Hack-Doc events, prioritize the work of the various committees and define participation and funding models for the future of CLAMP.

While the participation model defines how institutions can become involved in CLAMP activities, delineating what is expected of participating institutions as well as what schools can expect from this collaboration, it also clearly defines the role, makeup and responsibilities of the steering committee.

The Steering Committee

1. Is made up of seven members, representing seven North American four year, residential, liberal arts colleges as geographically diverse as possible.
2. Membership is rotated over three years (2-2-3). The first rotation will take place June 2010. Members will serve three year terms.

The Steering Committee will:

1. Make final decisions regarding direction, priorities and focus with input from CLAMP members
2. Administer any general fund, policy decisions and necessary overhead
3. Maintain community tools such as discussions, blogs, wikis, code repository, test server etc.
4. Publicize the finished product of any project within CLAMP
5. Coordinate our efforts with the larger Moodle.org community
6. Meet regularly via web conferencing and occasionally via video conferencing or in person.
7. Be responsible for the CLAMP funding model including membership fees and grant applications

As part of the planning to make CLAMP an independent self-funded collaboration, the steering committee defined a funding model that allows flexibility to adapt to financial needs on a yearly bases.

CLAMP : Participation

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:03:33 GMT

During the 2008-2009 academic year 17 NITLE member institutions participated in CLAMP activities at a variety of levels including attending a Hack-Doc event, contributing to the discussion regarding prioritizing needs, performing usability testing, fixing bugs in Moodle or creating and sharing documentation of the gradebook, groups and other features in Moodle.

Each participating institution will contribute the minimum amount set by the steering committee annually to our collaboration. For 2009-2010 this figure will be $300 and will cover operating costs only, not reimbursement for Steering Committee meetings or Hack-Doc attendance.

Each participating institution must:

* Contributing the minimum required funding to our fiscal agent
* Have a designated contact person for CLAMP
* Be willing to support the community ideals of Open Source by sharing documentation, code and expertise as able.

Each participating institution can contribute to our collaborative effort through any of the following:

1. Contributing additional funding to a general pool, above the minimum required.
2. Sending a PHP programmer to a Hack-Doc event
3. Sending an Instructional Technologist to a Hack-Doc event
4. Having people (programmers, technologist, faculty, students) available at their home institution during a Hack-Doc event
5. Contributing to testing, planning and prioritizing discussions and activities.
6. Sharing documentation, code and experience
7. Sharing a campus resource for use by the CLAMP community, ex. listserv, development server
8. Providing direct assistance to another institution
9. Taking responsibility for a block, module, code fix, etc. that the group generally uses, to assure it’s viability in future versions
10. Vote and actively participate in Moodle.org discussions to get functionality integrated into core
11. Contributing to documentation and coding work between Hack-Doc events
12. Serving on the CLAMP working committees
13. Hosting a Hack-Doc event

Each participating institution should:

1. Provide regular information regarding your instance and use of Moodle, by running the census module and responding to questionnaires.
2. Consider maintenance strategies that keep you reasonably current with the CLAMP version of Moodle. (Liberal Arts Edition)
3. Test any materials and code from CLAMP fully, before putting it into production to verify that CLAMP products conform to your institution’s environment.

Each participating institution may:

1. Freely use, modify and distribute any of the materials and code generated through our collaborative effort
2. Suggest changes, direction, strategies, priorities etc. for the group as a whole
3. Share research and data from CLAMP within your institution

While CLAMP is focused on the needs of four year liberal arts colleges, we are an inclusionary collaboration and welcome participation from any institution using Moodle.The overall direction and final decisions regarding priorities will be made within the focus of the liberalart institutions’ needs.

SlideShowStyleSheet2

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:39:00 GMT

Slide Mode Styles

#slideBlanker {
 position:absolute;
 top: 0;
 left: 0;
 width: 100%;
 height: 100%;
 z-index: 90; 
 background-color: #000;
}
#backstageShow{
 display: none !important;
}

