Forum LAMS for Tech-Heads - General Forum: Some new thoughts/ideas for LAMS 2.2

Once again, sorry for the delay responsing, but today I'll try to reply to most of your postings... hopefully, I'll get thru all of them!

>1. Dimdim

The reason we implemented a Dimdim tool is because there are some people that require a desktop sharing, whiteboard and conferencing facility. Dimdim provides all that and is open source (well, at least some oldish version is).

If what you need is not web conferencing, then you can do with FLV + Chat for sure.


>2. SUBMIT FILE FUNCTION

You might not be getting the emails from the Submit tool if there are no SMTP setting set for your LAMS server. Did you configure your SMTP settings in LAMS? Login as Sysadmin, go to the Syadmin Menu -> Edit Configuration settings and add your SMTP server in there. If your SMTP server needs authentication, just add it there... if not, well, don't

> I think it would be much simpler if information about who has submitted (and when/what has been submitted) appeared on My Groups page next to the sequences.

Well, what if you have hundreds of students... that will be very large. And also if you have not one but several Submits, then that'll be even more painful.

I've been thinking that probably the best way to do this announcements is using an RSS feed so teacher (and also students for that matter) can follow announcements and/or events that happen in LAMS that might require their attention.

What do you think?

> 3. A STUDENT REPORT FUNCTION

Is this some sort of "Report of my marks in the lesson I've done in Marks" almost a Gradebook type of idea?


> 5. SUBMIT GRADES TO INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS

If this is individual mark release, I think we'll do this once we implement the Gradebook. We are currently working on this, it's a simple gradebook that allows you to aggregate marks for a lesson and then for all the lessons within a course.

It's coming... hopefully we'll have something simple in a month to show you.

> 6. PRESENCE IS GREAT BUT...

Instant messaging is coming and the interface is looking very nicely. I don't think I have a screenshot of the work that Paul (its developer) here, but I'll ask him to post an screen capture so you can have a look.

Presence and Instance messaging is optional, so the teacher can turn it on and off whenever needed.

> 7. I've been having some problems with live edit.

Hmm.. this is interesting, how do you manage to do this? A lesson is read only when they are created. These lessons are stored in the "run sequences folder". Are you starting lessons based on sequences in the "run sequences folder"?

> 8. ADDING NEW STUDENTS TO EXISTING GROUPS

In most cases, all students are in the class already when you add lessons. But I can imagine that it can be a bit annoying if you have a new student and need to add him/her to existing 10 lessons. How would you suggest to do this? Perhaps when you add a student to a class, you can have a check box that says "Add user as student to all the lessons in the class"? Not so sure if I like that option. suggestions are welcome.

9. Pressing Cancel AND INSTEAD OF OK

Where is this cancel button? I don't seem to have one on the learner view for "Submit files" (see pic attached)

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

Here are some replies

Point 2: instant messaging

have checked SMTP settings, but problem still exists, by the way it is a nightmare to receive large numbers of messages at a time!; anyway maybe there is another reason why messages don't arrive...a mystery to solve…

Point 3 Student Report

I see a student report as an integral part of improving the overall e-learning experience in LAMS. Thus in a way it is another suggestion for making LAMS a more user-friendly system when used as a University e-learning platform (IE I suggested before that learners should not have multiple logins, but should have one login with multiple sub-accounts).

The report could be an automated instant-messaging type function or part automated with the option to add specific comments. However the guiding principle is to create more contact with the user, to make the user aware that his/her work is being ‘recognised’ and hopefully motivate the learner to become (more)/remain engaged

The report could be adaptable and its elements would be chosen from a list by the teacher. It could comprise things such as

(1) overall information on sequences completed
(2) time spent (maybe compared to average group-time spent)
(3) grades (averages/specific)
(4) areas of strength/weakness
(5) general/specific advice on what to study
(6) forum/chat entries (compared to average)

These are just some very general ideas.


Point 7 Live Edit

Yes, I may have added the lesson from the wrong folder, but should there not be a warning that this should not be done? This may also explain the problems I had with ‘submit’ file. But this theory will need testing

Point 8 Adding students to new groups

Not so at most Cypriot institutions or in countries where overseas students are delayed by visa restrictions. It’s a real bind to keep logging new students into lessons one by one! Your idea sounds OK, some kind of quick add function is required. See screenshot of number of sequences in one of my groups..and imagine adding 10 new students to this group!

Posted by Chris Alexander