PoodLL at the Crossroads
The latest version of PoodLL put in place some things I have wanted to for yonks. I felt genuine relief after hitting that point. It does some pretty nifty stuff that nothing else can do in Moodle. Draw pictures into Moodle, record video with almost no setup and a few other things. I do know its a rough diamond, and needs a few usability and cosmetic polishes, nevertheless I think its good enough for general use.
Marching on though, I have to decide where to take PoodLL. It is an open source project in the true sense that it takes all my free time and pays me nothing. So I hesitate a little to make big promises. But here is what I see:
Accessibility
The most pressing issue at present is the need to add accessiblility features for screen reader users. That is a must do, but I could not get it done in the summer and now the new term is truly upon me. I admit I have dragged my feet on this, because I lost a fair bit of time in a previous and unsuccessful attempt.
Talkback
I have had a number of people ask recently about the PoodLL Talkback module from Moodle 1.9 days. After a little thought, yup, we can do it. But I am going to cheat. I wont integrate it nicely with the new Moodle filesystem. So you will need to FTP files into a special PoodLL web accessible directory to make it work.
Audio and Video List Players
Again I am going to cheat and require people FTP their lists of audio/video into a special PoodLL web accessible directory. I know there are alternative ways but most of them will require a dedicated mod, ie not a poodll filter string, so I prefer to do it this way.
2.3 Assignment Compatibility
That will be here by late October.
PoodLL Database Field
Already done, you can add video/audio/snapshots or draw pictures into a database activity field. I am using it my own classes now. And it should be out in the next release.
PoodLL Shadow
This will move us a little closer to our byline, “the open source language lab.” A simple audio recorder that contains a player and several play/record options. Students can “shadow” record, or “listen and repeat” record, and related playback functions. Hopefully by November.
PoodLL Pairwork
This is the coolest of all the PoodLL features and that’s no exaggeration. My students howled when I went to Moodle 2.x and PoodLL Pairwork was broken. I am using it now in my own classes. I am going to release it and see how it works via tokyo.poodll.com (possibly nasty lags ..) . What is it? Well, basically it is connecting your students in audio or video pairs(or groups) from an admin console. It does need a bit of driving from a teachers perspective, and its no design milestone, but the reaction from students beats the commercial offerings hands down. Could be released in the next release if people are really interested.
Anything else you’d like? Let me know, PLEASE.