#contentWrapper.slideShowMode #slideContainer{
 display: block;
}

#contentWrapper.slideShowMode .Comment{
 display: none;
}

#contentWrapper.slideShowMode .nextOverlay{
 visibility: hidden;
}

#contentWrapper.slideShowMode .currentOverlay{
 visibility: visible;
}

#contentWrapper.slideShowMode .previousOverlay{
 visibility: visible;
}

#jump{
 text-align: right;
}

.slideFooterOff #navigator{
 visibility: hidden;
}

.slideFooterOn #navigator{
 visibility: visible;
}

#contentWrapper.slideShowMode #slideClock{
 cursor: pointer; margin: 0 5px 0 5px; border: 1px solid #db4
}
#contentWrapper.slideShowMode .title{
color: #CC3348;
text-align: center;
}
#contentWrapper.slideShowMode,
 #contentWrapper.slideShowMode #displayArea{
 width: 100%;
 font-size: 1.3em;
 font-family: eurostyle, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
 margin: 0 !important;
 padding: 0;
 }
#contentWrapper.slideShowMode a,
 #contentWrapper.slideShowMode #displayArea a{
 color :#8F4724;
 text-decoration : none;
}
#contentWrapper.slideShowMode a:hover,
 #contentWrapper.slideShowMode #displayArea a:hover{
 color :#FFDFCF;
 background-color: #8F4724;
}
#contentWrapper.slideShowMode ul{
       list-style-position:inside;
       list-style-type:disc;
}
#contentWrapper.slideShowMode li {
margin-top: 4px;
padding: 0 0 0 10px;
border-top: 2px #CC3348 solid;
/* background-color : #FFF0CF; */
/* background-color : #E9D4C4; */
color : ;
list-style-image:url(graphics/dot_content_brown.gif);
list-style-position:inside;
}

#slideContainer{
 display: none;
}

.indexNumbers{
 cursor: pointer;
}

#navigator{
 visibility: hidden;
 bottom: 0;
}

#toc{
 display: none;
 position: absolute;
 font-size: .75em;
 bottom: 2em;
 right: 0;
 background: #fff;
 border: 1px solid #000;
 text-align: left;
}

ul#toc, #toc li{
 margin: 0;
 padding: 0;
 list-style: none;
 line-height: 1em;
}

.tocJumpItem{
 margin-right: 2em;
}

.tocJumpItem input{
margin-right: 1em;
 border: 0;
}

#toc a,
#toc a.button{
 display: block;
 padding: .1em;
}

#toc .tocLevel1{
font-size: .8em;
}

#toc .tocLevel2{
 margin-left: 1em;
 font-size: .75em;
}

#toc .tocLevel3{
 margin-left: 2em;
font-size: .75em;
}

#toc .tocLevel4{
 margin-left: 3em;
font-size: .65em;
}

#toc a{
 cursor: pointer;
}

h1{
 min-height: 1em;
}

.slide h1{
 min-height: 0;
}

/* The '>' selector is ignored by IE6 and earlier so the proper rules are given */
#slideFooter{
 position: fixed;
 bottom: 2px;
 right: 2px;
 width: 100%;
 text-align: right;
}

/* This is a hack to trick IE6 and earlier to put the navbar on the bottom of the page */
* html #slideFooter {
 position: absolute;
 width: 100%;
 text-align: right;
 right: auto; bottom: auto;
 left: expression( ( -20 - slideFooter.offsetWidth + ( document.documentElement.clientWidth ? document.documentElement.clientWidth : document.body.clientWidth ) + ( ignoreMe2 = document.documentElement.scrollLeft ? document.documentElement.scrollLeft : document.body.scrollLeft ) ) + 'px' );
 top: expression( ( -10 - slideFooter.offsetHeight + ( document.documentElement.clientHeight ? document.documentElement.clientHeight : document.body.clientHeight ) + ( ignoreMe = document.documentElement.scrollTop ? document.documentElement.scrollTop : document.body.scrollTop ) ) + 'px' );
}

Hack/Doc Fests

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:28:00 GMT

At a Hack‐Doc Fest, liberal arts college staff who work with Moodle come together for a short, intense work session to improve Moodle code, test new releases and modules, and document Moodle components. This concept was developed at the first NITLE Moodle User Community meeting, in June 2007 at the University of Puget Sound.

Key to the success of the Hack‐Doc model has been its focus on tangible results:

successful patches shared with both the CLAMP group and the Moodle community at large, and
template documentation which can be e used by any interested school.

Three Hack‐Doc Fests have held so far, at

Lafayette College (January 2008),
Kenyon College (July 2008), and
Reed College (January 2009).

Accomplishments of past Hack‐Docs include:

CLAMP: Usability Testing

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:22:00 GMT

At Hack/Doc III, the participants designed two simple usability test scripts on common tasks for faculty and students. Schools participating in the grant, as well as other volunteers, will conduct these tests. The steering committee for the grant will then evaluate the responses, and use them to guide development efforts at the June 2009 Hack/Doc Fest at Smith College. Our findings (and patches) will be reported back to the Moodle community at large through the Moodle.org website.

Tasks were chosen through discussions at Hack/Doc III and on the NITLE Moodle Exchange. The frequency of the task, its relative importance, and the perceived difficulty of the task (i.e. the existence of long or poorly navigated click paths, or complex language in instructions) all argued in favor of including the task on the script.

The scripts are designed to be administered by instructional technologists, librarians, or other interested staff, with the user’s actions and reactions captured through Camtasia or ScreenFlow screen capture software. (One license and one USB microphone will be provided to each participating school from grant funds.)

We are not aware of this kind of systematic usability analysis having been done on Moodle before; an evidence‐based approach to the Moodle user interface could be a major contribution to its development. It is also proof of concept that there are significant development contributions which can be made by participants regardless of their level of programming skill.

