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It seems I'm the only person here who doesn't want a REQUIRED
dependency on Buddypress so I will wish you all the very best of luck
on your project while I continue to work on mine. It is too bad I won't
be able to help with it.<br>
<br>
<br>
@stas<br>
There are normal wordpress functions for checking users so admins and
students get different views. I've already done that in my script. Just
use the current user can check. Assign students as subscribers,
teachers as admin or editor depending on how much control you want to
give. There is a wordpress codex page to show what abilities each
level has. It wasn't very difficult. <br>
<br>
@Joseph<br>
Thank you for explaining how you use kbgradebook for showing feedback
instead of actual grades/scores. Since I'm having my plugin create
averages, I am keeping my score field for having percents (although I
admit I'm not limiting it to 100), but I'm adding a varchar(200) field
to my database table for teacher feedback. <br>
"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="">From the student's point of
view, too, they can see the representation of their progress and the
comments and feedback in a single word press page. "<br>
good point!<br>
</span><br>
@kyle<br>
"<br>
<div>From an admin perspective this is probably true. BuddyPress tends
to run slowly when pushed - at least on my shared hosting account even
with W3cache enabled and WP-DBmanager doing some cleanup occasionally.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But
from an instructor's angle, BuddyPress increases communication
peer-to-peer and peer-to-professor in non-standard ways that a typical
LMS usually doesn't enable. This interaction, as I have observed,
leads to more class engagement and anecdotally more learning." <br>
----------<br>
I'm glad to see we agree on this point even though we expressed the
same idea differently :-)<br>
<br>
"<br>
<div>I see your concern with this. I'd counter by saying that
BuddyPress has WordPress (the Organization) support since Andy Peatling
and JJ Scooby are involved. This isn't a plugin that is going to go by
the wayside.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I guess I see groups &
courses as having this natural relationship and that it's tough to
envision a non-BuddyPress WP-as-LMS. But you're right, not everyone
would want the BuddyPress features (but why not?!)." <br>
-------<br>
my concern here is the REQUIREMENT of Buddypress to use a plugin for
managing courses. It should be used for what it is a social plugin for
interaction. Just because it is an automattic project, that doesn't
mean it is stable or will be optimized. I'm pretty sure it isn't
optimized at all. :-) I have it running on one of my websites that has
only a few users, but I don't dare try to launch a big course with many
users with BuddyPress without a dedicated server. I've been testing
BuddyPress on one of my websites and in the last few months I've had to
redesign my blog theme twice due to the big changes they make every
time it updates and the sitewide posts widget (which was awesome)
complete broke with the 1.2 update. I wish they had warned us of that
huge bug before upgrading *sigh* Buddypress also does very strange
things to page titles which I reported at least twice but I guess
fixing functionality bugs is low priority right now.<br>
<br>
"But logging into the site is de facto practice in my experience with
Blackboard. However, extending notifications beyond e-mail to RSS and
maybe SMS would be a nice change. I'm in agreement with you though, we
need to provide multiple ways to keep track of dynamic course content
like assignment and grade updates."<br>
-------<br>
wow, I really like the idea of using RSS for assignment/homework feeds,
but I wonder how many people really understand how to use them. That
was why I was thinking about e-mail. Even my parents know how to send
an e-mail, but I doubt they have a clue about "new" technologies.
Being in Mexico where many people have limited access to the internet,
I try to think about what they would know how to use and could quickly
see and do from an internet cafe or from work during their lunch break
(which is why I'm mostly focused on quizzes and automation)<br>
<br>
<br>
"Ah, but again BuddyPress adds key functionality with its profile data.
