Moodle?

[CookieMonster]

I'm a little surprised that there is no talk of moodle here. (Search provided one hit, and it was used as a "for example.") Seems like these new boards would make great, affordable "Quiz taking kiosks."

Will it take too many resources (RAM in particular), what with needing Apache, mysql, etc.?

[Sciman]

To run a Moodle quiz on a RasPi, all that is required is that the user logs in using a browser to the school server hosting that quiz. This could be set up with its own login just for this machine so it can only be accessed via the RasPi in the foyer for instance. The RasPi needs nothing more than a browser as everything else runs on the server.

To set up the RasPi as a Moodle server to run a quiz is overkill when there must be some lighter quiz programs available.

Nevertheless I do hope that the RasPii either come with Apache, PHP, MySQL pre-installed or with the ability to run LAMP (which installs all three). This will then allow teachers to teach how to make web apps and for students to learn how three/four very different scripts/languages use their respective strengths to interact (html, php, css, sql).

[Point3Forever]

I'm sure not everyone knows what moodle is. Here is a small snippet from their website:


"It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites."


Moodle.org website.

[jamesh]

Sciman said:


To run a Moodle quiz on a RasPi, all that is required is that the user logs in using a browser to the school server hosting that quiz. This could be set up with its own login just for this machine so it can only be accessed via the RasPi in the foyer for instance. The RasPi needs nothing more than a browser as everything else runs on the server.

To set up the RasPi as a Moodle server to run a quiz is overkill when there must be some lighter quiz programs available.

Nevertheless I do hope that the RasPii either come with Apache, PHP, MySQL pre-installed or with the ability to run LAMP (which installs all three). This will then allow teachers to teach how to make web apps and for students to learn how three/four very different scripts/languages use their respective strengths to interact (html, php, css, sql).


You will be able to install all of those pretty easily, even if not there as standard. sudo apt-get install is your friend. Having them as standard fills up the SD image when there are probably more important things to have there for the purpose of the Raspi.

[niijel]

I am exploring a 'school intra-net server in a box' build for the RP - I don't see any problems with running something similar to Moodle. But to run actual Moodle the performance would be impacted by the following:

mysql database - too heavyweight solution for most apps - very resource hungry on RP, but running  liteweight db like sqlite would be too memory hungry. (given the schema for a Moodle with usual modules)

PHP - very dependent on external libraries for functionality but happy to run (very well) on any web server with fastcgi  as well as apache+mod.

I suspect a stripped down apache/mysql/php build could run Moodle, but performance would be pretty grim even if a web cache was used to front end it. I would probably go for a specific quiz web app that used flat files and in memory tables, using fastcgi (or even cgi) onto the web server of choice.

I have been thinking of using multiple RP, running web servers, to front end a shared MYSQL database server (pc) for a particular application - maybe that mix works well for Moodle? Much more thinking to be done - its early days yet

[nichobb]

I don"t think the R-pi would cope well with full Moodle as it is so resource hungry. Ours is on a beast of a server and still falls over with heavy load (luckily not my problem and have a good developer, also virtualization should happen this year). That"s not to knock Moodle as it"s a good system when implemented properly and even with cost of developer better than others I"ve seen (blackboard), especially the open format.

The idea of stand alone software sounds like a good idea (bothersome if already done in Moodle I guess).

[pvgb]

Moodle claims to run in 256 RAM, and suggests 1G RAM for every 50 Users.

http://docs.moodle.org/20/en/I.....ing_Moodle

I actually run Moodle on a low spec. box as a sandpit ( to try things out ) The whole LAMP setup ( Plus Webmin to administer the box ) fits into a 2G storage footprint. Content not included.

I would hesitate to run a production system ( with more than about 5 users ? ) on a single RPi.

One of the issues encountered with Moodle ( and other VLE/LMS systems ) is how to lock down a terminal ( usually a shared use PC ) so that access to sites with "helpful content" is not visible during quizzes.

A suitably constrained RPi client might solve the problem cheaply ?

7 + 5 = ?

What base ? I think we should be told !