PlayerPlugin

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:33:00 GMT

Name	PlayerPlugin
Source	http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#PlayerPlugin
Version	1.1.4
Author	Eric Shulman
License	http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#LegalStatements and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License
CoreVersion	2.1
Type	plugin
Requires
Overrides
Options	##Configuration
Description	Embed a media player in a tiddler

Usage

<<player [id=xxx] [type] [URL] [width] [height] [autoplay|true|false] [showcontrols|true|false] [extras]>>

id=xxx is optional, and specifies a unique identifier for each embedded player. note: this is required if you intend to display more than one player at the same time.

type is optional, and is one of the following: windows, realone, quicktime, flash, image or iframe. If the media type is not specified, the plugin automatically detects Windows, Real, QuickTime, Flash video or JPG/GIF images by matching known file extensions and/or specialized streaming-media transfer protocols (such as RTSP:). For unrecognized media types, the plugin displays an error message.

URL is the location of the media content

width and height are the dimensions of the video display area (in pixels)

autoplay or true or false is optional, and specifies whether the media content should begin playing as soon as it is loaded, or wait for the user to press the "play" button. Default is not to autoplay.

showcontrols or true or false is optional, and specifies whether the embedded media player should display its built-in control panel (e.g., play, pause, stop, rewind, etc), if any. Default is to display the player controls.

extras are optional pairs of parameters that can be passed to the embedded player, using the <param name=xxx value=yyy> HTML syntax.

If you use AttachFilePlugin to encode and store a media file within your document, you can play embedded media content by using the title of the attachment tiddler as a parameter in place of the usual reference to an external URL. When playing an attached media content, you should always explicitly specify the media type parameter, because the name used for the attachment tiddler may not contain a known file extension from which a default media type can be readily determined.

Configuration

Default player size:
width: height:

Examples

Windows Media
RealOne
Quicktime
Flash
Still Images

Revisions

2008.05.10 [1.1.4] in handlers(), immediately return if no params (prevents error in macro). Also, refactored auto-detect code to make type mapping configurable.
2007.10.15 [1.1.3] in loadURL(), add recognition for .PNG (still image), fallback to iframe for unrecognized media types
2007.08.31 [1.1.2] added 'click-through' link for JPG/GIF images
2007.06.21 [1.1.1] changed "hidecontrols" param to "showcontrols" and recognize true/false values in addition to 'showcontrols', added "autoplay" param (also recognize true/false values), allow "auto" as value for type param
2007.05.22 [1.1.0] added support for type=="iframe" (displays src URL in an IFRAME)
2006.12.06 [1.0.1] in handler(), corrected check for config.macros.attach (instead of config.macros.attach.getAttachment) so that player plugin will work when AttachFilePlugin is NOT installed. (Thanks to Phillip Ehses for bug report)
2006.11.30 [1.0.0] support embedded media content using getAttachment() API defined by AttachFilePlugin or AttachFilePluginFormatters. Also added support for 'image' type to render JPG/GIF still images
2006.02.26 [0.7.0] major re-write. handles default params better. create/recreate player objects via loadURL() API for use with interactive forms and scripts.
2006.01.27 [0.6.0] added support for 'extra' macro params to pass through to object parameters
2006.01.19 [0.5.0] Initial ALPHA release
2005.12.23 [0.0.0] Started

Code

version.extensions.PlayerPlugin= {major: 1, minor: 1, revision: 4, date: new Date(2008,5,10)};

config.macros.player = {};
config.macros.player.html = {};
config.macros.player.handler= function(place,macroName,params) {
	if (!params.length) return; // missing parameters - do nothing
	var id=null;
	if (params[0].substr(0,3)=="id=") id=params.shift().substr(3);
	var type="";
	if (!params.length) return; // missing parameters - do nothing
	var p=params[0].toLowerCase();
	if (p=="auto" || p=="windows" || p=="realone" || p=="quicktime" || p=="flash" || p=="image" || p=="iframe")
		type=params.shift().toLowerCase();
	var url=params.shift(); if (!url || !url.trim().length) url="";
	if (url.length && config.macros.attach!=undefined) // if AttachFilePlugin is installed
		if ((tid=store.getTiddler(url))!=null && tid.isTagged("attachment")) // if URL is attachment
			url=config.macros.attach.getAttachment(url); // replace TiddlerTitle with URL
	var width=params.shift();
	var height=params.shift();
	var autoplay=false;
	if (params[0]=='autoplay'||params[0]=='true'||params[0]=='false')
		autoplay=(params.shift()!='false');
	var show=true;
	if (params[0]=='showcontrols'||params[0]=='true'||params[0]=='false')
		show=(params.shift()!='false');
	var extras="";
	while (params[0]!=undefined)
		extras+="<param name='"+params.shift()+"' value='"+params.shift()+"'> ";
	this.loadURL(place,id,type,url,width,height,autoplay,show,extras);
}