Completely customizable - something WP doesn't do out of the box. I
know I create a lot of profile fields for input so that the professor I
assist can get some key information on his students (if they provide
it, which most do)."<br>
<br>
Actually you can easily add new profile fields to regular plain old
Wordpress with just a little code in your functions.php (in your theme
directory). <br>
here's a page where I learned how to do it. It is quite simple to make
a list of fields with this method.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://yoast.com/user-contact-fields-wp29/">http://yoast.com/user-contact-fields-wp29/</a> <br>
yes, that post describes adding new contact methods, but you could add
fields for whatever you want and they will appear as profile options. <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 4/4/2010 12:09 PM, Kyle M. Jones wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:2D6A0EB4-B4AF-4BCA-8F20-C3D90BAAF568@thecorkboard.org"
type="cite">@Christopher<br>
<div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I
like Buddypress, but I don't think it is currently a good option for<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
course management. It is great for more interaction (like the messaging<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
system) and forum integration, but the code is very new and Buddypress<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
generates a huge amount of mysql queries so you'd almost have to have a<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
dedicated server for more than a few students on the site at a time. </span></blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>From an admin perspective this is probably true. BuddyPress
tends to run slowly when pushed - at least on my shared hosting account
even with W3cache enabled and WP-DBmanager doing some cleanup
occasionally.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But from an instructor's angle, BuddyPress increases
communication peer-to-peer and peer-to-professor in non-standard ways
that a typical LMS usually doesn't enable. This interaction, as I have
observed, leads to more class engagement and anecdotally more learning.</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> <br>
Why force the user to have Buddypress to use a plugin? Making a plugin<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
depend on another plugin to work is not great design. If that other<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
plugin breaks or changes in a way that is incompatible, your plugin<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
stops working too!<br>
It would be for the best to let the plugin do what it is supposed to do<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
with or without Buddypress so no functionality would be lost if<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
Buddypress has to be disabled due to server load or compatibility
issues.<br>
</span></blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I see your concern with this. I'd counter by saying that
BuddyPress has WordPress (the Organization) support since Andy Peatling
and JJ Scooby are involved. This isn't a plugin that is going to go by
the wayside.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I guess I see groups & courses as having this natural
relationship and that it's tough to envision a non-BuddyPress
WP-as-LMS. But you're right, not everyone would want the BuddyPress
features (but why not?!).</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br>
Well, for scholarpress to work for me, it would need to be redesigned
to:<br>
1. give homework and other tasks based on days from course enrollment<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
(I'd like to see email updates sent to enrolled students. It really<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
isn't practical to expect students to log in to the site frequently to<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
know what they should do.)<br>
</span></blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But logging into the site is de facto practice in my experience
with Blackboard. However, extending notifications beyond e-mail to RSS
and maybe SMS would be a nice change. I'm in agreement with you
though, we need to provide multiple ways to keep track of dynamic
course content like assignment and grade updates.</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">4.
not force me to use the plugin's course pages since Wordpress is the<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
CMS. I don't need bloatware! The plugin should not manage content. It<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
should manage the course features... I hope that makes sense. Wordpress<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
should continue to manage site registration and user profiles (an issue<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
I have with Buddypress for using separate profile data)</span></blockquote>
<br>
</div>
<div>Ah, but again BuddyPress adds key functionality with its profile
data. Completely customizable - something WP doesn't do out of the
box. I know I create a lot of profile fields for input so that the
professor I assist can get some key information on his students (if
they provide it, which most do).</div>
<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>@Joseph</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">I'm very excited to see where this can go. </blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Glad our paths continue to cross. :)</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">WordPress as a course management system is
really already quite viable--for more experienced and skilled users.
For the average teacher, there is still some smoothing out to do.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Yep. They way you and I use BP/WP as LMS isn't something that a
general user can pick up and run with on the fly. It does take a bit
of courtship....</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">So I would recommend, very strongly, that any
approach to making new LMS-type plugins for WordPress should keep them
atomized and specifically tailored to specific tasks.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I couldn't agree more. Keep it focused on modules (parts of the
plugin as a whole) that can be switched on and off depending on need.
I advocate for complete customization of the LMS for the professor but
also for the student. Of course, this granularity of customization, I
imagine, increases complexity with the plugin as a whole.</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">We really should not be thinking of beating
moodle or blackboard at their own game. It's not a good game or one
that has much of a future.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>That's an interesting statement... I think my approach to
WP-as-LMS is motivated by the fact that I <i>do</i> in fact want to
beat Blackboard and create a separate alternative to Moodle. It's
about options - preferably free options created by a community that
truly cares about their online learning environment. I'd agree that
Blackboard doesn't have a happy future years away, but institutions
still buy-in to this behemoth because it has a solid foothold in the
LMS domain and it will stay as such in the present unless more and
better options (like WP or a better Moodle) start to break it down, or
it implodes. God, I hope it implodes....</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Again--none of this is meant to be critical in the sense of stopping
progress! I'm just ecstatic to see the project getting rolling, and we
should see it as opening up possibilities, rather than closing than
down.</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
<div>Same here! If there's any criticism from me, it's only
constructive.</div>
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