Taming Moodle

Little bit of spying

2012-10-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

Maybe under slight influence of the latest James Bond movie, but more probably because I was asked for it, I provide you with SQL query to spy on your teachers. This asnwers a question which courses have a teacher (or teachers) and when was the first time and last time they visited their courses.
It could be used for 1.8+ version of Moodle, with default setting of roles (as roleid = 3 means "teacher" role).
I don't know about speed of this thing, so be careful of running this on production servers under heavy load. Use it lightly, no whipping of lazy teachers please :)

Btw I used Adminer, very lightweight MySql tool, for running this. This can come really handy, if you don't have anything stronger at hand.

Move category up, up and away!

2009-04-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

Recently I needed to move newly created category name higher. So I logged as administrator, went to mymoodle.com/course/index.php page, pressed Turn editing On and..waited..waited..and waited.

I am not sure about using Ajax with moving up/down categories, but by default it could take a while to render form with all categories and subcategories. It surely took me a while for a form with 144 categories and subcategories. When you have subcategories in three level category tree it is getting to add up ;-).

Move newly created category, of course it placed itself just at the bottom, would be really bothersome with such a loading times.

So I got an idea with a quick, dirty solution. Maybe I am just dumb and you all know this, but it took me a while so I want to spare you some minutes thinking.

Survive first form loading, select category to be moved, press up or down arrow in the direction you want category to move, click it, wait for a second, just for page to start to render and stop the loading.

It's a red cross right of refresh button on your browser.

This will stop rendering form with categories and subcategories, but all hard work has already been done behind the curtains. So just enter URL in your address bar (there should be something like yourmoodle.com/course/index.php?moveup=66&sesskey=HoNFzG43Zy - moveup parameter is for category and sesskey is needed for security) or press refresh button (F5 key usually) and repeat stopping/refreshing page few steps needed for category to find new shiny place to live.

I hope I didn't insult my dear readers with such a lazy dirty trick, but these tricks are the best one and sometimes the hardest ones to think up.

Moodlerooms binds Moodle and Google Apps together

2009-02-27T01:01:00.000-08:00

Google is getting to the schools and universities with offer of Google Apps (solution for e-mails, document management) more and more. And so it makes a sense to use widely known Moodle and create something that will be useful for both sides.

I think that recently released news on Moodlerooms site(company that is certified Moodle partner and company that brings some really good Moodle stuff again and again ;-)) about offering single sign-on between Moodle and Google App is great and I think this will help another schools to decide what they will be using to solve their e-learning needs.

Press release is to be found HERE

New features ideas? It is time...

2009-02-19T00:22:00.000-08:00

Do you have idea for new feature for Moodle that will blow everybody minds? Feature that will be used around the world and in the nearby universe? Now it is perfect time to make something about it.

Moodle.org is preparing for another round of GSOC (Google supported contest for students) and needs new ideas.

More can be found in this announcement

(Via www.moodlerific.org )

VPN driving me mad

2009-02-10T23:37:00.000-08:00

Today something different than usual Moodle ramblings ;-).

I use VPN connection on one of my projects. VPN is for Virtual private network. You can picture VPN as small, safe island in rough sea of the Internet ;-). It combines conveniences of private network - security and global network - access from anywhere, you can mount disks from server as local disks etc.

Set up VPN is fairly easy, you can see tutorial with pictures for example here. I created VPN connection without problem, only thing that bothered me (I am used to restarting IM services - skype, icq when connecting to the VPN) was annoying popup window demanding me to login to VPN even if I didn't want to use it.

It jumped on me on random moments, I noticed, that this may have something to do with problems with internet connection. If there were some hiccup when loading web pages, VPN thought there is a problem with net, jumped in to save the day...which has happened to be very bothering and unnecessary.

I am using Windows XP and Firefox 3, I tried to find where is the problem. Checked the network setting to disallow VPN to redial, checked Firefox setting for connection, but without luck. At last I found solution where I have never expected it. You have to go to Internet Explorer setting and set VPN connection to never dial. Windows thinks VPN as dial-up connection and Firefox takes this setting directly from Internet Explorer (strange, I know).

You can find how to set this up for example on this page .

I hope this will help someone with same problem, saves you some needed time, nerves and hairs :-)

Ugly category names on front page? Pimp it!