if (config.options.txtPlayerDefaultWidth==undefined) config.options.txtPlayerDefaultWidth="100%";
if (config.options.txtPlayerDefaultHeight==undefined) config.options.txtPlayerDefaultHeight="480"; // can't use "100%"... player height doesn't stretch right :-(

config.macros.player.typeMap={
	windows: ['mms', '.asx', '.wvx', '.wmv', '.mp3'],
	realone: ['rtsp', '.ram', '.rpm', '.rm', '.ra'],
	quicktime: ['.mov', '.qt'],
	flash: ['.swf', '.flv'],
	image: ['.jpg', '.gif', '.png'],
	iframe: ['.htm', '.html', '.shtml', '.php']
};

config.macros.player.loadURL=function(place,id,type,url,width,height,autoplay,show,extras) {

	if (id==undefined) id="tiddlyPlayer";
	if (!width) var width=config.options.txtPlayerDefaultWidth;
	if (!height) var height=config.options.txtPlayerDefaultHeight;
	if (url && (!type || !type.length || type=="auto")) { // determine type from URL
		u=url.toLowerCase();
		var map=config.macros.player.typeMap;
		for (var t in map) for (var i=0; i<map[t].length; i++)
			if (u.indexOf(map[t][i])!=-1) var type=t;
	}
	if (!type || !config.macros.player.html[type]) var type="none";
	if (!url) var url="";
	if (show===undefined) var show=true;
	if (!extras) var extras="";
	if (type=="none" && url.trim().length) type="iframe"; // fallback to iframe for unrecognized media types

	// adjust parameter values for player-specific embedded HTML
	switch (type) {
		case "windows":
			autoplay=autoplay?"1":"0"; // player-specific param value
			show=show?"1":"0"; // player-specific param value
			break;
		case "realone":
			autoplay=autoplay?"true":"false";
			show=show?"block":"none";
			height-=show?60:0; // leave room for controls
			break;
		case "quicktime":
			autoplay=autoplay?"true":"false";
			show=show?"true":"false";
			break;
		case "image":
			show=show?"block":"none";
			break;
		case "iframe":
			show=show?"block":"none";
			break;
	}

	// create containing div for player HTML
	// and add or replace player in TW DOM structure
	var newplayer = document.createElement("div");
	newplayer.playerType=type;
	newplayer.setAttribute("id",id+"_div");
	var existing = document.getElementById(id+"_div");
	if (existing && !place) place=existing.parentNode;
	if (!existing)
		place.appendChild(newplayer);
	else {
		if (place==existing.parentNode) place.replaceChild(newplayer,existing)
		else { existing.parentNode.removeChild(existing); place.appendChild(newplayer); }
	}

	var html=config.macros.player.html[type];
	html=html.replace(/%i%/mg,id);
	html=html.replace(/%w%/mg,width);
	html=html.replace(/%h%/mg,height);
	html=html.replace(/%u%/mg,url);
	html=html.replace(/%a%/mg,autoplay);
	html=html.replace(/%s%/mg,show);
	html=html.replace(/%x%/mg,extras);
	newplayer.innerHTML=html;
}

Player-specific API functions: isReady(id), isPlaying(id), toggleControls(id), showControls(id,flag)

// status values:
// Windows: 0=Undefined, 1=Stopped, 2=Paused, 3=Playing, 4=ScanForward, 5=ScanReverse
//          6=Buffering, 7=Waiting, 8=MediaEnded, 9=Transitioning, 10=Ready, 11=Reconnecting
// RealOne: 0=Stopped, 1=Contacting, 2=Buffering, 3=Playing, 4=Paused, 5=Seeking
// QuickTime: 'Waiting', 'Loading', 'Playable', 'Complete', 'Error:###'
// Flash: 0=Loading, 1=Uninitialized, 2=Loaded, 3=Interactive, 4=Complete
config.macros.player.isReady=function(id)
{
	var d=document.getElementById(id+"_div"); if (!d) return false;
	var p=document.getElementById(id); if (!p) return false;
	if (d.playerType=='windows') return !((p.playState==0)||(p.playState==7)||(p.playState==9)||(p.playState==11));
	if (d.playerType=='realone') return (p.GetPlayState()>1);
	if (d.playerType=='quicktime') return !((p.getPluginStatus()=='Waiting')||(p.getPluginStatus()=='Loading'));
	if (d.playerType=='flash') return (p.ReadyState>2);
	return true;
}
config.macros.player.isPlaying=function(id)
{
	var d=document.getElementById(id+"_div"); if (!d) return false;
	var p=document.getElementById(id); if (!p) return false;
	if (d.playerType=='windows') return (p.playState==3);
	if (d.playerType=='realone') return (p.GetPlayState()==3);
	if (d.playerType=='quicktime') return (p.getPluginStatus()=='Complete');
	if (d.playerType=='flash') return (p.ReadyState<4);
	return false;
}
config.macros.player.showControls=function(id,flag) {
	var d=document.getElementById(id+"_div"); if (!d) return false;
	var p=document.getElementById(id); if (!p) return false;
	if (d.playerType=='windows') { p.ShowControls=flag; p.ShowStatusBar=flag; }
	if (d.playerType=='realone') { alert('show/hide controls not available'); }
	if (d.playerType=='quicktime')      // if player not ready, retry in one second
		{ if (this.isReady(id)) p.setControllerVisible(flag); else setTimeout('config.macros.player.showControls("'+id+'",'+flag+')',1000); }
	if (d.playerType=='flash') { alert('show/hide controls not available'); }
}
config.macros.player.toggleControls=function(id) {
	var d=document.getElementById(id+"_div"); if (!d) return false;
	var p=document.getElementById(id); if (!p) return false;
	if (d.playerType=='windows') var flag=!p.ShowControls;
	if (d.playerType=='realone') var flag=true; // TBD
	if (d.playerType=='quicktime') var flag=!p.getControllerVisible();
	if (d.playerType=='flash') var flag=true; // TBD
	this.showControls(id,flag);
}
config.macros.player.fullScreen=function(id) {
	var d=document.getElementById(id+"_div"); if (!d) return false;
	var p=document.getElementById(id); if (!p) return false;
	if (d.playerType=='windows') p.DisplaySize=3;
	if (d.playerType=='realone') p.SetFullScreen();
	if (d.playerType=='quicktime') { alert('full screen not available'); }
	if (d.playerType=='flash') { alert('full screen not available'); }
}

