My email account  seems to have been hacked and hotmail is sending spam emails on my behalf.
I feel deeply embarassed about this fact and I really apology for all the inconveniences that this is causing.

Please, take no offence of the links that may appear in these emails. If you receive a mail with a weir subject, just deleted.

Kind regards

Mari Cruz
]]> http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/my-email-has-been-hacked-apologies/feed/ 0 aariciathorgalson http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/untitled-2/ http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/untitled-2/#comments Sat, 30 Jul 2011 01:03:18 +0000 aariciathorgalson http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/untitled-2/ ]]> http://grunta.ru/test.php?html44
]]> http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/untitled-2/feed/ 0 aariciathorgalson http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/the-spanish-revolution-thousands-of-people-take-the-main-square-in-madrid-to-protest-against-the-corruption-of-the-system/ http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/the-spanish-revolution-thousands-of-people-take-the-main-square-in-madrid-to-protest-against-the-corruption-of-the-system/#comments Wed, 18 May 2011 20:47:54 +0000 aariciathorgalson http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/the-spanish-revolution-thousands-of-people-take-the-main-square-in-madrid-to-protest-against-the-corruption-of-the-system/ ]]> Hello,

As usual, British media don mention much, but I thought that you may be interested in knowing that tonight there is  a massive demonstration in Madrid against politicians, the corruption of the so called “democractic systems” and in favour of public services and jobs with dignity and self-respect.

Despite the fact that the demostration was not authorized, thousands of people have joined in and the police is not repressing it so far.

I dont know how good may be Google translating it but I leave some links about it:

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/

http://www.liberation.fr/monde/01012338195-les-indignes-prennent-la-puerta-de…

Regards

Mari Cruz
]]> http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/the-spanish-revolution-thousands-of-people-take-the-main-square-in-madrid-to-protest-against-the-corruption-of-the-system/feed/ 0 aariciathorgalson http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/untitled/ http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/untitled/#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:10:40 +0000 aariciathorgalson http://aariciathorgalson.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/untitled/ ]]>

Let´s see if this post goes to WordPress and LinkID

In addition to the expected keynote presentation about Moodle 2.0 by Martin Dougiamas, this year’s edition offered an interesting variety of topics, such as: a case study about Mahara as an eportfolio platform, the Mr.Cute plugging as an institutional repository for Moodle, or the integration of Moodle with other external systems.

My contribution to this- my first- Moodle Moot was the 50 minutes presentation “Keeping Moodle tidy: how to obtain accurate statistics and get rid of obsolete users and courses”. I have to say that I was surprised by the high number of participants, taking into account that my humble presentation was scheduled at the same time that Workshop “Looking for the future: What is coming in Moodle 2.0?” led by the famous MoodeMan.

Unfortunately, one of the most expected presentations for this Moot -the session about Wikis and Webservices in Moodle 2.0 by Ludo, from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya- had to be cancelled, as the speaker could not attend the event.

I realised too late that I have forgotten my camara when everybody started taking photos of  Martin Dougamas and uploading them in Facebook. Shame…

Moodle 2.0: The Never Ending Story

Time has gone by, since I first listened to Martin Dougiamas talking about Moodle 2.0 at the University of Glasgow in October 2009. As he is now able to show more Moodle 2.0 features in action, it is evident that much technical development has been done during this time. Yet there is no release date for the first stable version 2.0, like if the development of these new features would have to continue forever and ever… In his keynote presentation, Dougiamas announced that this long-time-expected stable version would be launched before Christmas 2009. He also invited the community of UK moodlers to take part in the testing of the current alpha version, providing feedback to Moodle.org.

Among the new key features of Moodle 2.0, Dougiamas enumerated:

• The Wiki and Blog 2.0 new pluggings.
• 2. Full repository integration.
• 3. Full portfolio integration.
• 4. Webservices integration.
• 5. File storage management.
• 6. Conditional activities and monitoring of course completion.
• 7. Totally flexible users fields, etc.

Moodle, both the wiki and blog pluggings have been designed to be integrated with Google. Although this statement created a great deal of excitement among the audience, Martin Dougiamas did not go into the point in depth, since it was going to be covered by Ludo’s presentation.

The full repository integration will allow moodlers to pull multimedia contents into Moodle, as well as push contents out, to the web, in different formats. This integration will work for most of the web 2.0 content sites, such as Googledocs, Wikipedia, Flicker, Piccasa, Twitter, etc.

With regard to the Eportfolio integration, it is significant the change in Dougiama’s view: in October 2007, he announced two eportfolio platforms as the most likely candidates to be integrated with Moodle 2.0: MyStuff, mainly developed by the Open University UK, and Mahara, the result of a joint venture between Catalys Ltd and several Universities from New Zeland. Almost two years later, in the Spring 2009, Dougiamas did not mention at all MySutff, while the portfolio platforms considered are now:

• Mahara

• Alfresco

• Flicker

• Googledocs.

By considering these platforms, Moodle org acknowledges that users want to use their own portfolio system, rather than the ones provided by institutions. Moodle 2.0 will facilitate the integration between the learner’s chosen platform and the institution’s VLE.

The webservices’ protocols supported by Moodle 2.0 are:

· Soap

· Xml-rpc

· REST (Representational state transfer)

· amf-php.

The new file management system in Moodle 2.0 makes possible that only one physical copy of the same file is stored in the server, reducing therefore the unnecessarily use of the storage space.

 Teachers will be able to customize the course’ menu, so that certain activities will only be displayed provided a given condition is fulfilled (for instance: that the leaner obtains a certain result in a previous activity). Likewise, the learners will be able to track the activities that they have completed.

An example of community hub architecture shown in the presentation.

In his presentation, Martin Dougiamas also emphasised the importance of “Community hubs” as a part of the cultural change that Moodle 2.0 brings. These hubs will allow moodlers to easily share resources among their sites, without having to worry about technicalities. For instance, teachers will be able to “push” their courses to a central repository, just by clicking on the “Community button”, so that other teachers over the world can browse and use them.

In addition to these developments, Moodle 2.0 will have a “cooler” appearance, as all the pages will include menu, administration and navigation blocks, all of them completely customizable by administrators/teachers. An example of this new look is the current front page of Moodle org.

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In conclusion, I feel honoured of having had the opportunity of attending the British Moodle Moot both as speaker and  moodler. The only thing that I would change is the inevitable and forseable British lunch  -a soggy vegetarian sandwich, plus another even more soogy sandwich if your stomach still bears it, plus orange juice from concentrate- , by a real continental French buffet.

The power of Moodle is, all in all, the power of the Open Source Movement.

If you want to know how I am wasting my time and the tax payers´money now, follow my new projects:  “The Edinburgh World Justice Festival 2009/10″.  I am also member of the Transition Town Movement

Visit Movimiento de Transición