Moodle and the Internet of Things

If you know about how the web works,

you know that when you request a webpage…

…you get sent back a response code.

“200” means everything OK, so you never see that one.

That’s why most people don’t know about these codes.

Occasionally you’ll get a “404”, meaning the HTML file wasn’t found.

Maybe you’ll get a “301”, “307” or “308” if the page has moved…

…or a “504” if the Internet is a little slow today.*

*much more of a problem in Australia than here in Japan!

You might get a “403 - Forbidden” if you’re not supposed to access that page.

Or a “407” if you have to authorise your proxy connection.

Or maybe you’ll get a “418” if the webserver is actually a teapot.

True story, 418 is the response code if the server is actually a little teapot.

How odd…

This makes more sense if you look at the date the “Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol” was published on.

April 1, 1998

It’s an April Fool’s Day joke.

But we live in an age when appliances like televisions and refrigerators are connected to the Internet.

An age when an old April Fool’s Day joke starts coming true…

Moodle Moot Japan 2015

Moodle and the Internet of Things

Kenneth Scott Huntleyケネス　スコット　ハントリー

Miller College of SWSi TAFEMiller, NSW, Australia

#MootJP15 @MillerTAFEScott

おはようございます。


G’Day!

How’s it going, eh?

My name is Scott.

I’m a Canadian-Australian from Miller College, part of South Western Sydney Institute of TAFE (SWSi), Sydney, Australia.


TAFE: Technical and Furthering Education

(vocational qualifications, such as the trades)


TAFE NSW consists of a number of institutes.

SWSi is the South West Sydney Institute.

Miller College is one of the SWSi campuses.



Let me tell you about my friend Steve

Steve is the guy who got me into the Internet of Things by lighting a t-shirt on fire.


Steve

2 other good friends who don’t fit this narrative but I still

love and don’t want to feel neglected

Demo Time



Getting the tie working was a very long and difficult process for a software guy.

I experimented with two boards designed for wearables, the Lilypad USB and the Adafruit Flora.

Today, the tie is working off a Lilypad USB.

But is this the Internet of Things?

Well… funny thing about that…

The Flora board was the one I selected for the tie…



The “Backend” The “Frontend”

But is this the Internet of Things?

Originally the “backend” was hooked up to Bluetooth.

The idea was a message could be sent to the tie.

Like if an RSS feed changed.

And Moodle events can generate RSS feeds…


Adafruit “Bluefruit”

But is this the Internet of Things?But…

Getting a stable connection was difficult because of Unknown Reason X and “I’m a software guy”.

Actually, I’m pretty sure Unknown Reason X is that Bluetooth and the Neopixel LEDs are drawing too much power at the same time. But I don’t know how to fix that.



The “Backend” The “Frontend”

So let’s just quickly swap out the backend so I at least have

something to show…

Oh noes

During debugging (on Feb 10th), I actually broke a Lilypad USB.

This day sucked.

We found enough spare parts to sew together another backend


Oh noes

During debugging (on Feb 10th), I actually broke a Lilypad USB.

This day sucked.

We found enough spare parts to sew together another backend


It turns out I had the answer two weeks ago…

PunchThrough Design’s LightBlue Bean

❖ It arrived two to three weeks ago

❖ Didn’t play with it much trying to get other demos ready

❖ Last weekend, four days before I left for Japan, I started playing with it, and realised:

BEAN + PYTHON = MOODLE RSS THINGY I WANTED ALL ALONG#MootJP15 @MillerTAFEScott

Getting back to the point…

So, this is pretty and all, but who cares?

It’s not about a tie, or a pair of gloves, or RSS.

The bigger picture is can we use IoT in eLearning?


Demo Time……kind of…


Thank you very much for listening to my crazy stories and ideas.


Ta!

どうもありがとうございました