Nuvvo Evaluation
Noticing all the hype regarding Nuvvo in various blogs I decided to take the plunge and trial the LMS.
It wasn't entirely my choice to use Nuvvo. I am a keen supporter of Moodle, however with my site unavailable for reasons outside my control, I needed to start preparing materials for the new school year so I decided to give it a go.
The first thing that you notice is that the site has a very professional finish. It is attractive and makes good use of white space. Further the tutorials and support are very impressive.
Setting up a new environment is very easy, although the formatting options are limited. (depending on your beliefs this could be a good thing or a bad thing.)
As this is the first time using the environment you are guided through the various sections that need completing.
The screens are easy to navigate and the blog integration is very convenient, giving the teacher good control over this component. The AJAX integration is also fantastic giving the site a very crisp and quick finish. (Now all we need to happen is have Moodle integrate this into their systems.)
As my experience revolves around Moodle I find myself wanting some of its tools, I acknowledge that this is a bad thing and I need to let Nuvvo's way of operating "influence" me. But I am stuggling with this.
I am a strong believer in the philosophy that students contruct their own learning. I find the tools for this in Nuvvo are limited. Blogging is obviously a powerful tool in such an environment, however I am a big user of the glossary feature and I believe that forums have their place. (Not the time for a debate over the difference of forums & blogs).
I also miss the upload assignment feature - an easy way for students to submit assignments without the worry of deciding whether the assignment was submitted on time or "I handed it up, it must have got lost somehow." arguement.
I will give a further evaluation later, but at the moment I am finding this hard to meet my needs, I like to give students research tasks that are then discussed in forums to clarify understanding. Haven't worked out how I am going to replicate this environment with the control (yes I know how people hate that word) that I am use to. My big concern is that by using a blog I won't be able to facilitate the discussion as well.
posted by Jason Plunkett @ 10:45 AM
9 comments
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9 Comments:
Dave Ritter from the Nuvvo team here. Loving this evaluation, Jason. We're big on feedback, so if you have any other thoughts--pros or cons--we'd be pleased to read them.
Thought I'd offer this tip: you can set up student-uploaded assignments by inserting Subjective Questions into EvalPages. When you're building the question, choose "User Uploaded File" as the answer format. Students viewing the EvalPage will be prompted to upload a file in order to answer your question.
Hope that captures the functionality you're looking for; if not, let us know why not. We also love feature requests.
Thanks again,
Dave.
david.ritter@savvica.com
www.nuvvo.com
In response to Dave's post, I have to say that I am blown away.
Obviously I haven't contacted the team, so this suggests that they keep an active eye on blogs that contain mentions of nuvvo.
This response came in relatively quickly after I posted my entry. As I said earlier the support is fantactic, this really backs this up.
Yes the adive given targets one of my issues so thank you, if you are still observing can I suggest a glosarry feature (in which students can add entries)?
Hi Jason--we like to keep up with not just Nuvvo dialogue, but what people are writing about elearning in general. We have a pretty active blog ourselves, and know that discussion and feedback can only make our software--and elearning in general--better.
Glossary has been a feature requested from a few different users, and we're considering it. We like to think of Nuvvo as subscribing to the less-is-more theory of software design (we say around here, "only everything you need"), so we consider our feature choices carefully. That said, we're very open to adding a glossary, and have been discussing it since it was first requested.
Besides students being able to edit the content, do you have any more suggestions on what the glossary should look like, it's specific function, design tips, etc? Love to hear what you've likeds or disliked about the ones you've used, and why you think they're a powerful tool.
Like I said above, we love feedback, so thanks again Jason. Looking forward to continuing this productive discussion.
I am not sure that my beliefs would necessarily be shared with many others but ill give my suggestions.
I see a decent glossary search as an important aspect. After the students have created entries they need to be able to use the glossary when it comes to revision, therefore looking up specific words.
I like the idea of ratings and comments.
The ratings help a student get a feel for how reliable the entry (content) is.
The comments allow for clarification and growth in the understanding of the concept (or word) discussed.
The problems with the comments are that they can detract from the initial glossary entry. Maybe have the comments hidden until you click on a link?
I would also see two views useful, the first that shows a "page view" or all the entries for a given letter.
The second view would be the search result view that shows one entry per page. For search results that display multiple entries I still think a single entry per page would be useful to make the word the centre of attention, maybe a list of results at the top of the page?
Hey Jason, sorry I haven't responded to your last post; it wasn't neglected! We had a meeting today about feedback and feature requests during which your suggestions on Glossary featured prominently. Wanted to let you know we've put Glossary in the queue and will be looking into it a great deal in the next couple of months.
Thanks again,
Dave.
Thanks for posting your evaluation Jason. My comments here
Jason & David, is Nuvvo a learning management system or a course management system (e.g. Moodle)? I ask because you seem to be comparing Moodle and Nuvvo, but learning management systems are more about workshop tracking, online certificate access, setting up learning paths for learners, etc. Check out http://www.mguhlin.net/artifacts/writings/2002/lms.htm
Next question, is Nuvvo something that can be downloaded and installed on a school district's server--free like Moodle or other Content or Course Management systems--or must it all be hosted by the Nuvvo folks?
Thanks in advance for your responses,
Miguel Guhlin
http://www.mguhlin.net/blog
Nuvvo is a LMS.
As you pointed out there are big differences between the two.
Learning Management Systems focus on Learning, therefore do many things. Content Management systems focsus only on content, are therefore simpler but do not have specific tools for education.
Nuvvo is a LMS but uses a simplistic approach. This does not mean that it doesn't still have a grade book and tools for tracking what students are doing.
Nuvvo is not downloaded. You access it from their servers. The theory here is that you do not need to manage the hardware and keep the OS and LMS up to date, this is done for you.
If you are considering an LMS it is worth a look. It is very polished and has a professional finish.
www.nuvvo.com
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