iLite’s Weblog

December 20, 2009

Redirecting new Moodle Users

Filed under: Moodle, PHP — ilite @ 5:31 am
Tags: , ,

So the scenario is this.

Someone new to Moodle registers on your site and logs in for the first time. You have take the time (or paid me) to customize your Moodle site so that it has a few unique features and add-ons that no other site has. You don’t want them to battle with using Moodle, but you want them to maximize the functionality of the site.

The question now is this – how do you introduce your site to a new, first-time user. Explain the navigation to them and basically help them get up and running before they enroll for their first course.

The way I have done it, is by using a simple script that checks the login and reroutes the user to a page containing some helpful information about the site, the icons and how the navigation works.

To the code, finally:

<?php
$uid = $USER->id;

/*
* The code below is used to display the Getting Started page the first time a new
* User access the site.
*
* How It Works
* Take the UserId and look in the mdl_user table for the lastlogin value
* A new User will have a value of 0
* Check the value. If it’s 0, redirect the User to the Getting Started page
* At the same time, update the Users details, setting the lastlogin value to the current time
*/
$sqlNU = ‘SELECT lastlogin FROM mdl_user ‘
. ‘ WHERE id=\”.$uid.’\”
. ‘ LIMIT 0,1′;
$ResultNU = mysql_query( $sqlNU );

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($ResultNU)) {
echo ‘lastlogin ‘.date(‘Y M d’,$row[0]);
if($row[0] ==  0){
echo ‘<script language=”JavaScript”>’;
// This is the redirect to your Moodle info page
echo ‘window.location=”http://127.0.0.1/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=18″;’;
echo ‘</script>’;

// Once we have redirected to the new page, update the lastlogin value
$dateNow = time();        // the current date
$sqlA=”UPDATE mdl_user SET lastlogin = ‘$dateNow’ WHERE id = ‘$uid’”;
$sql_resultA = mysql_query($sqlA) or die (mysql_error());

}
}
?>

Drop the code at the bottom of index.php and you should be all set. REMEMBER – if you are not sure, first make a backup of index.php. If you break it, I don’t want to know about it.

December 17, 2009

Where are your Users

Filed under: Google Map, Moodle, dashboard — ilite @ 6:26 pm
User Location Map

User Location Map

The User Location Map plots the location of your Users on a Google Earth map. The plot point is added dynamically when the map loads and the data is pulled from the database.

You may look at this and think it serves no purpose, and you would be correct. Sometimes as a developer it’s nice to look at something, and ask yourself, “I wonder if I could…”

..and then a few hours later you are pulling the locations from the mdl_user table and plotting them. I love visualizing the data. I know that the City is stored in the database and displayed as a word in a column – that’s boring, dead. Plot it on a map, see where it is, zoom in on it – now we have living data.

That is really the Dashboards core reason for existing. It exists so that you can interact more visually with your data. Like the relationship map, that allows you to view the Users that have done a Course, and then the Courses they have done, etc.

Sean

November 9, 2009

New Feature in iLite Mobile Moodle

Filed under: General, Mobile, Mobile Websites, Moodle, eLearning — ilite @ 11:23 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

We have added a new feature! The iLite Mobile Moodle now shows all the attempts made in a quiz and scows all the scores for all the attempts in a specific quiz.

grades_1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see in this image, this shows you all the courses that iLite Mobile Moodle has.

Select the course “French in Moodle”.

grades_2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As depicted in this image, all the quizzes for “French in Moodle” are displayed.

Select the quiz “Basics”.

grades_3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see by the above image, there were two attempts on the quiz “Basics” with the date and the score.

- Kirsten

October 27, 2009

Download a trial version of the iLite Moodle Dashboard

Visit iLite to download the 7 day trial version of the iLite Moodle Dashboard.

There are some funky new additions to the Dashboard which include the multi-lingual support, improved User search functionality and the Course Relationship Map.

The Course Relationship Map is something completely unique to the Dashboard. As you can see in the image below, we can see that the Course – iLite Dashboard, has 8 Users. We can also see that 5 of the 8 Users have a small (+) sign below them. This indicates that they are enrolled in other Courses. By clicking on the (+) sign, we expand a 3rd level, which shows the Courses that this User has enrolled for. Hover over the icon to view the Course name.

