Add web annotation to your Moodle forums! This is a great pedagogical tool, from 2008, for those of you teaching English. You can use the Marginalia Moodle plugin to type corrections to your students’ forum posts.
Here’s a Youtube video showing you the plugin in action. No audio, so don’t bother turning on the volume knob on your speakers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0T8TCxtF8o
I discovered this tool when I was surfing to find if there was something that I could use that was even close to UK Open University”s web annotation system in their Moodle 2.0. Boy was I glad to find this gem from 2008.
What are the benefits of this tool?
- It’s free
- Once installed it is built into Moodle 1.9
- You can turn it on and off at will
Too see this in action, head over to: http://www.geof.net/code/annotation/ or http://www.geof.net/code/annotation/demo/.
To see my version of it on my live site, surf to:
http://scm.moodleace.com/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=313
Username: student
Password: moodle
Make some annotations if you wish, but please leave the forum with minimal graffiti. Thanks. To learn more and to download the plugin, head over to: http://webmarginalia.net/
Installing the plugin
To install it, download the plugin from http://code.google.com/p/marginalia/.
It comes in two flavours – Moodle 1.9 and Moodle 2.0. A caveat – I have only tested the Moodle 1.9 version. What you need to do is:
- Please read the INSTALL.TXT file that comes inside the zip file.
- Geof Glass recommends that you make a backup of your entire Moodle directory tree before performing the install. Better safe that sorry!
- Navigate to (use FTP or Putty, etc.) to your Moodle folder (i.e., the parent folder above the mod folder).
- Copy the file moodle19.patch to your Moodle folder.
- Backup your Moodle core files just in case
- Run the patch command: patch -b -p 1 Durian-y“) part of Moodle! Keep your fingers crossed, say a prayer and hope for the best. If successful, you will know because of the output messages confirming a successful (or not!) patch. If unsuccessful, you will have to unpatch it with the (patch -R command ?? Google that one first.)
- Copy the entire Marginalia mod and block folders over your Moodle mod and block folders
- Go to Administration | Notifications to install the plugin and to initialize the databases
THAT’S IT!
To change the colours of the plugin, I recommend you use Firefox’s Firebug extension. By right-clicking on a link, and choosing “Inspect Element” from the shortcut menu, you will get a glimpse right into the heart of the CSS file and code. That’s what I did to customise this plugin according to my theme.
If you happen to use this plugin for other purposes other than proof-reading and correcting English grammar in forums, I’d be most interested to know about it.
Finally, I believe that on Geof Glass’ website, there are instructions to get this working on any website, not just a Moodle forum. But that’s a subject of another post!
Regards and HAPPY MOODLING!
Frankie Kam
Melaka, Malaysia
http://moodurian.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/kam.frankie
I know I love durians, but I didn’t mean to create a cryptic Linux command named Durian. LOL!!! The text that reads:
6. Run the patch command: patch -b -p 1 Durian-y“) part of Moodle!
should have been typed as:
6. Run the patch command: patch -b -p 1 <moodle19.patch
This is the thorny part (or the "duriany") part of Moodle!
Ah. That's better. Slip of the mousey. It happens to the best of us. 😉
My forum link got nuked. Here’s the latest one which you can log in as student (username) and moodle (password).
Enjoy.
http://scm.moodleace.com/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=450