Tool Group - Moodle

http://moodle.org/doc/

Moodle is a software package for producing internet-based courses and web sites. It's an ongoing development project designed to support a social constructionist framework of education.

Moodle is provided freely as Open Source software (under the GNU Public License). Basically this means Moodle is copyrighted, but that you have additional freedoms. You are allowed to copy, use and modify Moodle provided that you agree to: provide the source to others; not modify or remove the original license and copyrights, and apply this same license to any derivative work. Read the license for full details and please contact the copyright holder directly if you have any questions.

Moodle will run on any computer that can run PHP, and can support many types of database (particularly MySQL).

The word Moodle was originally an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment, which is mostly useful to programmers and education theorists.  It's also a verb that describes the process of lazily meandering through something, doing things as it occurs to you to do them, an enjoyable tinkering that often leads to insight and creativity. As such it applies both to the way Moodle was developed, and to the way a student or teacher might approach studying or teaching an online course. Anyone who uses Moodle is a Moodler.

Features

Moodle is an active and evolving product. This page lists just some of the many features it contains

Overall design
* Promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (collaboration, activities, critical reflection, etc)
* Suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face learning
* Simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface
* Easy to install on almost any platform that supports PHP. Requires only one database (and can share it).
* Full database abstraction supports all major brands of database (except for initial table definition)
* Course listing shows descriptions for every course on the server, including accessibility to guests.
* Courses can be categorised and searched - one Moodle site can support thousands of courses
* Emphasis on strong security throughout. Forms are all checked, data validated, cookies encrypted etc
* Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings, journal entries etc) can be edited using an embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor

Site management
* Site is managed by an admin user, defined during setup
* Plug-in "themes" allow the admin to customise the site colours, fonts, layout etc to suit local needs

User management
* Goals are to reduce admin involvement to a minimum, while retaining high security
* Supports a range of authentication mechanisms through plug-in authentication modules, allowing easy integration with existing systems.
* Standard email method: students can create their own login accounts. Email addresses are verified by confirmation.
* Each person requires only one account for the whole server - each account can have different access
* A course creator account is only allowed to create courses and teach in them
* Security - teachers can add an "enrolment key" to their courses to keep out non-students. They can give out this key face-to-face or via personal email etc
* Teachers can unenroll students manually if desired, otherwise they are automatically unenrolled after a certain period of inactivity (set by the admin)

Modules... modules... modules:
Course management
Assignment Module
Chat Module
Choice Module
Forum Module
Journal Module
Quiz Module
Resource Module
Survey Module
Workshop Module

JBB

Tool Group - Mailman - Listserve

Tool Group
The tool manages organizational email lists....
List Serves are excellent methods of distributing information within groups. Businesses, organizations and associations use list serves to distribute all kinds of information. For a mere fraction of the cost of a mailing, a list serve can reach your audience and solicit an interactive response. Once set up, the list serve is extremely easy to administer; adding and deleting names is easy, requiring no assistance from the hosting organization. Then, whenever there is a comment or point for the discussion to be made, one email is created, and with the push of a button, it is sent to all the subscribers. The list serve can become a dynamic asset to almost any online venture. Many organizations utilize a discussion as an internal discussion to serve as a team/building/problem-solving tool. This allows all members of the list serve to comment. JBB

intranets.com conferencing

info from the provider

Intranets.com Web and Audio Conferencing is the full-featured solution for conducting on-demand meetings anywhere in the world, at any time. Now you can affordably exchange ideas and get valuable real-time input at any time, without the high costs and hassles of travel. And with Video Conferencing you can demonstrate a product or highlight a feature, adding impact and emphasis to your meeting.

Any member of your intranet can schedule and host a meeting or conference, anytime, quickly and easily. Select the format that works for your meeting - choose from Web Conferencing and Audio Conferencing. Use both formats together for quality, multi-media presentations at an economical price. Anyone can attend your meeting, even if they are not a member of your intranet or your organization. You can even record your meetings for later playback for those who couldn't attend the live presentation!