2009-01-28T00:43:00.000-08:00

Did you ever take a look at your Moodle front page and thought: "This looks bad, lame textual category names everywhere, it's so boring" ?

You can change that easily and add some appropriate images instead of dull category names.

turn on Include topic section (see here how - don't forget to turn off displaying old categories list)

create or update Label in topic section on the front page

create or download some fancy icons, web is full of them (search www.iconarchive.com, use www.iconfinder.net, www.webappers.com has nice selections or just Google it :-) )

add icons into created Label

place them into html table or use css to position them correctly

select icon and Insert weblink with url to selected category to it

save changes

With little effort you can create beautiful Moodle front page. See examples here and here

Idea from http://www.edugeek.net forum, icons used in my examle: Lord application icon by FixIcon

Moodle failed my trust

2009-01-21T01:31:00.000-08:00

I read today this blogpost about author's experience with "overwhelming" teachers with Moodle rich features on the training, on the presentations, just to confuse or even scare them..

I found I am guilty with that too ;-).

But another idea crossed my mind. Did you ever "hype" some Moodle feature that didn't work as you expected later? Did you say to yourself: "Oh man, I wish I have never installed this, I wish I have never spoken about that, this is so much pain in ...". Did you ever regret you went with Moodle?

This article is not about blaming Moodle, unfortunate events happen all the time everywhere. I am just interested in situations, features that didn't go well or as you planned and how did you solve that? I love happy endings ;-).

I am looking forward to your comments :-).

Alfresco and Remote-Learner.net Partnered

2009-01-15T01:05:00.000-08:00

I am more and more looking into Java language and CMS Alfresco, that is very powerful as a repository, content version tracking system etc. and I am glad to hear, that Alfresco is going to collaborate with Moodle more (see Alfresco tie-in in Moodle 2.0 on moodleman.net blog ).

Today I found that Alfresco made a connection with a Remote-Learner.net, who is a provider for Open source e-learning solutions, Moodle partner by the way, and together they will provide new Enterprise Learning Intelligence Suite for Moodle (ELIS) that, I hope, will solve some problems with content sharing, content management and security Moodle is having.

And here is a LINK where I found this news.

How is Moodle developing?

2009-01-14T00:49:00.000-08:00

Did you ever wondered, how it is going in Moodle development? What is being done right now, when you will be able to try new features?

I found today on moodleman.net (btw really fine blog) link to Google doc with constantly revised Moodle development planning.

So take a look, it is really interesting and it will put you in the picture, how much work Moodle is ;-).

LINK

Dimdim out of Beta

2008-12-04T00:42:00.000-08:00

Dimdim is a startup who promise easy conferencing platform without need to install additional desktop client, looking for hosting, anything. All you need is a browser :-). You can create online conference, share your desktop, voice and video (imho for for sharing your desktop is some plugin needed to install).

It's been a while Dimdim successfully integrates in Moodle, now the company releases new version, it's out of beta and will be releasing its source codes under GPL3 license.

Basic, free version, allows 20 attendees in the room, but if you need create bigger conferences you have to pay.

I saw some captures from Dimdim usage, it is looking very promising. Maybe it is a time to check it too, it is on my to-do list for a long time.

Some goodies here, if you will sign-up through this Techcrunch arcticle you may be awarded with Pro version (worth $99 annually, room for 100 attendees etc) for free :-).

Did you try Dimdim in Moodle? What's your experience?

One Minute Video: Adding Youtube clip to the Moodle course

2008-11-27T00:52:00.001-08:00

Online video sharing servers are on the rise. YouTube.com is one of the biggest and most known. Many teachers found this site useful for learning, they are uploading their's videos, homemade screencast etc to this service and are inserting these clips to their Moodle courses.

This screencast is first (I hope that it won't be last ;-)) in series of One Minute Videos where I want to show some basic things you can do with Moodle in just one minute.

It's without sound for now, I am little bit shy about my spoken English(not native as you already learned ;-)) and my voice (do you hate hearing yourself on some recordings too?), but in the future... :-D.

Feel free to ask if something is not obvious, I tried to not move fast to everything stays distinguishable.

How to change Enrollment key

2008-11-07T00:42:00.001-08:00

One of my teachers forgot how to change enrollment key for new semester. I made small video to show and I would like to share it with you.

