[Year 12 IT Apps] Moodle on a stick?..attn Ken Price.

Sun Apr 5 22:18:49 EST 2009

Hey there Ken,
just read about your Mobile web server, could you email on my email below(off list), or call me at your convenience when we return from the break. I'd be interested to hear more about how you do this. But, I am a novice at current web stuff so I will be starting pretty much from scratch.
You have my interest!  I'm always up for trying some new ideas.

Just one hitch? What about the school firewall...is that a problem?

Kent.

Kent Beveridge,
I.C.T. co-ordinator
St. Brigids Catholic Sec. College
 http://www.stbc.vic.edu.au/ <http://www.stbc.vic.edu.au/> 
Horsham Ph (03) 5382 3545
kbeveridge at stbc.vic.edu.au
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________________________________

From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of ken price
Sent: Fri 4/3/2009 7:59 AM
To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] Unit 3 O2 Resources

Yes, the role of traditional web design and management tools has changed significantly as CMS applications are almost essential for any decent-sized website.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft retires mainstream support for FrontPage 2030 on 14 April 2009, so in effect it becomes a legacy package. http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=2514 

I guess the change is pretty much what happened to hand coding HTML in a text editor when WYSIWYG web tools came on the market - the need for the "old" approach doesn't disappear, but the bulk of users probably find the new tools more relevant.

It is probably worth pointing out that every student can have their own CMS to carry with them if you use the MoWES MObile WEb Server http://www.chsoftware.net/en/useware/mowes/mowes.htm . This lets you choose a set of components and bundles them up for you with an installer, and you can then expand it all out onto a USB drive. It includes Apache,. PHP, MySQL as supporting infrastructure, on top of which you can select Drupal. Joomla, Moodle, Mambo, Wordpress etc.

The whole thing once installed (which is a simple click-through deal) runs totally from a USB drive and can thus be used on any computer. The student's data (web site, Moodle installation etc) also lives on the USB drive. The student can fully administer a server appllication that is identical to those often used commercially, without risking ANY school infrastructure. The kids own the USB drive as well so it's not even costing the school for storage and backup. 

I use MoWes for developing Moodle themes and testing courses - I can't risk doing this on a live work server and it's far quicker to play with the CSS etc and make edits on a USB stick until things are as they need to be, then give the IT Services people a tested set of files to upload to production servers. I label my USB drive "Moodle on a stick" which amuses some people.

Oh yeah, MoWes is free. 

Ken

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Roland Gesthuizen <rgesthuizen at gmail.com> wrote:

	Yes, they cracked a huge wobbly here. Am just recovering from the huge punch up that resulted and only called timeout by rolling back to FrontPage. We will now instead migrate to our Drupal server. Once I finish dressing it up and get some staff trained, this will go live.
	http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au <http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au/>  --> http://drupal.westallsc.vic.edu.au <http://drupal.westallsc.vic.edu.au/>  (draft)

	Interesting thought .. one of my more learned colleagues suggested that as many organisations are now using various flavours of content management systems to publish their resources, perhaps building large and integrated website with tools like Web Expressions, Dream Weaver etc is now of accademic value only. It makes as much sense as building a car by hand with a mechano set when you can subcontract the work to a mechanised auto plant.

	Regards Roland

	PS: There are some excellent drupal training courses running in Melbourne. I am happy to cross post some details.

	2009/4/2 Toet, Rikki L <toet.rikki.l at edumail.vic.gov.au>

-- 
Dr Ken Price MACS ACCE Professional Associate.
President, TASITE
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