Player HTML

// placeholder (no player)
config.macros.player.html.none=' \
	<table id="%i%" width="%w%" height="%h%" style="background-color:#111;border:0;margin:0;padding:0;"> \
	<tr style="background-color:#111;border:0;margin:0;padding:0;"> \
	<td width="%w%" height="%h%" style="background-color:#111;color:#ccc;border:0;margin:0;padding:0;text-align:center;"> \
	&nbsp; \
	%u% \
	&nbsp; \
	</td></tr></table>';

// JPG/GIF/PNG still images
config.macros.player.html.image='\
	<a href="%u%" target="_blank"><img width="%w%" height="%h%" style="display:%s%;" src="%u%"></a>';

// IFRAME web page viewer
config.macros.player.html.iframe='\
	<iframe id="%i%" width="%w%" height="%h%" style="display:%s%;background:#fff;" src="%u%"></iframe>';

// Windows Media Player
// v7.1 ID: classid=CLSID:6BF52A52-394A-11d3-B153-00C04F79FAA6
// v9	ID: classid=CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95
config.macros.player.html.windows=' \
	<object id="%i%" width="%w%" height="%h%" style="margin:0;padding:0;width:%w%;height:%h%px;" \
		classid="CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95" \
		codebase="http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=6,4,5,715" \
		align="baseline" border="0" \
		standby="Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components..." \
		type="application/x-oleobject"> \
		<param name="FileName" value="%u%"> <param name="ShowControls" value="%s%"> \
		<param name="ShowPositionControls" value="1"> <param name="ShowAudioControls" value="1"> \
		<param name="ShowTracker" value="1"> <param name="ShowDisplay" value="0"> \
		<param name="ShowStatusBar" value="1"> <param name="AutoSize" value="1"> \
		<param name="ShowGotoBar" value="0"> <param name="ShowCaptioning" value="0"> \
		<param name="AutoStart" value="%a%"> <param name="AnimationAtStart" value="1"> \
		<param name="TransparentAtStart" value="0"> <param name="AllowScan" value="1"> \
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// RealNetworks' RealOne Player
config.macros.player.html.realone=' \
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			controls="All" \
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			console=player \
			maintainaspect=true \
			nologo=true \
			backgroundcolor=#333333> \
		</OBJECT> \
	</td></tr></table>';

// QuickTime Player
config.macros.player.html.quicktime=' \
	<OBJECT ID="%i%" WIDTH="%w%" HEIGHT="%h%" style="margin:0;padding:0;" \
		CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" \
		CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab"> \
		<PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="%u%"> \
		<PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="%a%"> \
		<PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="%s%"> \
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			EnableJavaSript="true" \
			PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"> \
		</EMBED> \
	</OBJECT>';

// Flash Player
config.macros.player.html.flash='\
	<object id="%i%" width="%w%" height="%h%" style="margin:0;padding:0;" \
		classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" \
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			pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" \
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Version #

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:26:00 GMT

2.2.6

CLAMP : CLAMP & NITLE

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:28:00 GMT

Relationship between CLAMP and NITLE

Initially, we had hoped that NITLE would be interested in being the umbrella organization for the hack/doc fests and taking the lead in organizing Moodle development efforts.
But we found that they were only interested in offering fairly superficial support, eg use of MIV for conferencing.
In fact, out first grant application for financial support of the hack/doc effort was turned down by the mid-west region on the grounds that they didn't want to support a particular LMS that not every college was using (ie Blackboard institutions).
While all the CLAMP Steering Committee are currently NITLE members the organization is designed to be self supporting and independent of NITLE.

