Revision as of 15:20, 5 May 2009

Overview

Context-based, collaborative note taking in Moodle

Using Mediabird Study Notes allows for taking notes related to any page in your Moodle course. With the collaborative Mediabird notepad, you can note down anything that comes up in your mind, drag and drop content onto the note sheet or search notes shared by your study mates.

All notes taken using Mediabird Study Notes can be annotated, tagged and shared. This way, problems in understanding course material can be solved quickly and collaboratively.

Setup

The basic setup is very simple.

Download the Mediabird Study Notes packages
Extract the archive into the moodle folder of your installation
Log in to Moodle as admin and go to the admin page
Add the Mediabird Study Notes activity to a course

Setting up in-place note taking (recommended)

If you want to take notes while studying, you can enable the in-place note taking function that displays an icon on all pages of a course. Clicking on that icon displays the Mediabird notepad and allows for taking notes in-place. These can be reviewed in the activity later on.

Using the included theme

If you don't mind about the theme you use, you may easily

go to Appearance in the admin panel
select Theme Selector and choose standardmediabird

Note: If the theme does not appear in the list, make sure you've extracted it from the Mediabird Study Notes packages into the theme folder of your Moodle installation.

Using a custom theme

If you are using your own theme, all you need to add is the following line in the file header.html from your theme folder <?php

 include_once($CFG->dirroot.'/mod/studynotes/ext/overlay_snippet.php');

?> after the line

which is located near the middle of the file.

Setting up the equation editor

Install a LaTeX distribution (see below for more specific instructions)
Make sure the dvipng helper application is installed
Make sure you have installed the LaTeX packages AMSFonts, AMSMath, xypic
Locate dvipng and latex executables and specify their paths in the activity settings in the admin panel

Windows

Install MikTeX and check for xypic, everything else should be included in the default setup
Both dvipng.exe and latex.exe usually are located in C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.7\miktex\bin or similar

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

Install packages texlive, texlive-pictures and dvipng
The paths will usually be /usr/bin/dvipng and /usr/bin/latex

Prerequisites

Moodle 1.9.4+ and PHP 5.2+

Workflow

Using Mediabird Study Notes is divided into two steps: Taking notes and reviewing them later on.

Taking notes on any page

Take notes button

While you're on a page such as a resource, forum post or quiz, you can note down anything that comes up in your mind.

Click on the note taking button.
Wait for the overlay to finish loading.
Drag and drop content from the course page or simply enter your notes.
Navigate between your note sheets using the yellow buttons at the lower left corner of the notepad.

Reviewing existing notes

Review notes button

Click on the review notes button in the lower right corner of the notepad overlay.

Sharing notes and collaboratively working with them

Community button

Click on the community button
Click on more... next to Sharing
If you want to create a new group:
- Click on Create Group
- Enter a name and click on Create
- Invite friends using the Invite friends button
Click on Share note folder
Click on Create

Accepting invitations and finding shared notes

You can accept group invitations using the Community button

Search notes button

You can find shared notes using the Search button

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 If you want to take notes while studying, you can enable the in-place note taking function that displays an icon on all pages of a course. Clicking on that icon displays the Mediabird notepad and allows for taking notes in-place. These can be reviewed in the activity later on.
-===Using our theme===
+===Using the included theme===
 If you don't mind about the theme you use, you may easily
 * go to ''Appearance'' in the admin panel
 * select ''Theme Selector'' and choose ''standardmediabird''
+'''Note:''' If the theme does not appear in the list, make sure you've extracted it from the [http://download.moodle.org/download.php/packages/studynotes_package.zip Mediabird Study Notes packages] into the theme folder of your Moodle installation.
 ===Using a custom theme===
@@ Line 54: / Line 56: @@
 ==Taking notes on any page==
-While you're on a page such as a resource, forum post or quiz, you can note down anything that comes up in your mind by clicking on the note taking icon[[Image:MediabirdTakeNotes.png]].
+[[Image:MediabirdTakeNotes.png|right|Take notes button]]
+While you're on a page such as a resource, forum post or quiz, you can note down anything that comes up in your mind.
+* Click on the note taking button.
+* Wait for the overlay to finish loading.
+* Drag and drop content from the course page or simply enter your notes.
+* Navigate between your note sheets using the yellow buttons at the lower left corner of the notepad.
 ==Reviewing existing notes==
-[[Image:MediabirdReview.png]]
+[[Image:MediabirdReview.png|right|Review notes button]]
+* Click on the review notes button in the lower right corner of the notepad overlay.
 ==Sharing notes and collaboratively working with them==
-[[Image:MediabirdCommunity.png]]
+[[Image:MediabirdCommunity.png|right|Community button]]
+* Click on the community button
+* Click on '''more...''' next to ''Sharing''
+* If you want to create a new group:
+** Click on '''Create Group'''
+** Enter a name and click on '''Create'''
+** Invite friends using the '''Invite friends''' button
+* Click on '''Share note folder'''
+* Click on '''Create'''
+===Accepting invitations and finding shared notes===
+You can accept group invitations using the Community button
+[[Image:MediabirdSearch.png|right|Search notes button]]
+You can find shared notes using the Search button

Documentation

mod/studynotes/view: Difference between revisions