Moodle as School Website Front End

[demsley]

I hope this is in the correct place, apologies if not.

 

I'm looking to move from a website which is basically HTML based and therefore can only be updated by tech support staff to one based on Moodle and which can be updated by "some users".

 

I know we could go joomla, drupal, etc but I'd prefer to explore the use of Moodle for this. As I see this there will be effectively 3 types of user:

 

• a guest user (ie anyone) will not need to log in and will see basic school information
  
• A parent will log in and see more information, and access some parent specific courses
  
• Students will log in and get access to their courses (as they do now)
  

 

Has anyone any experience of this and already using their Moodle as the front end as well as their VLE?

Would anyone be willing to post a link so I (as a guest) can see how this could look - obviously there's some theming to do.

 

What are the key pitfalls we need to avoid?

 

Any thought?

 

Thanks in Advance

 

Dave

[secretlife]

Hi there. We do. We use the standard theme as we don't have FTP access to sort out an alternative one (although we could ask our hosts CLEO to do this for us, to be fair) We're not into having a fancy smooth professional website - it is a community effort made and managed by teachers - basically everything you see on the front page is open access to guests. Parents count as guests to us -we haven't yet sorted parent logins to see their children's information. To see the courses you need to have a login. (although obviously if you are savvy enough to know the URL for the course categories you can see our courses but not enter them - but most casual guests wouldn't realise that) www.olchs.lancs.sch.uk

[Erigas]

You mentioned open source Joomla and attracted me as a "fan"...

Some time ago I also inspired to explore use of Moodle. I spent several months on exploration and then my enthuriasm was killed by deadline and I reallised that I should wind up wasting time. Then I recame Joomla fan. It is also open source by the way, you know. So, sorry for emotions )))) Some info additionaly:

 

See LMS comparison chart without bias

LMS comparison chart (filled, with some bias I guess)

 

So, it is up to you. Moodle will be OK for your project and guys here will help you a lot. But... see above

[Hightower]

To me it sounds like "Here's my car. It's a nice car. It runs well on the road. Now, how can I make it run on water also, like a boat"

[jonny_2010]

feel free to take a look at ours, any questions please ask.

 

we have added certain 'hacks' aswell to make it do completely what we want.

 

The Peele Community College - Specialist In Science

[ticker]

Our head is interested in integrating together our website and moodle so that everything is just accessed via moodle. What if any problems have you had and the advantages of doing it this way.

[secretlife]

Hi Ticker - I have a suspicion your head came to see our head the other day - we use Moodle as our website and VLE (see earlier post) Advantages - you don't need a techie to update front page. Disadvantages - Moodle being a course management system it does need a few workarounds to get it operating like a website but those workarounds work fine - plus you can get themes that improve its appearance to create the effect even more. In terms of usage -it means you have a one stop shop for news and work so everyone, pupils, staff and parents and prospective parents are focused on the one place. Our Lady's Catholic High School

[smurf79]

I'm new to moodle but have been asked to set up a site. Can you advise me on what 'workarounds' can be used to have it act like a website. I've always used joomla in the past but I am being pushed to use moodle this time.

[secretlife]

I'm new to moodle but have been asked to set up a site. Can you advise me on what 'workarounds' can be used to have it act like a website. I've always used joomla in the past but I am being pushed to use moodle this time.

 

Goodness that's a big question with potentially a big answer! Basically - you need to ensure you have your Moodle set to auto log in guests and then on your front page you make links to spaces elsewhere.

These could be guest access courses which can serve as webpages (remove all sections except section 1 which you can't remove, so hide that with the eye) You put your content in the section 0 at the top (examples here Our Lady's Catholic High School if you look at some of the text links top or bottom)

You use the main menu block on the front page - use the "compose a webpage" feature to add your content and then hide the main menu with the eye but copy the URL of your webpage and add that as a link. You can make your links in an html block to make it look like website navigation or you can use text links or even clickable icons

You can get themes from Moodle.org: open-source community-based tools for learning that will give you a nicer, more website like appearance as well.

It is a workaround though - but it does mean everything is in one place and you don'.t have to be an html expert to update it once it has been set up

[demsley]

Thanks for your responses guys, and for sharing links. Still not sure if this is the best way for'ard but I'm feeling better about it seeing your examples.

 

Cheers

[demsley]

@secretlife. I like the idea you've used of implementing the pages via the book module. Could you let me know how you've hidden the book link that arrives on the frontpage by default please.

Cheers

[Admiral208]

We use sharepoint. Its a standard issue from the LA and i have modified the CSS to get it looking how we want and added a few fancy bits. Its a great solution because the 'selected users' can add content and all I have to is check its all working well. If you want to take a look, Robert Blake Science College.

