What is Alfresco?

Alfresco is an open source ECM system that enables the end user to store information, collaborate on content and projects, track major and minor versions of documents, use online discussion forums to raise and discuss issues, and create virtual teams. It is relatively simple to use, making it one of the most popular open source repositories used.

What is an Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?

ECM is a system used to manage the life-cycle of information within an enterprise from the initial publication or creation of information, all the way through to its’ archival and eventual disposal. It encompasses document management, web content management, search, collaboration, records management, digital asset management (DAM), work-flow management, capture and scanning. The aim of ECM is to make the management of corporate information easier through simplifying storage, security, version control, process routing, and retention. Benefits to an organisation include improved efficiency, better control, and reduced costs.

Alfresco and Moodle

With many corporate organisations now using systems to manage their information as well as systems to deliver their training requirements, it makes sense to develop a tool so that users can work seamlessly between the different systems.

Currently Moodle 2 has a repository plug-in to connect to Alfresco. This plug-in enables users to link to or copy files from Alfresco into Moodle. It is limited in that it does not allow users to link files the other way – from Moodle into Alfresco.

After few months working with Alfresco and Moodle 2.0, Brightcookie has released two repository plug-in versions that allow Moodle users to upload, embed and manage files and documents from Moodle to Alfresco.

1. Extended Moodle 2 Alfresco repository plug-in

This plug-in extends the current Moodle 2 Repository plug-in with the “Manage” feature (see screenshot) which allows users to browse and upload files and documents to Alfresco.

In this plug-in, the Moodle administrator can set to allow users using their own Alfresco account or using Alfresco preset account. If administrator using Alfresco preset account, the system will log in to alfresco automatically when user open this plug-in.

2. Alfresco plug-in using Portlet

This is a full Alfresco plug-in in Moodle with uploading, embedding, editing, downloading, previewing files and documents, and controlling meta-data functions. Theoretically, this plug-in can be used as a single sign on (SSO) solution (e.g. CAS). In this case, users do not need to re-log in to Alfresco; the system uses the same authentication that Moodle uses to log in to Alfresco. Brightcookie is currently in the process of conducting final tests with this plug-in.

If you want to have more details or discuss about these plug-ins, please contact us.

Scanning of barcodes

Google Googles will scan most standard barcodes and provide information on the product scanned.

Here is an example from the Google Mobile Blog:

Let’s say you’re reading a magazine article you really like and want to share it with your friends. Just point Goggles at a part of the page, and instantly find a link to an online version to share immediately or read again later. You won’t even need the entire article in the frame. Goggles will also pull up more information from pages around the web where that text is mentioned, so its easier to learn about what you’re seeing.

Text recognition

You can use Google Googles to take images of printed text and have the result converted to text using OCR (Optical Character Recognition). Whil the results may vary our own test have shown good results on newspaper and magazines.

To download Google Goggles you can scan the QR code below

Google Goggles are currently available for both Android and iOS phones (just install via Android Market or Apple App Store. See http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/ for further details.

For those who just want a link click here. Printable PDF here.

While the team here at Brightcookie are not the educators, we’re always keen to find new and useful resources for the education sector.  Especially if it’s interesting stuff.  And it’s a bit hard to not to become intrigued with a tagline like ‘Learn almost anything for free’.

I sat down to some late afternoon coffee and tried out one of the brain teasers on offer (free and no login required) – the Alien Abduction Brain Teaser: saving Earth from becoming a mushroom farm.

Fifteen minutes later, my brain was quite well exercised, I had been entertained and my coffee had grown cold.

Some parts of the site do require a login, but if you’re a Google Apps for Education user already, you and your students are as good as sorted.

However, it appears that the vast majority of the content is up for grabs, whether you are logged in, logged out, a visiting alien, or otherwise.  With over 2,400 videos, that’s a lot of content to share.

“It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge. “

It would be great to hear from some of the educators out there.  How does the content look to you?  What do you think of the concept? Are there are other resources you can recommend?

Or are you too busy watching alien abduction brain teasers to stop and answer our questions?

At this stage, this is only for iOS devices: so it’s compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad (and it requires iOS 4.2 or later). Never fear though – I hear there is an intention to develop the app for the Android next, so that’s excellent news.

Once the mobile web service is enabled by the site administrator, it’s very easy for you, the user, to set up.  You’ll only need the website address of your Moodle and your username and password:

It’s also very easy to have multiple sites set up.  Or multiple users on the same site (great news for teachers or people testing apps):

Once you’re set up, there are four options (Upload, Participants, Web, and Help).

Upload

Upload is meant to have three options, but I only found the two (Browse photo albums and Take a picture or video).  As I’m back in the dark ages and on iPhone3, I tried with Kien’s iPhone4 and found all three options available.

Once I had all my details set, I took a short walk and snapped a quick photo of the Brightcookie office door.

Once uploaded on the phone, the image then becomes available in your Private files on Moodle:

The image, after uploading into Moodle, comes through with the orientation set to landscape (to put it another way: as if you were holding your phone sideways).  If you’re out and about and see something amazing, snap a picture of it.  Just remember to do it sideways!

Participants

I tried this app out with a ‘sandpit’ on our Moodle 2 site try.brightcookie.com without any real participants.  This meant I wasn’t able to extensively play with the Participants part of My Moodle.  The team here at Brightcookie would love to know if others found this useful or found any issues.

However, I did test whether a participant that has not allowed sharing of email addresses (in Moodle) is also not sharing them via the app.  As you’d expect, that all works fine.

This test student was set up to share their contact details

This test student was set up NOT to share their contact details

Web

A little disappointingly, the web button does not take you to a scaled down, low feature, mobile version of your moodle site.  I’m sure my expectations were set a bit too high for such an newly released app.  The ‘Web’ is the fully fledged and teeny, tiny looking Moodle site.  On my phone, at least, that’s too small to be workable.  You’d have to be pretty persistent to forge ahead with that.

Then I tried viewing the site on the phone with just a simpler theme for mobile only (your Moode site administrator can choose a different theme that is just for mobile).  This improved things a little.

We later returned to our Moodle and installed a dedicated mobile-friendly theme.  That hit the spot.  The My Moodle mobile app detected the mobile choice and it was all seamless after that:

So, the upshot is that it’s definitely worth thinking about a mobile-specific theme if you’re keen to make this app work for you and your learners.

Help

Help will take you to the mobile-friendly version of Moodle Docs.

Try for yourself

You’ll need to be using Moodle 2.1 or later to use this app on your iPhone. Mobile web services must also be enabled (by your site administrator).  If you’re not sure about how to get that set up, you’ll need to check with your Moodle hosting provider.

If you want to try it out on our sandpit environment, the My Moodle app is still enabled on try.brightcookie.com, so if you have access, you can give it a spin yourself.  If you don’t yet have a sandpit and would like access, just contact us and we’ll set you up.