Now you can be where you need to be, meet who you need to meet with - all without leaving your office! Intranets.com Web & Audio Conferencing is a Premium Service available as part of an Intranets.com subscription.

Web & Audio Conferencing is ideal for:

* Project Meetings
* Customer Demonstrations
* Departmental Meetings
* Product Rollouts



* Sales Presentations
* Web Seminars
* Training
* And Much More!


Change the way you conduct meetings
Compare Web & Audio Conferencing FeaturesIntranets.com Web & Audio Conferencing will change the way you meet. Now you can meet with anyone, anytime, and anywhere. Web & Audio Conferencing can open up new business opportunities, bring teams together, and give your business a competitive edge.

Quality Features at a sensible price
At Intranets.com, we believe Web & Audio Conferencing is supposed to SAVE you money while increasing your productivity. That's why we give you all of the same high quality features as other leading providers, but at a price that makes a lot more sense.

Intranets.com Web & Audio Conferencing gives you all of the most powerful and useful meeting and presentation tools together in one, easy-to-understand package. Everyone else just gives you the basic presentation tools but have to pay extra for the "premium" options. And Intranets.com Web Conferencing is the same low monthly charge for up to 25 participants. No need to count seats, pay incremental per-seat costs, or understand confusing rate packages.

Simple to understand - simple to use
Choose the format that meets your needs. Use Audio Conferencing when you just need to conference call with your team to discuss things. Use Web Conferencing to make a presentation, demonstrate a product, highlight a feature, or to just help others better understand your ideas.

When you combine Web & Audio Conferencing together, you get a powerful, impactful, multi-media presentation.
Web & Audio Conferencing Features
Application and
Desktop Sharing Share any application or document on your computer - even share your entire desktop - with everyone attending your web conference. Actually demonstrate products, train, and collaborate -- live, while interacting with your audience.
Video Conferencing Utilize live video of the presenters to add impact to your presentation. Video allows attendees to see the presenters, view demonstrations, and become more involved in the meeting or presentation..
Record & Playback Record your meetings and presentations using this useful optional feature to allow for later playback. Downloading is easy, letting you save the file to your computer or company web server for future viewing. There is a per-download charge* to retrieve each archived meeting. Once downloaded, you can host it on your own site for unlimited viewing or forward it as needed.
Whiteboards, Chat & Polls Make your presentations more interactive by involving your audience. Ask questions to individuals or the entire group, get instant feedback, and annotate your presentation with additional information with these interactive tools.
Integrated,
Low-Cost Audio Use Audio Conferencing to discuss, negotiate, share, and collaborate. Audio Conferencing is competitively priced and saves time and money to keep things moving ahead.
Web-based Audio
Control Panel Monitor audio conference activity and control audio settings, security, and participant features right from your desktop using the Audio Control Panel.
Easy Conference
Set Up Launch meetings when you need them, on-demand. Simply choose the format that is right for your meeting, send out your invitations, and your ready. Because there are no operator or admin setups, you can schedule meetings in advance -- even right now.
Security Web conference data is protected using a proprietary format for additional security. You also have conference lock, roll call, and conference passcodes to ensure your conferences stay private, even with the most confidential information.
SSL Encryption This optional feature adds an extra level of protection to your web conferencing, assuring that communication and collaboration with colleagues are conducted in a secure environment. SSL requires that members log in through a secure server, which inhibits attacks from the outside. SSL encryption uses secret code to scramble the data.
Reporting Instant access to real-time reporting keeps you on top of all your conferencing activity. Track the usage of individual subscribers within your company, the participation of attendees, and view registration and evaluation information.
Support Live support from our highly trained support staff ensures that your questions are answered effectively and quickly. Even right in the middle of your conference.
System
Requirements Meeting Attendee:
Hardware: Pentium II+, Unix/Linux, 64MB RAM, 28.8Kbps modem
Operating System: Windows, Linux/Unix
Browser: Netscape Navigator 6.0 or higher with Java VM -or- Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher with MS Java VM + Cookies
Macintosh users: OS 10.1 or higher; using Safari browser

