Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project

The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project (CLAMP) is launching several new committees and is looking for volunteers to serve on them. The goals of these committees are to support CLAMP’s efforts outside of our Hack/Doc Fests, help prepare our members for the jump to Moodle 2.0, and provide more opportunities to schools to participate in meaningful ways.

The four committees are:

• Development: work on bug fixes, develop existing and new functionality, and support the release of Moodle: Liberal Arts Edition.
• Documentation: Create and update generic Moodle documentation – including written, audio, and video –  that can easily be adapted to individual colleges.
• Event Planning: Plan brown bag lunches, special talks, and the biannual Hack/Doc Fests.
• Next Generation: research and prepare for the next major version of Moodle; today that’s Moodle 2.0, which has major changes to blocks, modules, themes, and core code.

Here’s the schedule of upcoming committee meetings:

• Event Planning – Monday, Dec. 6, 2010 @ 2 p.m. EST
• Documentation – Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 @ 2 p.m. EST
• Next Generation – Thursday, Dec 9, 2010 @ 2 p.m. EST
• Development – Friday, Dec. 10, 2010 @ 2 p.m. EST

Anyone at a CLAMP school can serve on any committee; no nomination is required.

• Sign up for a committee.

The Collaborative Liberal Arts Moodle Project uses the Redmine collaboration suite to coordinate projects, track bugs and features, and discuss upcoming projects.

On Wednesday, Dec. 1 at Noon EST, Caroline Moore of Smith College will be leading an “Introduction to Redmine” brown bag that provides an overview of its features and how we use it to support our efforts, both during the academic year and at Moodle Hack/Doc Fests.

This event will be conducted virtually in CLAMP’s Elluminate Room. The event is free, but registration is required so that we can send you the Elluminate room link.

• Register for the brown bag.

Moodle Hack/Doc Fest for Winter 2011 will be held Tuesday, January 4 through Thursday, January 6, 2011 at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Additional information will be posted in Summer 2010. This will be CLAMP’s seventh Moodle Hack/Doc Fest, and our first to be held in a southern state.

Moodle Hack/Doc Fest for Summer 2010 will be held Wednesday, June 23 through Friday, June 25 at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The event immediately follows NITLE Camp 2010, which will include a day-long session dedicated to Moodle on Tuesday, June 22. More information — inclduing registration details — will be posted Monday, April 12.

This will be CLAMP’s sixth Moodle Hack/Doc Fest. As with our earlier events, we’ll be focusing on adding functionally to Moodle, documenting new and existing features, and merging the latest updates from Moodle core into our Liberal Arts Edition of Moodle.

UPDATE: Because of a scheduling conflict, this brown bag has been moved from 11/17 to Monday, Nov. 23 at 12 p.m. ET. When registering, you can still use the 11/17 option in the signup form.

Documentation: everyone needs it, but writing it can be a challenge. CLAMP’s made that easier by creating documentation for Moodle grade book, roles and groups that schools can  take and modify for their individual campuses. The “Documentation Overview” virtual brown bag being held Monday, Nov. 23 at 12 p.m. ET. will discuss what’s available, as well as CLAMP’s process for updating and creating new documentation.

This brown bag will be led by Courtney Bentley, Instructional Technology Program Coordinator at Lafayette College, and will be held in NITLE’s Elluminate conference room. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register for the brown bag now.

Introduction to Elluminate - the first of CLAMP’s Fall 2009 brown bags – will be held Wednesday, Nov. 11 at noon ET. This session will server as a primer for using Elluminate for conference participants. We’ll run down the basic components of the online conferencing tool, and troubleshoot any audio/video problems you might experience. If you plan on attending, visit the Elluminate Support page before the brown bag to download the software and verify that it works on your machine.

The event is free to the public, but registration is required. Register for the brown bag now.