The more learning management systems (LMS) are used for assessments, the more the stakes in the system grow and the more security becomes a serious issue. Iframes are an html technology that is frequently used to share learning objects within institutional systems such as LMS but they can represent a security issue.
At Sussex we are in the second year of a three year project to bring all text-based submissions online using our customised Moodle LMS. This year first and second years’ work will be submitted through the assignment tool. This means that we are now much stricter about our security and the use of iframes by tutors. We have built functionality which allows us to create a whitelist of iframes we allow and we blacklist the rest.
In many cases we have gone to the trouble to create custom interfaces to some services (youtube, vimeo, box of broadcasts and so on).
Recently we engaged in project providing a custom integration with Padlet.
Padlet is an easy-to-use, visually appealing tool for listing and embedding content. It has been used by some of our tutors around campus to create informal online spaces to support their teaching.
In the following video you can see how we integrated the plugin and what user interface decisions we made.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/141662585[/vimeo]
Lucy Robinson and Chris Warne used Padlet to create a space for student-owned online seminars. They say by giving students a space to “chuck stuff on an online wall” unforeseen possibilities were created to alter the direction of their module teaching and improve student engagement and learning. For more on the their experience read their blog post titled “DIY Digital: First steps to selling out“.
The Sussex Technology Enhanced Learning team have been espousing its value too in blog post titled “learning together“.
As always comments are welcome.