Canada Moodlemoot 2013 Conference Less is More: Stripping Moodle Down

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What’s this going to be about?

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If you haven’t read the description…

We’re going to discuss: • Plugins • Theme• Core Hacks

Our customizations solve problems with:• Accessibility/Usability• Navigation/Complexity• Community• Tracking

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First a little background

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Who are we?

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Who do we work for?

The Neil Squire Society has for over 25 years empowered people with physical disabilities through knowledge, technology, and passion.

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The Neil Squire Society

In 2013, we’re reaching a lot of people through e-Learning.

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Now that you know who we help

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Usability: How easy is it for your users to do what you want them to be doing?

Accessibility: Does your content take your user’s abilities for granted?

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Usability

We want our Moodle students to:• Log In• Follow links to Blackboard Collaborate• Visit their courses• Do course activities• Know what they have completed• Message each other and their teachers

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Usability

We want our Moodle teachers to:• Log In• Follow links to Blackboard Collaborate• Visit their courses• Know what their students have completed• Help their students with their accounts• Message each other and their students

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Accessibility

We do not take user abilities for granted. The same content is there for:

• The blind to hear• The deaf to read• The mouse-less to command• The low-literacy to listen to• The inexperienced to find

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That’s the background…Let’s talk about our problems (and solutions)

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Accessibility & usability(problems)

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Our users are diverse*

Assistive technology (hardware and software)

Literacy (digital and literal)

Culture

*Teachers and Students

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Moodle can be a pain

There is a lot going on!

There’s a lot of stuff to click… I don’t have a mouse.

There’s a lot to read!

There’s too much scrolling.

It can be overwhelming!

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Don’t worry

There are lots of little problems here. If you have them too, our code can help.

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Accessibility & usability(solutions)

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The file picker… Ouch

After trying to kludge a block to replace it, I gave up and hacked core.

• Turned off most of the repository plugins• Forced the <noscript> version unless a profile

field is checked.• For the <noscript version>, added a bunch of

redirects that auto-select the upload repository

There is a lot less fuss with this one.

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Before

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After

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Comments > Forums

Screen reader users struggle with Moodle forums.

Our users have a 0% subscription rate.

We dumped forums:• Forked “Page” module into “Comment Page”.• “readable comment” block in “center of page”• “unread comments” report

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Our comment page

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We use a lot of questionnaires

Forked the questionnaire module to comment some things out and restructure things for keyboard users.

Replaced a lot of quizzes with questionnaires.

Created a block to “mark questionnaire as read”.

Integrated “unread” (public) questionnaires into our marking block.

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Nanogong

We love multi-modal learning (visual + aural).

Nanogong is wonderful, but keyboard users can’t use it and its tabular layout is confusing.

We broke it out of tables and added html buttons.

We renamed it “Say It!”

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Say It!

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Youtube

Embedded Youtube videos are not focusable. We wrap them.

We type: [[swf|yt|Wellness For Work|CHg-E0BWGBw|wide]]

We get:

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Text to speech block 2.0

Huge shout out to Patrick Thibaudeau and OOHOO.

They ported my 1.9 TTS block to 2.0.

They added a lexicon for correcting pronunciation.

I added an off/on option.

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TinyMCE

We forked TinyMCE to add in an autosave.

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Block: template

Fork of the HTML block.

Attempts to inject its content into the text editor.

Will respect HTML/noHTML formats.

Assignments and forums discussion topics.

Answer templates help students and teachers.

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Squire theme

Adds:• WAI-ARIA landmarks• A “center” region for blocks• A site navigation (too custom for custom menu)• Course navigation buttons

Subtracts:• Most of the login page• A lot of the footer

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Navigation (problems)

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Our users get lost… a lot

The navigation block is complicated.

The settings block is just “clutter”.

The home page lists EVERY course.

Courses have “scroll of death”.

The “next” and “previous” links are gone from modules.

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Navigation (solutions)

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We got rid of a lot

Navigation block

Settings block

Breadcrumb

Course listing on front page

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We added

A customized frontpage

Some frontpage blocks

A custom menu that’s more custom than Moodle’s

Profile editing back in the user profile page

A settings block that only admins can see

A custom course format

Navigation icons in modules

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Frontpage before

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Frontpage after

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Disclaimer

The “before” page still shows up for administrators.

The “after” page shows up for users.

I hacked core to force users to “MyMoodle” and hacked it more to make every MyMoodle page the same.

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Main menu

Home (moodle/my)

My Profile

A report that shows “friends”

A link to noscript version of messages

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Profile management (core hack )

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Edit profile

User - Change password / edit links to profile page

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Block: course list lite

List of enrolled courses

Categorized

Alphabetized

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Block: collaborate

Links that are populated from hidden profile field.

Classroom and moderator links populated during account setup.

More than one link is supported.

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Badge course format

Each section has two icons

One for all activities complete

One for some activities incomplete

Sections are grouped under “units”

Units are sortable

Sections are sortable

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Badge course format

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Badge format admin

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Way easier to implement in 2.3+

Badge course format: single section

When you click on a section:

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When you’re in an activity

Navigation buttons are added after “Main Content”.

• Back to the main course view• Back to the section view• Previous activity within section• Next activity within section

(This is done in the theme)

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So…

Users can tell what they’ve completed.

They can’t spam the “next button” till they get lost.

They can use the main menu to go home.

They have an easy time finding their courses and virtual classroom.

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Community (problems)

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Cohorts are not quite there

We like cohorts for: • Community.• Cohort-sync enrollment.

We wish:• There was a cohort context (like “user” context).• Cohorts could mass “friend”.

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Community (solutions)

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We made some cohort plugins

Now we have:• Cohort friendship sync• Friends report• Cohort breakup• Cohort relationships

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Admin tool: cohort friendship sync

Cron checks that each “from” cohort member is friends with each “to” cohort member.

New cohort members become instant friends.

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Report: friends

Looks like Outlook

Has email addresses and Moodle message links.

Encourages profile pictures.

Easier for screen reader users to navigate

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Admin tool: cohort breakup

Breaks friendships.

This lets teachers move on when they have a new class of students.

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Admin tool: cohort relationships

Each member of cohort “from” is assigned a role in the “user” context of each user in cohort “to”.

Our classroom IT is given a role that allows account editing for each student.

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Tracking (problems)

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Navigation

Our staff hate the navigation and settings blocks.

We’ve had facilitators on screen readers.

We don’t grade anything.

Our staff do live demos… they can’t display client information.

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Tracking (solutions)

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This was tricky

We made a “Class Facilitation” course.

The course contains:• A comments activity• A marking block• Links to tracking reports

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Marking block

Our marking block:• Doesn’t use AJAX• Shows assignments, questionnaires, say its!, and

questionnaires.– Course

• Unit (if course is badge format)– Section

» Activity

• Is semantically set up for screen reader navigation.

• Displays in the “center” block region.

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Report: unread comments

Breaks comments down by course and activity.

Provides “mark as read” link for each comment.

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Report: badges

We can see that Bart has only completed one section.

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Report: participant credentials

Shows anyone you are “teaching”.

Displays:• Name• Username• Whether their password is still set to default• Last login

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Report: participant submissions

The inverse of the marking block.

Helps blind teachers reference user activities.

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Thank you for your time

Chad Leaman – chadl@neilsquire.caRyan Thomas – ryant@neilsquire.ca 604 - 473 – 9363www.neilsquire.ca@neilsquiresoc

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Questions? Talk shop?

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