Macintosh users: OS 10.1 or higher; using Safari browser (viewing only)

Meeting Presenter:
Hardware: Pentium III, 128MB RAM, 56.6Kbps Modem
Operating System: Windows 95/98/Me, NT, 2000, XP, or Windows 2003
Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher with MS Java VM + Cookies

Recommended Monitor Screen Resolution: 1024 X 768


We believe that Web & Audio Conferencing services are supposed to save you money while increasing your productivity. Not cost the same as it would to fly across the country just to meet. Intranets.com Web & Phone Conferencing is priced to make online meeting easy and affordable, with simple, easy to understand pricing.
The Flexibility Your Business Requires
We've taken the hassle, confusion and expense out of traditional web conferencing. Most web conferencing providers require you to specify "named seats" for each presenter - we don't. There's no counting attendee seats, complicated rate tables, or changing rates. And you get all of the features you need, without the extra costs. You pay just one low price for up to 25 users.

Hosting a meeting is simple and flexible to your needs. Any member of your intranet can schedule and host a meeting or conference anytime they need to - even instantly - quickly and easily. There's no need for an operator or a complicated set up process. And anyone can attend your meetings - even if they are not a member of your intranet or organization.

Most importantly, we save you money with both Web and Audio Conferencing costs. Our No-Nonsense pricing can save you up to 50% over comparable providers*. Contact us for a custom quote and let us show you how much you can save!
Web Conferencing Made Simple
Don't Overpay for Web & Audio Conferencing Services!: Intranets.com Web & Audio Conferencing offers enterprise features at small business prices.

Compare our features against the other providers. Then compare our prices. It's that simple.

Getting high quality Web Conferencing features isn't just for the big boys any longer. Because setting up the meeting is no longer the hardest part, everyone in your organization only needs to worry about their presentation. But you won't need to worry about your budget.

Features
Compare Intranets.com Web & Audio Conferencing Features with the other leading providers.

Compare Conferencing Features
Pricing
Intranets.com Web Conferencing is the same low monthly charge for up to 25 participants. Everyone in your group can schedule and present a meeting. No counting seats, graduated scales, or changing rates. Simple to understand, simple to use.


Record & Playback is an optional feature available for an additional, low charge. Contact us for more information.

Intranets.com Audio Conferencing give you top quality and top value, but not top price. There's no counting your attendee seats, complicated rate tables, or changing rates. Now you can have a meeting whenever you need to - knowing you're saving as much as 50% over the other leading providers*.

quicktime broadcaster

these are reviews of the application

QuickTime Broadcaster
Live and VOD Broadcasting

MAC OSX

Hot Full-featured; one heck of an attractive price

Not Needs to support more cameras; network set-up could be more intuitive

It captures video from most FireWire-equipped cameras; it encodes into a broadcast QuickTime stream in real-time using MPEG-4 or any of a handful of other codecs; and then it broadcasts the video/audio stream out to the world…and it's free! QuickTime Broadcaster is Apple's newest addition to the QuickTime suite. Supporting both unicast (point-to-point like a phone call) and multicast (think television), Broadcaster once again showcases Apple's unique ability to make the complex, simple. Easy-to-identify presets with labels such as "modem-speech" and "DSL/cable- music" are just the start. Apple combines this with easy access to most of QuickTime's audio and video codecs for maximum versatility.

To begin, you choose your broadcast settings and send out an invitation in the form of a Session Description Protocol (SDP). Viewers download the SDP file, and then they're a double-click away from your broadcast. During the broadcast, Broadcaster provides you with real-time feedback on data-rate, frame rate, number of connected users, and processor load—letting you tweak your broadcast on the fly.


Like all good Apple applications, once you get under the prosumer skin, Broadcaster has the heart of a real pro, allowing you to create and save your own custom settings. Broadcaster's real power, however, is its ability to work in tandem with the QuickTime Streaming Server (QTSS). By combining these two QT cousins, you take advantage of QuickTime 6's new Instant On and Skip Protection features and add the ability to reach virtually any audience of any size. For less ambitious sessions, QTSS and Broadcaster can even be run from the same machine.