CLAMP : introduction

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:44:00 GMT

In 2006, a small group of liberal arts institutions came together at Reed College to discuss the potential of starting a collaboration focused on improving Moodle. The following year, as Moodle was being adopted by a growing number of institutions across the country and the world, this circle of schools was expanded and the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) showed interest in providing support for this collaboration. An active support network began to develop as NITLE arranged 2 Moodle User Community Meetings and provided infrastructure for the online NITLE Moodle Exchange. Leading members of the NITLE Moodle Exchange organized two collaborative programming and documentation events, called "Hack-Doc Fests," to bring programmers and educational technologists from 12 different institutions together in one place. Six of the schools - Earlham College, Lafayette College, Luther College, Kenyon College, Macalaster College, Reed College,and Smith College - received a $43,000 award from NITLE's Instructional Innovation Fund to continue and formalize their efforts. CLAMP's structure is the logistical outcome of those investigations.

2006 — NITLE sponsored LMS @ LAC "summit" at Reed. From this we developed the idea for :
2007 — NITLE Moodle Exchange. A "course" for NITLE members on the NITLE operated Moodle server with discussion forums oriented around mutual support and help for Moodle administrators and users.
2008 — "Hack-Doc Fest" spearheaded by Ken Newquist of Lafayette College. Bring programmers and educational technologists together for intensive work on bug fixes for important components and documentation.
2008 -09 — Instructional Innovation award from NITLE's east coast region allowed us to :
- fund two more active hack/doc efforts
- create the CLAMP organization
- establish a permanent server focus for CLAMP development efforts

CLAMP : Mellon grant

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:40:00 GMT

Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration

From the web site:

The Program in Research in Information Technology of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation invites nominations for the 2009 Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration (MATC). In support of the Program’s mission to encourage collaborative, open source software development within traditional Mellon constituencies, these awards recognize not-for-profit organizations that are making substantial contributions of their own resources toward the development of open source software and the fostering of collaborative communities to sustain open source development.

The MATC awards provide the recipients with opportunities to strengthen their commitment to inter-organizational collaboration and open source software development. Awards are given at two levels: $50,000 awards to recognize important organizational contributions to open source projects which currently or potentially provide significant benefits to at least one traditional Mellon constituency; and $100,000 awards to recognize highly significant contributions to open source projects offering larger benefits to more or larger constituencies.

CLAMP : Mellon Proposal

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:22:00 GMT

The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP), led by Lafayette College and extensively supported by six other colleges (Earlham, Reed, Macalaster, Luther, Kenyon and Smith) has established an ongoing process for Moodle development, targeting issues that are of particular concern to many liberal arts colleges. Moodle, an open source learning management system, has experienced a twenty-fold growth rate worldwide over the past four years, with the higher education sector of the United States representing the fastest growing segment of the Moodle user base.

CLAMP brings together programmers and instructional technologists across multiple institutions in order to conduct usability testing, evaluate and develop new software functions, repair bugs, identify best practices, and create documentation for Moodle. These efforts are shared by CLAMP participants and are systematically contributed to the global Moodle community.

CLAMP's activities began as a series of self-funded three-day events ("Hack/Doc Fests") with college paying for their employees to participate. The culmination of these efforts is the "Moodle: Liberal Arts Edition" which packages all third party modules commonly used by our institutions, critical bug-fixes, and refinements to the user and administrative interface.

To-date, eighteen colleges have contributed people and resources to CLAMP, including:

NITLE recognized this collaboration in 2008 when Lafayette won an Innovation Fund Grant, used to partially fund two more Hack/Doc Fests and the governing framework for sustaining the project. In March 2009, Academic Commons recognized the project with an opportunity to publish a case study on our collaborative model.

In 2009-2010, CLAMP will expand usability testing, development, and documentation activities. If funding permits, larger projects will become possible. Potential projects include overhauling the "My Moodle" component (a personalized user interface identified by Moodle's founder as a critical element in need of an owner); evaluating the "Workshop" module for repair or replacement (an orphaned module striving to fill a compelling pedagogical need); and providing better ERP/Moodle integration.

CLAMP -- What's it all about?

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:43:00 GMT

slide show

2009 Goshen Midwest Moodle Moot

CLAMP — What's it all about?

by:: Mark H Pearson BSc (Zoology), PhD (Entomology), MSc (Computer Science) Earlham College Instructional Technologist

Control slideshow

Green Credentials

this slideshow is designed to run on batteries to save the environment.

Disclaimer

This slideshow has a zero Microsoft footprint.
No Powerpoint was harmed in the production of these slides

How did this project get started?

