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CompendiumLD is a software tool for designing learning activities using a flexible visual interface. It is being developed as a tool to support lecturers, teachers and others involved in education to help them articulate their ideas and map out the design or learning sequence. Feedback from users suggests the process of visualising design makes their design ideas more explicit and highlights issues that they may not have noticed otherwise. It also provides a useful means of representing their designs so that they can be shared with others.

"Version 2.0 Moodle 2.0, our biggest release ever, is coming together after two years of development. It contains a huge number of core changes to the platform, most of which are designed to give 3rd party developers more flexibility, scalability and safety. The timetable is designed to deliver Moodle 2.0 in time for the new school year in the northern hemisphere and currently looks like this: * March 2010: Moodle 2.0 Beta release * April, May, June 2010: intensive beta testing and bug fixing (freeze on new features) * 1 July 2010: Moodle 2.0 production release You can track our current progress in detail on the Moodle 2.0 Planning document. Please remember that this document is frequently updated and details can change a lot! Draft release notes at Moodle 2.0 release notes. Please add notable items while they are fresh in your mind. The notes will be edited before the final release. System requirements Since Moodle 2.0 is such a major release, we are allowing ourselves some increases in the requirements. * PHP 5.2.8 is now the minimum version supported. (We are aware that several important linux distros are still shipping earlier versions like 5.2.6, but we need at least version 5.2.x for the new File API, and there are bugs in 5.2.7 and earlier that we could not work around.) This allows developers to write cleaner code using the more recent features of PHP, and will also improve user experience. * Databases should be one of the following: o MySQL 5.0.25 or later (InnoDB storage engine highly recommended) o PostgreSQL 8.3 or later o Oracle 10.2 or later o MS SQL 2005 or later * When upgrading to Moodle 2.0, you must have Moodle 1.9 or later. if you are using an earlier version of Moodle (eg 1.8.x) then you need to upgrade to Moodle 1.9.x first. New Community features * Community hub - Moodle.com Makes it easy for teachers to find other courses to download as templates fo

An important part of the role of any educator is that of planning learning sequences. Perhaps you are tasked with designing curriculum or more likely you are translating a mandatory curriculum into workable units of learning. The task is complex and there are multiple arrangements. The goal is to design units that connect students with learning in ways that are meaningful and relevant. A well-designed unit of learning fits seamlessly alongside other learning opportunities and the overall sequence of learning should match the learners developing expertise. As we plan units of learning we must consider a great variety of factors which impact the learning we design. Our knowledge of our students and where they are with their learning is crucial and a strong place to start. We also need to know what it is we are required to teach and have a grab bag of pedagogical moves that bring this content alive.

In this post you will find a list of 49 FREE eBooks for instructional designers and eLearning professionals. If you have read any of the following books I will highly appreciate if you share your opinion with the eLearning community. If you know a free e-Learning book that is not included in the list please I will highly appreciate if you write a comment with a link to that book. It will be added at the top of the list!

In this post you will find a list of 49 FREE eBooks for instructional designers and eLearning professionals. If you have read any of the following books I will highly appreciate if you share your opinion with the eLearning community. If you know a free e-Learning book that is not included in the list please I will highly appreciate if you write a comment with a link to that book. It will be added at the top of the list!

Identifying what our children need to learn is one of the most important processes within education. For the teacher this is the question they engage with as they design their teaching and learning units. By no means is this an easy task and the teacher must balance multiple factors to ensure that the programmes they design provide their students with the learning they require. Even the most effective sequence of lessons is of little value if what it sets out to teach has little importance in the lives our learners are likely to lead. 

OER Integrated set of resources for technology-enabled learning design across disciplines developed by Grainne Conole and Uni of leicester. The resources have all been tried and tested.

'Design Thinking' might just be the next 'new' old thing in education. In her recent address to the National Press Club, Catherine Livingstone of The Business Council of Australia included 'Design Thinking' amongst the critical STEM skills required for Australia's future. But what do we mean by 'Design Thinking' and why should educators be interested?

The paper identifies a set of universal instructional design (UID) principles appropriate to distance education (DE) and tailored to the needs of instructional designers and instructors teaching online. These principles are then used to assess the accessibility level of a sample online course and the availability of options in its LMS platform (Moodle) to increase course accessibility.

Adapted from-and extending-the recommendations found in Chickering and Gamson's, Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991), here are some of the most commonly agreed upon best practices for course design and development. They can be applied to both traditional and online courses, however some are particularly crucial to online course development.

Richard Wallace has 10 years experience in Web design and development. He develops, designs, maintains and hosts numerous Moodle and CMSMS sites for small, medium and large organisations in Australia, the U.S., and Canada. He has presented several papers on educational topics at conferences and training sessions, including the North American Moodle Conference in Edmonton. Speaker at Moodle Symposium 2011

"Video: Traction User Group 2009 Closing Keynote - "Designing for Collaboration""

Universal Instructional Design Principles for Moodle Tanya Elias Athabasca University, Canada May 2010