In all, Broadcaster is software with a bright future. Video conferencing, Internet radio, and distance learning are all applications that come to mind. Oh, of course there's also my show, "Hey, Ma! I'm gonna be a TV star!"—Clifford VanMeter

QuickTime Broadcaster released

By Peter Cohen pcohen@maccentral.com

In conjunction with Apple's release today of QuickTime 6, the company has also released QuickTime Broadcaster.

QuickTime Broadcaster is live encoding software you can use to produce live events for online delivery. The software leverages the latest release of QuickTime 6, and works in can work in conjunction with QuickTime Streaming Server 4, as well.

Because it's built on QuickTime 6, QuickTime broadcaster delivers ISO-complaint audio and video that can be viewed by any MPEG-4 compliant player, regardless of platform. QuickTime Broadcaster also provides Video On Demand (VOD) in addition to recording broadcasts to disc.

If you need to deliver your streaming broadcast to the masses, QuickTime Broadcaster integrates with QuickTime Streaming Server and Darwin Streaming Server through the touch of a button, according to Apple. This also means that QuickTime Broadcaster-streamed events benefit from QuickTime 6's new "Skip Protection" technology, which helps to prevent interruptions in media streams.

QuickTime Broadcaster also features a user-friendly interface that can be customized easily, multicast and unicast support via RTP and RTSP transports, real-time statistics and support for other QuickTime codecs.

System requirements call for a PowerPC G3-equipped Mac with 128MB of RAM, Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server 10.1.3 or later, and QuickTime 6 or later.

QuickTime Broadcaster 6 is free.


Want To Broadcast/Record Video With Your iSight? Check Out QuickTime Broadcaster!
September 8th, 2003

QuickTime Broadcaster (Freeware)
Apple Computer, Inc.

Having recently purchased one of Apple's nifty iSight cameras, and getting the iChat AV-thing out of our system, we then started searching for other applications that can use this FireWire camera. We didn't have to go farther than Apple's decidedly sparse iSight documentation, which suggested that we check out QuickTime Broadcaster. A short time later, we were creating our own streaming broadcasts!

QuickTime Broadcaster offers two major sets of functions. The first, as the name implies, is the creation of a live streaming broadcast that can easily be received by anyone using the QuickTime Player. You simply set the parameters for the audio, video and network portions of the broadcast, export a SDP (Session Description Protocol) file which describes the broadcast, and open this file with the QuickTime player. For broadcasts to multiple recipients, you probably want to send the stream to a QuickTime Streaming Server, which is designed to handle a large number of recipients.


QuickTime Broadcaster Offers Precise Camera Control

What really caught our attention is the myriad of camera control options offered through QuickTime Broadcaster. Unlike iChat AV, which currently offers no way to adjust one's iSight, QuickTime Broadcaster allows one to change numerous camera parameters, resulting in images which can be used under almost any lighting condition. For example, we found that increasing the camera Brightness setting made images taken using indoor lighting conditions more than acceptable.

The other major feature of QuickTime Broadcaster is to take the streaming content, and save it to a QuickTime movie file. This can give one the chance to experiment with the nearly 30 video codecs that are available through the QuickTime platform. There are presets for typical connection types, from modem to high-speed LAN, but you can fiddle with the settings to achieve the optimum quality for your specific situation.

So get more out of your iSight, or other FireWire video camera, and give QuickTime Broadcaster a try today!

Have any other gadgets that let you talk to the world? Send John an e-mail, and he'll give it a shot.

Monday's Mac Gadget is here to help you with those cool things that we all just have to have on our Macs. Shareware, Freeware, Postcardware, Emailware, and even commercial apps, Monday's Mac Gadget is here to help you find and use the best of these programs.