2006 — NITLE sponsored LMS @ LAC "summit" at Reed. From this we developed the idea for :
2007 — NITLE Moodle Exchange. A "course" for NITLE members on the NITLE operated Moodle server with discussion forums oriented around mutual support and help for Moodle administrators and users.
2008 — "Hack-Doc Fest" spearheaded by Ken Newquist of Lafayette College. Bring programmers and educational technologists together for intensive work on bug fixes for important components and documentation.
2008 -09 — Instructional Innovation award from NITLE's east coast region allowed us to :
- fund two more active hack/doc efforts
- create the CLAMP organization
- establish a permanent server focus for CLAMP development efforts

Who's involved

Institution	Bloke
Lafayette	Ken Newquist
Kenyon	Joe Murphy
Smith	Joanne Cannon
Earlham	Mark Pearson
Reed	Jason Meinzer
Macalaster	Fritz Vandover
Luther	Bob Puffer

What we are doing

We have three major prongs to our activities:

a web based workspace
usability testing of Moodle
continuing focus for our Hack/Doc Fest activities

Collaboration via the web

Moodle : usability testing

Moodle : hack/doc fest

Moodle : Liberal Arts Edition

Epic Wins and epic fails

Hurdles :

Video/Audio conferencing

Software for Usability Testing

Epic wins

Usability Testing

Hack/Doc Fests

How you can participate

Leadership

Why CLAMP matters

The Future of CLAMP

Mellon Grant application

New Horizons in Social Networking : Earlham Learning Spaces

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:46:00 GMT

slide show

New horizons in Social Networking:

Educational social spaces for Digital Natives

by:: Mark H Pearson BSc (Zoology), PhD (Entomology), MSc (Computer Science) Earlham College Instructional Technologist

Control slideshow

Disclaimer

This slideshow has a zero Microsoft footprint.
no Powerpoint was harmed in the production of these slides

Introduction

When navigating the digital seas educators are often faced with steering their ship of youthful minds towards the goal of academic attainment between the Scylla of boring word processor assignments which devour enthusiasm and the Charybdis of media projects, which can get sucked into a whirlpool of technical issues. Online social networking is a concept which the millenial generation seem to intuit unconsciously. The social networking paradigm can be seen as a catalyst to engage students in academic interchange outside the formal classroom setting. So how can we use the social networking tools familiar to the millenial generation to engage them in deep, meaningful academic intercourse that goes beyond the banter and bagatelle exemplified by the popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Orkut and their ilk? I will set out to address this question with reference to the elgg open source social networking platform. Using my implementation at Earlham Learning Spaces as an example I will show how this unique system can provide the platform for personal and social learning spaces beyond the confines of the classroom.

For more details of the proposal see this blog post

The Why's and Wherefore's

In prosletysing this approach of 'social learning', where am I coming from?
In order to situate the thrust behind Earlham Learning Spaces we need to quickly look at some fundamental questions.

Why bother with "social software" in the realm of teaching? See Models of Learning
Why not use free online systems such as Facebook, Ning, etc, rather than go to the trouble of hosting your own? Project Tomorrow on Facebook
Why not go with a "safe" commercial alternative?
We've already got a Course Management system (eg Moodle), why can't that do the job?
Why Elgg and not WordPress or other blogging system?

Content for Web presence

Dynamic content

Static pages

File Store

Access / Sharing

What makes Elgg unique is it's access control system. All elgg content items such as blog posting, uploaded file, folder, etc, have access restrictions associated with them.

General controls

Customisable controls

Connections / communication

Friend

Community

Active Communication

Personal profile

default 'landing page'
extended profile allows you to enter a slew of personal details and control access to each.
add a large site picture
customizable using widgets including arbitrary HTML, comment wall, RSS feeds, friend blog display, etc

Information flow/ RSS feeds

Producing RSS:: RSS feeds are produced by almost every source and are indicated by . Note that only public access items such as blog posts can go into an RSS feed — everything else requires authentication on the feed.
Recycling /aggregating RSS:: Using Feeds/Your resources you can subscribe to external RSS feeds (when it works!). You can also take an RSS feed from a source you own and pipe it into your blog (Publish to blog). You can maintain a Tiddlywiki and pipe the output into your blog. screenshot

Cutting edge plugin features

Image gallery. Upload images and display in cool 'lightbox' fashion. Implemented as 'Gallery' folder type.
Multimedia. Upload mp4 or other movie — convert to flash based presentation similar to YouTube. Huge advantages for non-copyablity.
Integration with cell phone — send SMS messages to 'Shout' system. Send photos / movie clips to display in own area. Huge potential for integration with cell phone technology.
Rate blog postings.
integration with Moodle
sitewide discussion forum
eportfolio plugin
administrative and user enhancement features. Who's online? Tag cloud, send message from admin to all users, take system offline for maintenance

Earlham Learning Spaces: making first steps with Elgg

Two teachers at Earlham used the blogging feature of Elgg with their classes in the Fall of 07 and three classes used it in Spring of 08. I will briefly discuss the classes that used ELS, the pedagogical plusses, and some of the drawbacks together with solutions.

