EasyView© for Moodle Presentation by Richard Goddard Project Manager VLE Middleware EasyView

The background We all know that a VLE should be much more than a didactic delivery tool for handouts… but… Teachers and other users do need to be able to share files with learners And teachers use a number of methods to create the files, including MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Acrobat (or a PDF converter) and Open Office.

The background So what’s the problem? Some teachers will use software which learners do not have at home Some files have to be downloaded and then opened Some versions (e.g. Word 2007 / Word 2003) may not be compatible So learners might see….

Incompatible versions or…

Software not available so…

The next step VLE administrators and coordinators try (with varying measures of management support) to persuade teachers to always use one file type (PDF) and learners to make sure the relevant browser plugin is available…. …which normally leads to frustration when they don’t take any notice!

The catalyst JISC Moodle-UK list – November 2009 Stuart Harwood (City College Birmingham) Can you help, we are having problems opening up Office documents from moodle since we upgraded our desktops to office 2007 sp2. The first time you try to open the document you get the following error "page can not be displayed" second time it opens up fine. It does not matter whether.doc or.docx but if you have word open it opens straight away. Richard Goddard (Learning Objectivity) Finally, there are stand alone server-based doc to web-page converters - like the one I started to work on for MrCute but never finished! There have been discussions at Moodle about embedding a doc to html converter in the core code, but I don't think anything has ever come of them (one problem would presumably be the several flavours of Word). I'm not sure why something similar to the many online "word to pdf" programs couldn't be included, though. Robert Cannon (Annotate) We've recently been working with a NZ based Moodle user to integrate document conversion along with viewing and annotation that doesn't rely on any other software on the user's machine……anyway, we're still learning about Moodle, so if there's anyone in the UK who'd like to give it a try, please get in touch! We can give you access to a demo Moodle install, and a full download to try it locally.

The team VLE Middleware Funding and implementation A.nnotate Original technology and coding Learning Objectivity Idea and project management

The tool What we needed was an Easy way to View the common file types uploaded to Moodle. What we came up with was… EasyView

What it looks like

Live demonstration

Alternative buttons

How much is it? EasyView development has been funded by VLE Middleware as a service to the UK education sector. If you have a.ac.uk address you can install EasyView free of charge and link to the VLE Middleware EasyView web service. Alternatively you can purchase the server side software and install it on your own server.

Next step Create a user account at the VLE Middleware Moodle. Use the top tabs to go to Examples:Miscellaneous:EasyView demonstration Enrolment key is “vlem1” To evaluate, complete the form To download, complete the form on the evaluation area Provide your wwwroot variable from your Moodle configuration file so we can authenticate all use of EasyView from your institution. The above links are in the Introduction to EasyView. Please remember to take your copy

What we need from you EasyView is in development and the next few months will be a testing and evaluation period, so please let us know of any problems you encounter so that we can try to fix them. EasyView, the associated logo and client and server software is Copyright © VLE Middleware EasyView is not warranted in any way. Release licensing and terms and conditions of use are under consideration. No charge will be made for use of EasyView by valid UK educational institutions such as schools, colleges and universities when using the VLE Middleware web service. EasyView is copyright and is NOT released as Open Source even where the plugin is made available free of charge.

Installation of free version Submit form in evaluation course Receive invitation Notify wwwroot variable Download single zip file Simple installation Run notifications Change settings if necessary (unlikely) Use immediately

Acknowledgements Thanks to Robert Cannon at A.nnotate for fast and pro-active coding! Visit A.nnotate.com to learn more about annotating student assignments and other documents Thanks to Ed Beddows, Ian Hatton and the guys at VLE Middleware support for suggestions and testing.

Questions?

Thank you Thanks for watching and listening! Richard Goddard for VLE Middleware

Offline demo follows

Without EasyView

With EasyView

Click the original link

Displays a dialogue box

Click the EasyView button

Displays the PowerPoint

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