Since starting with LTEO/eLearning in february, one of the things I’ve been doing is looking at the Moodle theme – both in terms of where we’ve got to with mobile access following the ‘Heat 3′ project and also to see if futher usability/accessibilty enhancements would be desirable/feasible.

The Heat 3 work on our Bath Theme by my predecessor and other colleagues has ensured that the system is accessible to mainstream mobile devices for the type of activity we might expect/hope to achieve:

  • Users can login and access their courses e.g. start from homepage, navigate through the menus/search for courses
  • The theme has a high enough level of mobile compatibility that access is possible by enthusiastic mobile technology adopters, not just ‘hard-core techies’
  • Bath are subscribers to the EduTxt (SMS send/receive) service. We’re evaluating the Moodle ‘block’ to streamline use of the tool by academics, thus removing a step that may otherwise discourage its use
  • QR code access embedded in every page provides the opportunity for a really personalised learning experience – the codes can be grabbed by most recent-ish camera phones from screen printouts or the majority of regular computer monitors (i.e. LCD, reasonable definition ones)

This means we have a Moodle installation that can be included in more mobile-oriented teaching activities, as well as providing students greater flexibility of access to Learning.

Going forward, there are a number of enhancements we can consider to futher improve the Moodle mobile experience, particularly as the core system functionality is increasingly more stable/closer to our ideal through application of Moodle community updates and our own in-house bug fixes and feature additions:

  • There is some potential to further improve the [W3 XHTML & accessibility] standards-compliance of the system. This will be of benefit to users of all types of device and help to improve access by assistive technologies
  • If further time is devoted to styling the mobile access route, we may increase the appeal of mobile device access/make creation of mobile-specific learning activities more streamlined
  • A mobile theme which either selectively presented, or imposed alternative ordering on, page elements would be desirable to help users access content/functionality efficiently on their mobile devices

The Heat3 work enables us to effectively target the areas outlined above as ones that are of significant value to our users.

We’re currently finalising plans for further development starting this summer, which can be broken down into the following stages:

  • Re-work the current theme implementation/configuration to fix glitches, improve standards compliance and allow greater flexibility of user theme selection in future
  • Develop a theme that targets the key activites, identified as most frequently used by/useful to users, which will present these appropriately to smaller-screen devices/assistive technologies
  • Building on the above, allow users greater freedom to select a theme suited to their individual requirements

Once the first part is complete, we’ll be able to try out other themes (which will build on the base Bath Theme) on the live system with selected users without altering the experience for other users mid-semester. Potentially, it would be possible to create themes targetted to very specific learning activities – whether for mobile access or other routes - and by the end of the next round of developments, we should be in a position to assess the feasibility of this/have a good idea of the timescales involved.