Moodle allow teachers to "lock" their courses with enrollment key (this is for default enrollment, if you are using for example external enrollment plugin, it might be different).

If you have set enrollment key, users have to fill this key before their access locked course for the first time. After they successfully fill that key, they are enrolled.

On the page with enrollment key form, link to the course teacher is displayed to allow users to contact someone to obtain that key.

If your enrollment key became corrupted, you can change that key, get rid of unwanted students in your course with Role assignment and your already enrolled students won't be affected by this change of enrollment key. Please, take better care for your new key, see MI for example, how it should be done :)

Remember Mission Impossible "As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim." :-D

Back to Course Setting. You will scroll down, there you will find field for Enrollment key. This key is stored in database in plain text, so if you only need refresh memory what key you are using, check Unmask checkbox next to the Enrollment key field.(in 1.9 version)

You will find option to allow access for guest just below this field.

Enrollment key will allow you to insert new students to group automatically, but about that maybe next time ;).

And now promised video finally:

Moodle as LEGO

2008-10-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered how to explain Moodle in easy way? You don't have to anymore, just watch this video ;-)

More wonderful 2 minutes Moodle tutorial videos

Undefined method domdocument:load() in Moodle 1.9

2008-07-31T02:35:00.000-07:00

Hello my faithful followers, I hope there remained some after so long blogging hiatus. You know, been busy ;). New fulltime work, less time for Moodle. But now I am preparing upgrade to Moodle 1.9 for my installations, so I plan to blog more about various things I'll met on the road to new shiny Moodle :).

I am going to start right now. I am using XAMPP package on my development machine, currently had installed
1.6.7 version. XAMPP is really easy to install, you are good to go in any time. This time I plan some tweaking, multiple virtual hosts with different documents root etc., but this is for another post (after I make it work ;)).

I downloaded current Moodle 1.9 version through CVS, started to install it, but just after few steps I have been rewarded with this error:


Fatal error: Call to undefined method domdocument:load() in \lib\xmldb\classes\XMLDBFILE.class.php on line 85

This has been easy prey, luckily. After quick googling I found this thread on moodle.org.

In short, it is XAMPP fault, php_domxml.dll extension is making ruckus. For this time being I solved it as is written in mentioned thread, I have found currently loaded php.ini (with phpinfo.php script - it is present in xampp installation), added ";" before line extension=php_domxml.dll, saved php.ini and restarted apache.

Installation is working now, I will try to look into this extension problem more, if I will find more informations about it.

So, that's all for today, see you next time :)

Google analytics in Moodle course

2008-04-18T01:58:00.000-07:00

I just read interesting post yesterday about adding Google analytics code for easier and faster monitoring your users here http://www.relearn.ie/2008/04/16/using-google-analytics-and-moodle/

Google analytics is a free tool for monitoring your site, watching visitors habits, provide lot of statistics , widely used by site creators. Check GA site to learn more.

This was quite a new for me. I did installed GA in Moodle too, but I have inserted it into the footer file in the theme. In this case GA is "watching" all your pages, all courses(I assume I am using only one theme), just everything. This could be useful, but too overcrowded with informations as you monitor all pages on your site. And you need to have access to themes of course ;).

Approach mentioned higher has some serious disadvantages, that is monitoring only front page of the course where GA code is inserted, but has one GREAT advantage. It is easy, teacher can add GA code himself, no asking and begging needed.

So if you are teacher and need something for your course (for example you want to learn what browser resolutions your students are using etc) go that way. Mentioned post is very descriptive and useful.

I am not sure about position of the block itself. GA code is usually placed to footer area of the pages or as lowest as possible. And if I am not wrong, lowest right is farthest in the code. Moodle will print left column first, then middle (well known error when you didn't upgraded all third party modules and printing of content halts after only a few topics due a missing activity or module) and right column finally.

My advice is to move the GA block to the right bottom. Eamon from the rElearn.ie wrote in the comments that he used Firebug to find best position. I just checked source code of Moodle courses and imho right lowest block is farthest in the code.

So if someone will make some experiments about positioning of the GA block, please share it.

Confirmation email sender

2008-04-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

I wrote about confirmation emails here. I noticed I missed one thing, you can have problem about. Who is sending them?