Hispanic Short Story. Use as straight blogging system to make commentary about films watched. Have students tag posts and comment on each other's work eg Holly Storck-Post :: Blog :: Sleepy Hollow
Journalism 1. This class had to make several blog postings throughout the semester. At the end of the semester the prof created a web page which linked to the student's final magnum opus.
Latin American Narrative. Here students make blog postings for each film that they watch. They tag each entry and make comments on each other's work.
Advanced Spanish Conversation and composition. Here the semi-public nature of the blogs allows students to see the quality of their peer's writing and enables the teacher to encourage and enage students to improve their fluency in Spanish.
Holocaust and Film. A lot of the material shown is profoundly disturbing. How can students write about this and yet share their feelings in a secure environment? The community feature of Elgg empowers this.

Using Earlham Learning Spaces with a class

I interviewed Ana Cornide, a new Spanish teacher at Earlham, to ask her about her experiences using the Earlham Learning Spaces (Elgg).

1. Why did you want to use a blog with your class?

2. How did you use Earlham Learning Spaces?

3. Commenting

4. Friends

5. A social learning community

6. Use it again?

7. Postscript -- personal pictures

8. Tagging

Pedagogical uses of Els

Summary of advantages

General areas

Formal uses

Drawbacks

A major drawback for teaching faculty is the issue of grading. How does one grade blog posts or other content?
While it's advantageous to have posts visible to the class teachers want their response comments and grades to be kept private. This of course is where Moodle excels and a Moodle "blogging Activity" which would import class blog posts which could then be graded within the Moodle system would be ideal.

Having glimpsed the capabilities of the Elgg social networking platform, we can now see how it can be used as an ideal tool to address different models of learning:

Learning Models for 21st Century

From 21st Century Learners - and their approaches to learning

The Collaborator

The Free Agent

The Wise Analyser

The Creative Synthesiser

Trying out Elgg

Eduspaces is a free to join elgg system which attracts activity from all over the world. My Moodle Vanguard community runs from here.
If you want to run your own Elgg service without having to host it yourself, try GlieseConnect.com's Elgg promotion. For $60 a year (a bargain!) they provide an Elgg install which you can customize or not and you don't have to worry about backups!
Elgg is rather popular in the UK. I am a member of the UK Elgg user group hosted at Sussex University, Brighton
The new version of Elgg is radically different and does present some challenges, but is emerging as a vibrant community

SlideshowOperation

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:25:00 GMT

Operating the TiddlyWiki Slideshow

Unlike a PowerPoint slideshow, merely clicking on a slide will not progress to the next slide. This is because I'm using clickable 'buttons' to hide and reveal text within the slide.

To advance / move back slides move the cursor to the bottom right of the window where you will reveal the controls:

MiniBrowserList

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:54:00 GMT

Ilana Seidman blog
http://els.earlham.edu/ieseidm06/weblog/

Example of graphic & Youtube player
http://els.earlham.edu/jawhite06/weblog/604.html

All blog posts with tag 'Danzon'
http://els.earlham.edu/search/index.php?weblog=danzon

Instructional Tech Collaborative @ Earlham Learning Spaces
https://els.earlham.edu/itc/weblog/

Wall to wall
https://els.earlham.edu/mod/commentwall/walltowall.php?owner=143&other=189&return_url=%2Fmmrice06%2F

Juxtaposition of posts
https://els.earlham.edu/mmrice06/weblog/

Moodle Vanguard community @ Eduspaces
http://eduspaces.net/moodlevan/weblog

New version Elgg 1.1
http://barnabas.lly.earlham.edu/elgg11/

MAT: Graduate Programs in Education
http://els.earlham.edu/gpe/page/Home+Page

Community@Brighton
http://community.brighton.ac.uk/elgguser/weblog/

Optional plugins

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:47:00 GMT

Cutting edge plugin features

Image gallery. Upload images and display in cool 'lightbox' fashion. Implemented as 'Gallery' folder type.
Multimedia. Upload mp4 or other movie — convert to flash based presentation similar to YouTube. Huge advantages for non-copyablity.
Integration with cell phone — send SMS messages to 'Shout' system. Send photos / movie clips to display in own area. Huge potential for integration with cell phone technology.
Rate blog postings.
integration with Moodle
sitewide discussion forum
eportfolio plugin
administrative and user enhancement features. Who's online? Tag cloud, send message from admin to all users, take system offline for maintenance

Abstract

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:22:00 GMT

MainMenu

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:07:00 GMT

AECT: Social Networking presentation

ICI presentation

NITLE presentations

DefaultTiddlers

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:06:00 GMT

CLAMP -- What's it all about?