[secretlife]

@demsley - the book is in a course that is guest access.so I just hyperlink to the relevant page in the book in that course.

[SimpleSi]

@secretlife

I like your dedication to the Moodle cause

 

Your site doesn't look too bad if you look at it as a website.

 

And once you've put your main "hard links" in on the frontpage - I imagine its relatively easy (as much as anything is easy in Moodle ) to get teachers to maintain their bit.

 

Its made me think

 

regards

 

Simon

Edited December 13, 2010 by SimpleSi

[secretlife]

@SimpleSi - what bugs me is the banner isn't centred - two minute job if you can get to the code - I presume we could ask for it to be centred but I don't know if we'd have to pay, and SLT don't seem to have a problem with it - so it currently stays as it is. With having different courses acting as different "pages" then yes, different people can manage it. It might not be slick and flashy, but it is a community effort.

[gshaw]

We've done it as well

 

Was an idea I came up with last year as our website was in need of replacement and thinking about the pages that would need to go on the VLE I just thought "why not merge them together"

 

Ended up with this...

 

Redbridge Institute of Adult Education: part time and evening courses for adults

 

Heavily customised theme so it barely looks like Moodle in places, use HTML blocks as your best friend to give a more user-friendly look. Embed external multimedia and interactive controls (e.g. Share This block, Google Maps etc) to extend standard Moodle functionality and you're away.

 

As mentioned above it gives a single portal for anyone to find anything on the site, that in itself has massively helped with the takeup of Moodle as people don't see it as a separate system anymore.

 

What you want to use is a standard course, guest access enabled and hide all topics so you just see the intro section. Use some CSS hacks to hide the "topic outline" bar from top of the screen et voila... nice web page ready for some styling. Also add Google tracking in the footer and you're sorted on the stats front as well.

 

More info and tips here...

 

http://www.redbridge-iae.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=141

 

If you're starting from scratch make sure you go for Moodle 2.0, much nicer HTML editor and better feature set. Seems like upgrades are a bit awkward at the moment for some people so avoid the 1.9 > 2.0 path if you can.

[SimpleSi]

Very nice indeed.

 

What's the trick in getting a website type dropdown menu?

 

regards

 

Simon

[gshaw]

On Moodle 1.9 you'll need to either find a theme with it or cook one in.

 

On Moodle 2.0 there's native support for it within most themes (i.e. you can define the dropdown as a Moodle setting rather than playing with code)

 

Best bet is to get yourself a spare PC running WAMPServer, install Moodle then mess with some themes using Firebug

[secretlife]

gives a single portal for anyone to find anything on the site, that in itself has massively helped with the takeup of Moodle as people don't see it as a separate system anymore.

Very valid point for those considering combining website with VLE.

[mrweekender]

Very nice indeed.

 

What's the trick in getting a website type dropdown menu?

 

regards

 

Simon

 

The trick is a rather nifty piece of code called the YUI menu system. Look it up on Google if you're interested in it's history.

[mrweekender]

We've also been working on a test template http://www.webhabitat.co.uk to replace our current main site template http://allsaintsccfl.org.uk. We've integrated a YUI menu and a Javascript image rotator with translucent pop up menus and active url links. We'll be rolling this out in January but we originally developed this on Moodle 1.9 so it'll have to be ported to 2.0 first. Still needs a bit of tweaking but it's getting there. Hoping to fully integrate single sign on with Google Apps in Q1. Edited December 14, 2010 by mrweekender

[gshaw]

Nice work on the site, looking good What theme did you use as the base for it?

 

You'll need to wait for the GApps Moodle 2.0 update, as far as I know the existing block doesn't work in 2.0?

 

I'm waiting for some decent themes to come out for 2.0 to work on as a base, not much out there that seems to fit the bill at the moment Thought about building one from scratch but need to spend some time figuring out the new theming system and haven't got time at the moment...

[mrweekender]

Thanks very much. The template is based on the Afterburner template available on the Moodle site. We've done some serious rewrites of the css to get this all to work. I'll make the template available once it's all been tested and we've gone live with it.

[gshaw]

Tbh I thought it was Moodle 2.0, looks nice and modern. The only thing I'd say from experience is that the top banner might be a bit too high as on smaller screen res it can take up a large chunk of the screen when on a VLE course (had the same thing with our theme until I shrunk the top section down a bit) Edited December 17, 2010 by gshaw

[demsley]

We're just getting this sorted out now; thought appreciated: New Website

 

One issue I'm having is letting Guests onto a course without it opening the Login page. I want to be able to "hide" content from the front page on a course but link to it from other links/buttons etc on the front page. Is this possible?

Edited April 7, 2011 by demsley
typos