Duncan McIver: Collaborative plugin development discussion, 10 Dec 2015

Post date: 30-Dec-2015 14:15:56

The first aspect we looked at was how we could apply the concepts of profile privacy that comes from social media sites like Facebook into the Moodle profile. This would, in particular, allow users to specify who can see different profile fields (so, for example, my profile photo can be hidden to student users, and my email address can be hidden to student and staff users; or, indeed, you can specify which individual users can or cannot see your hometown or Twitter username).

We then discussed how we might use popular social media platforms to bring the conversation into Moodle. The first issue that arose was that of inclusivity - if you are using an external social media platform, how do you make sure everyone can take part in your activity, even if they don't have/want a Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/A.N.Other account? Our idea was that using a methodology like the LTI options discussed at MUGGL, it might be possible to link a Facebook group (for example) as an activity in Moodle. This could pull through the conversation and display it in the Moodle activity without the user needing to have an appropriate account. Only those with such an account would be able to interact, but at least the students who don't wish to partake can still view the content as a resource.

The activity we're talking about could, in fact, pull conversations from a variety of social media and display them together in a more amalgamated form. This would not only act as a much more interesting resource, it would also allow the students to interact in a form of their choosing, while also encouraging them to interact through Moodle rather than going directly to one or other social media site (although it would not preclude this approach, if the student preferred).

There's a lot of possibility to embed social media effectively, but it is very dependent upon what each platform will allow a Moodle plugin to do, as security on each platform can vary quite heavily, as can the availability of a suitable API. To best develop this, it may require Moodle HQ to open a direct dialogue with each platform owner to see what may be possible.