Admin does that! Or better, confirmations emails are sent from email address that is set up in admin account. If you have more admins, it's primary admin, that is the first one, he was created when the Moodle has been installed. Change his email address and confirmation emails sender address should be changed too.

Reset role to default

2008-04-02T04:36:00.000-07:00

Did you play with roles settings but suddenly something is not working correctly and you don't know which change is the culprit? Did you want to reset role to default and can't find button? I know solution!

I read about role resetting to default on moodle forums but couldn't find mentioned button, but I noticed in the code, that the needed part is there.

So try to edit role you want to reset

Editing page will show up. Look into address bar, there you should see something like this:

http://yourmoodleurl.com/admin/roles/manage.php?action=edit&roleid=7 (the number denotes role id you are editing)

Change action=edit to action=reset. Everything others stays as before!

Press enter. You should see notice, if you are sure to reset role to default. If you are, reset it ;-).

Let me know, if you found easier way, I tried 1.8.2 and 1.9 versions but cannot find resetting button :-(.

Unable to reset password in Moodle

2008-04-02T01:47:00.000-07:00

You might know that Moodle helps your lost users not knowing their's password by resetting it.(It depends on the authentication plugin though.)

User needs to insert username, or registration email, Mooodle will send mail with link to reset that password. This is somehow cumbersome but it disallow pranks from malicious users trying to disable another user access.

But it can happen, that mail without the password reset confirmation links is sent. It contains these lines:
"Unfortunately your account on this site is disabled and can not be reset,
please contact the site administrator,"

In these cases please check if:

authentication plugin user had been registered with is enabled
user is not disallowed from login with 'nologin' tag in his authentication column in the DB
user has rights for changing his password - moodle/user:changeownpassword (Moodle 1.9)
authentication plugin contains these lines:


  function can_change_password() {
          return true;
     }

Hope this will help solve problem with resetting passwords.

Is Moodle ugly?

2008-03-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

One of blogs I have in my reader published today article about Moodle : Training the Web Worker Way: Moodle

Some interesting links there, but first comment under that article has brought up a question I heard more often recently. "Moodle is bad designed", "Moodle UI is too complicated" or "Moodle is just plain ugly".

I am working with Moodle for years, I am not encountering that problem often. (And when I don't know, how something is working, I just look into code...I know, I am weird ;-) )

What do you think? Is this correct? Are you getting lost all the time when you use Moodle? Any specific ideas for better UI? Any thoughts welcomed.

Picture inspired by Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Moodle 1.9 finally stable

2008-03-03T07:55:00.000-08:00

After long period of testing, including recently ended Bugathon, Moodle 1.9 is available and in stable version.

You can find more information here http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=91667

I hope I will return after my current blog hibernation to show you some new goodies 1.9 is made of.

I am planning to stroll through all modules, look for changes and highlight most useful stuff.

I think that waiting will be worth of, that the new 1.9 version will be very successful, robust and bugfree. All developers worked very hard to achieve that.

Stay tuned :)

Moodle tutorials video

2008-01-31T00:59:00.000-08:00

Are you obsessed with watching Youtube videos? Have you wished that similar service existed for Moodle and you could save some time and watch video tutorial about Moodle? You can!

I recently noticed a direct result of GHOP site www.moodletutorials.org

Many young students created tutorials and upload them to this site and I expect more to come with the end of GHOP.

So if you stock some video tutorials about Moodle in your drawer, pull them out and upload them to the proper place where can be for some use.

I will try upload process and will write here steps and final result.

Lost password recovery

2008-01-27T06:19:00.000-08:00

Do you have weak and often failing memory as I do? And what worse, have you forgotten password you are accessing your beloved Moodle with? It is catastrophe! Really?

I assume you know, that Moodle can send you new password in case you have forgotten the old one when you provide username or email you registrated.

But what to do, if you have forgotten absolute everything or your Moodle is not sending emails? (Maybe you are trying Moodle on your localhost without smtp settings etc.)

If you have access to database (phpmyadmin is most used) you are saved.

You need to run this query:


UPDATE `mdl_user` SET password = md5('newpassword') WHERE username = 'admin';

where newpassword is you new password and admin is a username of account you want to set that new password.

Or you can use this script from Shane Elliot:

download it
modify lines


$username = 'username';
$newpassword = 'newpassword';

copy this file to your root moodle installation directory, same location as config.php and access this script with your browser (eg. "http://yourmoodleurl/passchange.php" )

Don't forget to delete this script after usage, it can create security issue!