[timmeyh]

pvgb said:


Plus Webmin to administer the box


People still use Webmin?

[pvgb]

timmeyh said:


pvgb said:


Plus Webmin to administer the box


People still use Webmin?


I can think of one ... It does what I need to do.

Always happy to consider suggestions for improvements !

[gholtslander]

Pi provides a realistic way of providing every student in a school with a computer.

Providing every student with a work-station no longer becomes an issue. This should free up significant financial and support resources.  Rather than trying to host moodle on a a Pi, a schools IT should move to hosting educational services that are accessable to the Pi.

A school's IT resources should move from supporting work-stations, to providing a range of server based education applications available to all students, since they will all have access to a computer.

Moodle should be one of many educational server based applications that a school provides.

[niijel]

I completely agree - having a few spare Pi boxes and plenty of ready to go sd cards would mean availability in school would be excellent. Then IT could focus on server based services Pi might be just the thing for kids to take home too...

[AwesomeDud]

Hmmm... let me tell you my story with Moodle.

I'm just a lowly English teacher in a public school in Chicago. I took an interest in Educational Technology and got into Moodle a while back and started looking for ways to build out a server at my school.

I first started with shared hosting. I had to deal with all of the user registration, which was a pain, but I had two class periods using it, sometimes a class at a time. Then I moved to set up a LAMP server in an old Dell box we had laying around. Getting the permissions from the district to set up the server was an ordeal, but I was able to get it running and authenticating to their directory services. That solution worked well enough that I could use it as a 'proof of concept' for my administrators and we were able to purchase a legitimate, RAID-equipped, multiple core production-grade server.

My point here is that in some cases, teachers might be looking for some kind of tiny solution to prove that a Moodle implementation can work before a whole school dedicates the resources to suit the 300 to 3,000 clients that a school might need to serve.

In that case, it would be worthwhile to give the RPi a shot as an experimental Moodle server. How about this?


You had a Model B Raspberry Pi with an external drive for the database and moodledocs directory.
Moodle does support alternatives to Apache2 and MySQL. They aren't all that well tested, but it is possible to scale down some of Moodle's system requirements by using more resource-economical components. Nginx and SQLite?
Throw in some kind of DyDNS client and someone could have (with their school's permission, of course) a server up and going that could probably serve a single teacher's course load.

It might not be very fast, but neither was my shared hosting solution a year ago. It was enough though to get me used to Moodle and, more importantly, used to advocating for it.

[b87lar]

First Moodle-supported lesson for the English teacher:
"Laying vs. Lying": chickens lay, humans lie.

[oceanlove]

I was reading this thread and a lot of folks are assuming that the student's school has a server hosting the information. The issue is in developing countries, internet is not reliable and thus the application has to be run locally....unfortunately educational videos take up hundreds of GB of space which would result in the need for a separate external hard drive.

has anyone had success creating a stable learning management platform or e-learning platform on Raspberry PI that has heavy use/reliance of videos? Look forward to hearing any ideas, especially given the new release of the B+ module.

[pimail]

Moodle installed. Its working. Version 28
http://pimail.blogspot.de/2015/04/moodl ... -with.html

[mrverrall]

Hi all,

I've cobbled together a functional (i.e. fast enough to be useful) Moodle site on a Raspberry Pi 2.
It includes information on how it was setup and optimised and allows self registration/enrolment so you can have a poke around yourselves.

All hosted over at https://moopi.mrverrall.co.uk/

[csanyipal]

Hi mrverrall,

I tried yesterday to create an account on your Moodle site but get not yet the confirmation e-mail.

Best, Pali

[TalkNerdyToMe]

This is not a helpful post at all, but I just wanted to ask the question anyway. What is with all of the company names trying to sound like Google?

Moodle (https://moodle.org), Doodle (http://doodle.com), Moovel (https://www.moovel.com)......

And there are so many more. I guess it's not really a problem and I'm not criticizing, but I just feel like every company that I hear about lately has some sort of Google-esque thing going on.

[morphy_richards]

moodle (modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment)