Using Moodle as a tertiary learning tool - a student perspective

Recently I have started studying at TAFE college, and have had to use Moodle as a student.
What is the biggest problem?
A/ Not the technology - but the fact that some of the teachers are very slow or forgetful about uploading student assignments etc,  and when they do upload the assignment files  they put it under "course content" or some other illogical place. This wastes SO much time just trying to locate work which is due in a short time frame. All this does is just frustrate the motivated students, and give the slackers an excuse not to do the assignments.
In these cases it would be far more effective just to hand out the printed question sheet to the students in class.

Moodle seems to be getting used more widely in university settings

My university has ditched the boring looking, user-unfriendly Blackboard Vista and has finally embraced Moodle. I haven't had a chance to use it myself with students this year, and I'm looking forward to hearing feedback from staff who are now using Moodle.

Moodle is getting better and more popular

It seems that 'Moodle' has taken a big leap forward and is now being adopted by some universities as the main electronic teaching platform. The University of Wollongong has recently ditched Blackboard Vista and is now using Moodle, and offering staff training workshops in how to use the new platform. Hopefully it will be a bit more user friendly for both staff and students.

Preserving your blog information

Just found out today that if you don't regularly post on your blog it will eventually be deleted by blogger.com.
So posting this to keep the information alive. One day I may need the information again, and others may also find it useful.

Finally got my domain name!

I finally got my domain name today! I think I should have made the request for to the web host to attach the new domain to my existing domain again, after I paid for it. I had made an enquiry before I paid, and I think they just went ahead and processed the fee and the registration.
My new domain is profpenny.com and I've set up my Moodle EFL course at www.profpenny.com/Englishzone

I learned something interesting today:
That URLs are case sensitive. "englishzone" comes up as a 404 error but "Englishzone" works!
I'm wondering now whether I should have used lower case for all the letters, as it may prove a stumbling block for students to access the site. OR is that a useful way of teaching the Korean students that the word "English" needs capitalisation!

Anyway, I chose to automatically setup Moodle through the Cpanel of my webhost (www.unlimited-space.com), using 'fantastico' It was unbelievably easy.
The only thing I am not sure of now is why I am having trouble uploading resource files - the files seem to upload but the don't open as they seem to be not in correct folders or directories. I will try to make some dedicated data files for audio and photos and see if that helps.

the waiting game

I'm still waiting for verification of my new domain name 'profpenny.com' so I can actually set up my website and host Moodle on it. It doesn't really matter for setting up the Moodle course framework whether the host is the local host or my website, but it would be nice to get it done. It seems that uploading resources doesn't work properly on the local host. I am assuming that the resources have to be held on the web host server in the correct folders for public access.

I think I wasn't setting up the folder system properly in Moodle today - I had forgotten how totally unforgiving the assigning of correct web folders is...
But I was generally pleased with setting up a wiki, a blog, a Message box system, a calendar and a few other bits & pieces. Using moodle is fairly easy - it just takes a few hours of poking around and seeing what happens when you change things.

progress on Assignment 2

In the past 4 days for assignment 2 I have:
* registered a new domain name "profpenny.com" with my current host provider at www.unlimited-space.com
* downloaded 'Moodle4Mac' from www.moodle.org
*played with Moodle settings

I hit a snag with getting my domain name registered as i didn't receive the automated payment details email, and had to chase around by email. I am currently waiting for confirmation from the webhost - unlimited-space.com - that they have all the technical requirements to actually host Moodle properly. I didn't think that there would be issues, but apparently some webhosts just don't use all the required bits & pieces...

I was proceeding on the basis that I can add an extra domain name to my existing hosting account at no extra charge, but now I can see that maybe I should have gone through a dedicated Moodle host. Damn... but maybe it will be OK?

The set up for the Moodle page was difficult as there are very few instructions of what to actually do and I spent about an hour just looking around at the MAMP administrator page wondering what the hell to do. What is MAMP anyway?
Then I realised that there is another 'Welcome to Moodle for Mac' page that does NOT show up automatically after you install the Moodle package. It's found at :-
http://localhost:8888/moodle18/
On this page I can log in as 'admin' with a password of 12345, but then what?