I hope you regained your password and you are good to go with using Moodle once again ;).

Top 12 Things I Like About Moodle [link]

2008-01-18T01:42:00.000-08:00

Lisa wrote on her blog top 12 things she loves about Moodle. First one is for example:

1. Fewer clicks: I do not have to “drill down” (use multiple clicks) to create materials or move through the class.

And she mentioned "Intuitive layout", that I found very good, because I heard recently some complains, that Moodle looks bad, not enough 2.0, not enough blink-blink, just boring old 3 columns curse.

I am glad that for users who are using Moodle professionally is layout intuitive, I found Moodle layout ok too ;). But there can be made some improvements for sure and I hope we will see some evolution of the layout in the future.

I was thinking, what is my Top thing about Moodle. I first thing that came to my mind was "If I don't like something, I can modify it, I can customize, I can create what I need". That I call freedom :).

You can read more Lisa's Top thins here Top 12 Things I Like About Moodle

Check out the new Prestige theme!

2008-01-13T23:42:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite sites for Moodle themes newschoollearning.com presents new 2 column theme today.

It's 900px fixed wide, left column is displayed only in editing mode. Theme seams very clean to me and you can get it in 5 colors. I like the red one most (but brown one has a really nice "classical" style ;) )

Go here for better look or to newschoollearning.com blog for more informations.

i-pod.info bot and solution

2008-01-13T09:31:00.000-08:00

Right after Christmas of 2007, some users complained about illegal activity and mass registration of users from i-pod.info domain. How to protect your site? If you are one of the victims, please read on.

Some moodle admins have become as a Christmas gift a sudden increase of registered users from same domain ending with "i-pod.info". Reason of this unwanted activities is still unknown, but I suspect it is for spamming reasons or maybe even worse.

Spam is very big problem of today's internet. Spam is a result of "abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages" (from wikipedia, check link above) and it costs you time, unneeded download traffic and make you angry, when someone tells you everyday you need to buy some stupid pills because they are SO CHEAP!!! :D. Gimme a break ;).

So what to do?

Try another authenticate method
Email self registration is one of the least safe method of authentication Moodle provides. If you have any other way you can authenticate your users (LDAP, Shiboleth) use it!

But I understand everyone cannot do that. So next steps are for you:

First of all, keep the nasty bot out! In Moodle you can ban domain of email address.

Go to Site Administration >> Server >> Email and add '%@i-pod.info' into denyemailaddresses

Now to get rid of the unwanted fake accounts you need to do:

1. You are sure the new created unconfirmed accounts (since you were hit by bot) are only from mentioned domain:
a) Let Moodle handles it, set Delete unconfirmed users after in Site Administration >> Server >> Cleanup to some low value, for example 1 hour. Cron will start cleanup service and unconfirmed accounts will be deleted after inserted time value.

This way is the easiest for unexperienced administrators or beginners who don't want to mess with database.

b) You are daredevil and you are using 1.9. Now it's your payoff time! Moodle 1.9 has mass deleting tool. You can select bogus users and delete them all at once.

Go to Site administration >> Users >> Accounts >> Bulk users action. Select there unwanted accounts and delete them.

2. You are not sure if your install doesn't have some unconfirmed accounts others from i-pod.info and you don't want to delete these accounts.

a) You have access to your moodle database with some tool (phpmyadmin is the most used) and you are able to use this tool and you are not afraid of it (you should be afraid of messing with database directly in every occasion, if you are not sure, what you are doing, it can go out of hand easily! ).

Run this query in phpmyadmin:


DELETE FROM `mdl_user` WHERE `email` LIKE '%@i-pod.info'

This query will delete all users with emails ending on @i-pod.info!!! I hope you haven't had any real users from this domain! ;)

If you suspect that some fake users already made some actions in your installation, this query is safer:


UPDATE `mdl_user` SET deleted='1' WHERE `email` LIKE '%@i-pod.info'

This query will mark spoiled users as deleted, their's accounts will stay in your database, but they will be not active. Intruders wouldn't be able to use them.

I hope you have endured this article and it was for some help to you. I am preparing post how to protect your email registration driven Moodle from bots, so please add my RSS feed to your readers or subscribe with email address.