John is a software engineer who works in the corporate R&D group of a Fortune 500 company, focusing on all aspects of communications technology. He has several degrees that claim he knows what he's doing when it comes to computers. After watching co-workers reinstall Windows, search for device drivers, and experience other horrors during the day, he's glad that he comes home to a Mac (compatible) computer. Have any comments, suggestions, or favorite Gadgets? Drop John a line at john@macobserver.com


Apple Releases QuickTime Broadcaster For Streaming Live Events

by Bryan Chaffin, 5:30 PM EST, February 12th, 2002

To accompany the preview of QuickTime 6 today, Apple also previewed QuickTime Broadcaster, a new product aimed at making streaming live events over the Internet easy. The new technology requires QuickTime 6, which, though ready, is not being released as Apple works to overcome licensing royalties with MPEG-4 it says will inhibit the acceptance of the technology in the market place. From Apple:

Apple® today previewed QuickTime® Broadcaster, a new addition to the QuickTime product family that allows live broadcasting of events over the Internet. The new QuickTime Broadcaster, which when released will be distributed as a free download, will capture and encode QuickTime content, including MPEG-4, for live streaming via the web. When used in combination with Apple's existing suite of QuickTime products -- QuickTime Pro, QuickTime Streaming Server and QuickTime Player -- QuickTime Broadcaster provides customers with an inexpensive, end-to-end solution for producing live events.

QuickTime Broadcaster supports the broadcast of MPEG-4, but as with QuickTime 6, the distribution of QuickTime Broadcaster is being delayed until MPEG-4 video licensing terms are improved. The MPEG-4 licensing terms proposed by MPEG-LA (the largest group of MPEG-4 patent holders) includes royalty payments from companies, like Apple, who ship MPEG-4 codecs, as well as royalties from content providers who use MPEG-4 to stream video. Apple agrees with paying a reasonable royalty for including MPEG-4 codecs in QuickTime, but does not believe that MPEG-4 can be successful in the marketplace if content owners must also pay royalties in order to deliver their content using MPEG-4.

"QuickTime Broadcaster will make it incredibly easy and affordable for businesses, educational institutions or individuals to produce high-quality, live Internet or Intranet broadcasts," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "When combined with a free QuickTime Player and a free QuickTime Streaming Server, QuickTime Broadcaster is the most cost-effective Internet broadcasting solution offered anywhere."

Live internet broadcasting is an increasingly popular and cost-effective way to reach large numbers of viewers for corporate meetings, online courses, keynote addresses, entertainment and other special events. Standards-based QuickTime products are an ideal solution for creating, distributing and viewing content without the limitations of proprietary formats. Additionally, when the QuickTime Broadcaster and QuickTime Streaming Server are running on Apple's PowerBook® G4 or iBook® laptop computers, the combination provides a uniquely flexible, mobile broadcast solution.

Features of QuickTime Broadcaster include:

* live encoding with real time preview;
* the ability to record and hint in real time to the computer's hard disk for quick video-on-demand posting;
* support for all QuickTime codecs;
* AppleScript(R) support;
* the ability to create custom settings;
* support for reliable communication via TCP between Broadcaster and Server; and
* auto configuration of connection between Broadcaster and Server.

System Requirements

QuickTime Broadcaster will be distributed as a free download and requires QuickTime 6, Mac® OS X (v10.1 and later), Mac OS X Server, QuickTime Streaming Server and compatible servers.

Apple has not yet added information on this preview product to its Web site.
The Mac Observer Spin:
We wonder what the Mac Daddy will have to say about QuickTime Broadcaster? We might find out this week. Be that as it may, this is an important release for Apple. In order to win converts to your multimedia format, there must be content. For there to be content there has to be something compelling to attract providers. Often times that is existing market share, but it could be cost, quality, ease-of-use, etc., as well. Apple has had some success with getting people to use QuickTime by working with movie studios to provide exclusive QuickTime movie trailers. The importance of QuickTime Broadcaster is if the product is easy enough to use, a much larger segment of the market place, ordinary folks (especially in the corporate, education, and "entertainment" space), might find a compelling reason to use it. That *will* translate into more eyeballs for QuickTime if Apple can get the word out. In our never humble opinion, Apple has a winner with this, assuming it can work out something with MPEG-LA, of course.