Tips for creating Moodle Mobile friendly courses sites - MoodleMoot Spain 2014

Tips for creating Moodle Mobile friendly

courses/sites

Juan LeyvaMoodle Mobile Developer

@jleyvadelgado #mootes14

This presentation is about the official app for

Android, iOs, Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8

If you are more interested in using mobiles

to support learning with Moodle, see:

● http://www.slideshare.net/epictalk/20-tips-for-mobile-learning-in-moodle

● http://www.slideshare.net/epictalk/using-mobiles-to-support-active-learning-with-

mobile

Disclaimer

Moodle Mobile is the official mobile

app for Moodle

https://download.moodle.org/mobile/

Moodle Mobile

“It is important to know that the app will never be able to support all

the functions of Moodle, because Moodle is a huge fast-moving

target and writing secure web services (which is how the app

communicates to Moodle) takes a long time to do properly. This is a

tradeoff that we had to make, and we know it may disappoint some

users who want this app to do everything immediately!”

“We focus on the communication aspects, plus a few of the

information aspects.”

Martin Dougiamas

Mobile strategy going forward

Install the “Moodle additional features plugin”

● Local plugin for adding new features to the current

Moodle Mobile app

● This add-on provides new features and also web

services which are currently only available in the latest

Moodle version

● A Moodle 2.4 installation with the plugin has the same

Mobile features available than a Moodle 2.8 installation

Tips for sites

Moodle additional features plugin

● Extra features: Support for sites using SSO

authentication methods (Shibboleth and CAS)

● A new Moodle Mobile major version requires to upgrade

this plugin in your Moodle installation.

● https://docs.moodle.org/Moodle_Mobile_additional_feat

ures

Tips for sites

Enable Push notifications

● The site must be registered in moodle.org

● Administration / Plugins / Message outputs / Mobile

notifications

● User must enable in their profile to receive Mobile

notifications

Tips for sites

Enable Push notifications

● Notifications are connected to the Moodle messaging

system

● A bulk message to all the users in a course will send a

Push notification to the user mobile phone (Remember,

the user must enable to receive Mobile notifications)

Tips for sites

● Use the topics or weeks course format

Tips for courses

● Avoid orphaned activities or direct links to activities

Tips for courses

● Labels are initially collapsed, use a short text as

introduction of what is inside

Tips for courses

● Use responsive HTML in pages or mini-sites

Tips for courses

● Youtube or maps links (URL resource) opens

automatically the system app

Tips for courses

Find alternatives to unsupported activities or resources

● Book module: Publish an “accessible” version of the

Book resource using the export to HTML feature

● IMS CP: Instead using the IMS CP resource, unzip the

file and add it as a resource (mini-site)

Tips for courses

Find alternatives to unsupported activities or resources

● Same for SCORM without API tracking

● Not all the video formats are supported by all mobile

devices, upload the same video in different formats in a

directory resource

Tips for courses

Upload a detailed guide of how to use Moodle Mobile

including:

● Download links to the different platforms/stores.

● Explain the different possibilities and limitations of the

app.

● Explain how the offline mode works (you should

download your contents first).

● Explain how to configure your messaging settings for

receiving mobile notifications.

Tips for sites

● Create a custom theme for your site

Tips for sites

● Do not use frontpage courses or activities

Tips for sites

● Place those pages in a

global course where all the

users are enrolled via

cohorts, meta-course

enrolments

● Enroll all the users in that course via the db plugin

Tips for sites

You have more information here:

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Mobile_app

https://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_Mobile_additional_features

http://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_Mobile

https://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MOBILE

Thanks for your time!