Using Moodle for Ongoing Professional Development Moodle in the Workplace

Two guiding principles Keep it Simple Try to use core functionality whenever possible If you’re going to add custom functionality try to use the modular nature of Moodle to your advantage Someone has probably already tried it Most of the time, if you look at the forums, search blog posts, or really look through the plugins database you’ll find some example of what you’re trying to do.

Moodle forum is a great resource I stumbled upon this post when looking for something else and had an immediate “A ha moment!” This could be used with department/institution fields to create custom front pages for logged in staff. Link to forum post: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=268238 Link to Moodle docs about Restrict access https://docs.moodle.org/31/en/Restrict_access_settings

Home page not logged in

Logged in as one group of users

Logged in as a different group of users

Current setup Moodle 3.0+ Custom version of Certificate mod Face-to-face mod Custom version of Essential theme Adobe Connect integration (paid add-on) Configurable Reports Ticket Tracker/User Support CPD Block FontAwesome Icon Filter Auto Enrol Grid Format

Certificate Module Based on mod_certificate Minor changes Major change Customized to hold the types of information required for our licensing purposes and to be more consistent in appearance Custom certificate types Changes to language files Major change Auto generation code Relies on Moodle cron Generates earned certificates without user intervention Link to plugin: https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_certificate

Essential Currently made change to hard code drop down menus that are dependent on user profile fields Working on making the drop down menu configurable within the settings instead of hard coded Considering extending this dynamic display of content to other sections, such as the Marketing spots Link to theme: https://moodle.org/plugins/theme_essential

CPD Block Based on pre-2.0 Kineo Open Source CPD Report Functional in Moodle 3.0, but in need of a significant rewrite soon. Heavily used by some learners to track training offerings from various sources Not currently publicly available.

Face-to-face Automated our registration and reminder process for in-person training Includes waitlist management Sends confirmation emails, reminder emails, and notifies supervisors Create custom fields in the registration and ability to include those in the automated emails. Link to plugin: https://moodle.org/plugins/mod_facetoface

Our program Iowa State University Child Welfare Research & Training Project www.childwelfareproject.hs.iastate.edu