This should be a configurable decision made by the course instructors at course level. Some quizzes may be enabled for mobile access depending on the content, but I personally think that if I were the student, because of possible environmental noise I would prefer not to attempt the quiz unless I'm in hurry.
It would be nice to have mobile devices with indoor/outdoor and noise censors so that Moodle could automatically decide if mobile access to quiz module is enabled. Just dreaming :)
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Moodle is a very extensive platform and has lots of learning tools ready for use. Based on the learning needs most of the time instructors or admins utilize some subset of these tools. But I believe that when it comes to mobility the following set of modules should be utilized properly at minimum.
Course Overview Moodle supports bunch of course formats so that instructors can organize course activities. From the student point of view it is very important to be able to see what is included in the course and know the progress at a glance. Mobile Moodle shall provide list of course topics and activities for easy access on the go. Assignments Mobile Moodle shall have full support for assignments module so that students can see list of assignments and upload/commit assignments on the go. Forums Forums module is very important, because I believe that this module empowers social learning. It is clear that students not only learn from teacher developed content but they also learn from each other as well. Mobile Moodle shall have full support for forums module so that learning and sharing shall be possible 7/24. Chats Chat module can be interpreted as variant of Forums module or vice versa. Mobile moodle shall also have extensive support for chat module. Resources Easy access to course material other than course content is also an important aspect of learning. Students shall be able to access course resources easly on the go. Events Students need reminders and Calendar is a perfect tool for system generated reminders such as assignment deadlines and chat reminders. Mobile moodle shall enable easy access to events. Grades When I was student, after the final exams most of the time I was off for holiday and during my holiday I was feeling anxious about the final grades I achieved. Mobile moodle shall provide consolidated grade view to students on the go. Lessons There are different ways to serve course content on Moodle. Lesson module is just one of them. Students would appreciate access to Lessons on the go. It would be nice for them to check out the lessons online just before they attend the classroom. This will probably have positive effect on student participation to the course We IT guys and especially software experts like to use the sentence ".... is not a silver bullet". This means that any piece of software or IT component is not enough to solve all of the business problems by itself. There are many factors surrounding the IT which participate to the success of the whole operation.
I have to remind this sentence to bunch of people here at college very often. College managers tend to think that utilizing Moodle to the full extent will solve all of the problems related to mobile learning and online learning. That is not true people! We need some other non IT components at place for success. Quality Content Content has the most important part in overall success of a Moodle installation. Colleges have to serve quality content to the students which should be developed with nice balance of pedagogy and technology. If your Moodle focus is mainly on mobile access, producing and serving quality content shall be taken seriously. Mobile devices with limited screen size is an important constraint defining the coverage of the content and mobility itself is a key factor as well. I think colleges shall separate mobile and regular content. While mobile content is being arranged more like flash cards, regular content shall provide all aspects of a learning objective. It is also very important to provide a way to switch between mobile and regular content independent of the device content is being accessed. Teacher Commitment Moodle is the soft media between students and teachers just like air is on traditional classroom based education. Unless both sides are ready for participation the media itself can do nothing to produce good results. Teachers are enablers and this is true for Moodle utilization as well. If you are using Moodle as learning support system, that is you give traditional classroom based education and use Moodle just as complementary tool, commitment of the teachers to Moodle may be a big problem. Colleges have to figure out how to increase teacher commitment to Moodle. For example, colleges can impose some regulations or promote teachers using Moodle actively. Student Participation You have Moodle, you think you have quality content and your teachers use Moodle actively but Moodle student usage is low.If student participation is lacking it may be indicator of another problem probably related to technlogy, content, teachers or all of them. Be aware of the separation between what students want from Moodle and what you want them to access from Moodle. Complementary Software Moodle is just a platform having some default modules, but that is not the whole story. Moodle has lots of third party modules, some open source/free and some commercial. Try to keep an eye on these modules and test them regularly even you do no use them on production. I've been working for a local college here at Sofia as consultant for a while. The project focuses on utilizing an exisiting Moodle installation with better focus on mobile experience. Initially we will focus on iDevices, (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) because the college plans to deliver iPod Touch devices to some students attending some specific classes. Since Moodle does not have an official add on for mobile experience organizations have to figure out how to provide this functionality to the students. There are limited options
We have been playing with native iOS apps, namely mTouch and mPage and for a while and in this post I will try to share our mPage and mBook experience with you. When availability of mPage was first announced we felt excited that a free iOS app for Moodle was a great idea and the possibility of solving our problem for free was fantastic. Before mPage was released, mTouch was the only option and was a paid app. We just installed mPage service on our test server and deployed mPage app to some iPhone and iPod Touch devices. We tested mPage from a students point of view and this experience was a total disappointment. mPage is not a real Moodle application which will help institutions to provide value added service to the students, shortly mPage is a bookmark app with no iDevice optimization. mPage just displays Moodle pages (module pages) in an internal Web Browser (UIWebView) control, no mobile styling or optimization is implemented. You just see what you would see from mobile Safari. mPage just displays list of module headings but the detail pages are rendered in plain format. In the AppStore page of mPage it is written that mPage supports some file formats, this is not a plus for mPage if you, programatically, load iDevice supported file format in a UIWebView control by definition you can view the file with no extra effort and get zooming for free too. Recently mPage 1.1 was released and I was suprised that mPage is not a free app any more. You have to pay 0.99 USD for full forum support, by the way forum support is not a big deal worth of 0,99 USD, because the design and layout is mediocre and is not well organized. mBook, iPad version of mPage, is also a big disappointment. If you read this post on MoodleNews you can think that mBook is a big innovation and proposes new ways for Moodle on mobiles. That is not also true, we paid 3.99 USD and downloaded that app too, and I can say that mBook provides nothing for 3.99 USD. In the post it is written that "mBook provides a fully immersive Moodle experience for the iPad". That is not true, mBook just has a split view composed of two parts a list on the left side and details on the right side. List on the left side is simple list and content on the right side is just what is displayed on mobile Safari. Here is another false sentence "... the app provides a fresh approach to displaying Moodle on an iPad and supports the most Moodle activities and resources compared to any app for iOS in the iTunes app store." That is just wrong I can not see anything fresh and no real support for modules, mBook just displays module pages in an internal UIWebView control, no styling no screen size optimization. All in all mPage/mBook experience was a total disaster with no positive results. If you want to save money and time I would recommend you to stay away from these two apps. At this time I think I would recommend to the college to stick with mTouch custom branding option because it has lots of advantages compared to mPage/mBook, by the way I watched their mTouch for iPad video which seems to promise really fresh approach for displaying Moodle on iPad. In this blog I will try to share my thoughts on Moodle mobile experience.
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