If you came to this page from a Search engine, start reading at our main SCORM page, where there are also eight samples that you can use to see how it all works.

Moodle is one of the most widely used Learning Platforms in education. It certainly has many of the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic users, both teachers and students. Many teachers seem to have Moodling as a hobby.

We have lots of Moodle schools using SUMS Maths. For example, Buckinghamshire have a SUMS Maths SCORM licence for Moodle in all of their hundreds of Primary Schools.

Our Moodle installation is 1.9.4 so all screenshots refer to that. We also assume that you are already skilled in Moodle basics like adding users and course. There are many ways to implement our packs, but the main thing is to realise that they are constructed as 'disaggregated SCORM'. That means that there is just one learning object per SCORM pack (for example, a Flash movie about plotting points in four quadrants). This is intentional. It means that the teacher can build our Flash movie into their own lesson.

Screenshot 1. Course Categories.

We have already set up four categories and added some courses. We will now add a course containing a SUMS 'Handling Data' activity.

Screenshot 2. Login in, ensuring that you have course creation powers.

We have selected Handling Data as a category, and we get this screen.

Screenshot 3. Click "Add a new course"

The category line is already filled in. We have added Full name, Short Name and Course ID number using the standard numbering for our 80 core activities. In this case, an abbreviation of HD61 meaning Handling Data, Unit 6, activity 1. We have also added a few words in the summary box.

Screenshot 4. Click "Add a new course (continued)

We use the 'topics' format for courses as it lets us put the Flash activity in the middle of additional information and work for students. Most teachers already have existing worksheets, investigations and practical activities that they want to build into their overall lesson structure.

Screenshot 5. Click "Add a new course (continued)

There are a few more boxes to complete, that are to do with enrolment etc. Complete those, and click past a page about 'roles' and you should be in a page that now holds your (so far) blank course.

If you are exhausted by your efforts so far then logout. When you log back in, go to Courses, then Add/edit courses and click Handling Data. You are then at this screen, clicking on which takes you to the screen above.

 

Screenshot 6. Editing the new Moodle course.

Teachers can set up the 'topic' sections in any way they want. In this demonstration we will start with some information for students. Click "Turn editing on" which is a button on the top right of the screen and you will see a screen as follows.

Screenshot 7. Editing the new Moodle course. Topic 1. Adding' web page'.

Start by clicking on the lefthandside dropdown box where it says 'Add a resource'. We then use "Compose a web page", but there are other options that could also be used. You get a screen like the one below. We fill it in with information like that below (you will be able to copy once you are using SUMS Maths, if you want).

Screenshot 8. Editing the new Moodle course. Topic 1. Viewing' web page'.

Once you have saved the page, you are put back to the course outline page, as shown below. If you 'turn editing off' it looks like this.

You probably want to check what you entered. If so, clicking on the Perfect Pies link and you get something like the following. Obviously we have not yet applied any formatting, bold etc, but we can see what we entered.

Screenshot 9. Editing the new Moodle course. Preparing to add the SUMS Flash game packaged as a SCORM 2004 zip file.

We now need to add the SUMS Flash movie, which has been packaged as a SCORM 2004 pack. This means that it is in the form of a 'zip file', which is a compressed file that holds dozens of other files. Don't open the zip - SCORM is complicated and you don't need to know what it is about. It justs allows content like SUMS Maths to be produced in a single format that runs on all of the different Learning Platforms (Fronter, StudyWiz, Kaleidos, Sharepoint etc) - which could be useful if you ever decide to move away from Moodle (unlikely I know).

Go back to the page shown in Screenshot 6 above, but this time use the dropdown box 'Add an activity', on the righthandside of the page opposite Topic 2. You should find an option for SCORM/AICC.

You can see that we have entered an appropriate name for Topic 2, and a quick summary. We now need to click on the 'Choose or upload a file' button.

Screenshot 10. Editing the new Moodle course. Uploading the SUMS Flash game (SCORM 2004).

The first screen looks like this when you first meet it.

If you click on 'Upload a file' you get the following box, which lets you browse for the SUMS Perfect Pies activity. In the version below the filename was
"sums_hd61_perfectpies_270409_760.zip" which might seem a little complicated, but '270409' was the version date (making it easier for you to know when a later version exists) and 760 is the default screen width in pixels for this version.

Once you click on 'Upload this file' you get back to the screen we saw before, only this time it shows our file.

All that remains is to click on the word CHOOSE alongside the file, and we have finished.

Screenshot 11. Editing the new Moodle course. Topic 2. Setting screen parameters for the new SUMS Flash game.

That takes us back to the screen we saw in Screenshot 9 above. There are several options to select which affect how the Flash movie will show. We tend to show it in a new window size 760 x 500, with preview disabled etc. It is best if you experiment to see your own preferences though. Our screen looks like the one below.

Screenshot 12. Viewing the new Moodle course as a student.

Once we have saved the settings above, it is helpful to see the course as a student. Logout and log back in as a student with permission to view the new course. In the screenshot below, our test student can see three courses, including the one we have just created (Perfect Pies). Notice that the screen shows the useful summary informary we entered earlier.

If we go into Perfect Pies we get the usual summary.

Click on Perfect Pies: Flash activity and you enter the summary screen as below.

Click on Perfect Pies and you should get to the SUMS game itself as below. If you have pop-ups blocked by default you may have one more click to make before you get there.

More useful information about SUMS Maths on Moodle

a. Moodle and SCORM Runtime Scoring. SUMS Maths delivers runtime scores into Moodle. That is, it sends a record of how the student does. At the time of writing Moodle shows a score of 3 out of 5 as 3% - which could be a little unfair. We are hoping to get the Moodle team to fix little things like this soon. Note that most SUMS activities do not 'end' and are never 'finished'. They keep asking different questions for as long as the student has the patience to keep going.

b. Completing the course. We have not shown it here, but on our own implementations we add additional topics within each course. For example Topic 3 is usually extension activities for the student to undertake, and Topic 4 might be a selection of printable worksheets.
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