You may be wondering what is the purpose of the Relationship map, well it is to help you see what Courses the Users are doing at a glance. If a Course has prerequisites, you can view if they have been met simply by calling up the Relationship map.

- Kirsten

courseRelationships

 

October 21, 2009

iLite Mobile Learning for the iPhone

Filed under: AMFPHP, General, Mobile, Mobile Websites, Moodle, PHP, eLearning — ilite @ 9:12 am
Tags: , , , , ,

It is exciting times here at iLite. We have just finish developing the interface for the iPhone. What happens here is that this interface extracts your data from Moodle and allows you to view it on your iPhone.

Visit http://www.ilite.co.za/i/ to have a look at this component. Please play around and send any feedback or comments that you may have to me at kirsten@ilite.co.za

Username:  ian

Password:  password

- Kirsten

login MainMenu CoursesCourseDetailsNews

September 23, 2009

Dashboard going multi-lingual

It’s time for another sneak preview of the Dashboard. We have been hard at work for several months now trying to make the Dashboard unique, interactive and visually stimulating. New features include a multi-lingual function and has provisions so far for 6 languages, which are English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French and German. We will look at adding more languages as we get closer to the release date.

Another new and exciting feature is the Degrafa graph inside the datagrid. This allows the scores to be more visually stimulating.  The courses that the user is enrolled for is also listed as well as their quiz results and the course interactivity.

-Kirsten

users

August 25, 2009

Dashboard on AIR

Filed under: AIR, Moodle, dashboard — ilite @ 7:42 pm

So after playing around a bit with AIR, I finally decided to go that route and build a version of the Dashboard. Looking down the road, I think this may become the only version we will maintain and release. If you would like to give the AIR version a trial, you can do so by clicking on the icon below and downloading it.

Dashboard

Once you have downloaded and installed the AIR app, you can log in using the username: miranda, and the password: password

To test it on your own site you will need to download and install a few php file, and register on our site. If you would like to know more about the Dashboard and why it will make your life easier, drop us a mail.

July 11, 2009

What’s the score

Filed under: Moodle, dashboard — ilite @ 4:56 pm

The Dashboard makes viewing a Users scores very easy. In the image below you can see that the iLite Dashboard course has two quizzes. When selecting this course from the list of courses the student has done, both scores are immediately displayed, both as a percentage and graphically. Had a score or more than 80% been achieved, the bar would have been in green. Just another way using the Dashboard makes tracking your users easier.

Two Quiz Results

June 29, 2009

Dashboard testing

Filed under: AMFPHP, General, Moodle, PHP, dashboard — ilite @ 6:01 pm

Where are looking for a few beta testers for our Moodle dashboard application. If there are any of you out there running Moodle 1.9 and would like to deploy and test the dashboard, drop us a mail.

UserID to view the demo dashboard:

Username: mary
Password: password

Requirements:

  1. Basic knowledge of PHP. You will have to update the config file, and copy some folders to the root of your server. The Dashboard uses the PHP files to access the Moodle DB and return data. This is only a READ, and nothing will be touched, modified or changed in your DB.
  2. A userID

What to do:

  1. Copy the PHP folder to your server
  2. Copy the Flash folder to your server
  3. Create an ID at iLite (or we can send you one)
  4. Update the config.php file with your Moodle details

How the Dashboard works.
The Dashboard uses the PHP files on your server to retrieve the data from your Moodle database. AMFPHP is used, which gives us a little more performance. Use the icons at the top to navigate between the different screens.

If you would like more information, or have some ideas about how we can improve it, please drop me a mail at kirsten@ilite.co.za

If your idea is good enought, we’ll use it and give you a copy of the Dashboard free.

All that we would like from you is a little feedback on how the Dashboard is preforming. Things you do like and things you don’t like. Information like the OS you are using, the number of users and courses you have and whether you are using SCORM Activities.

Kirsten

May 14, 2009

Dashboard Demo

Filed under: Flash, Flex, General, Moodle, PHP, dashboard, eLearning — ilite @ 5:15 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

homepageAfter a long process of development we are finally at a point where we can showcase a demo!

Log into http://www.ilite.co.za/eDash/#

User name:   james

Password: password

Remember guys, feedback is always welcome and appreciated.

- Kirsten

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