Focuspad

For when all you want to do is Write!

Todays Web2.0 text editors are rich. They are full of all manner of fancy features for formatting and enhancing the content you are creating. But what about all those activities when all you want your students to do is write. When you don't want them to be distracted by all the other features but instead want them to focus 100% on the words they are writing?

In todays world there are thousands of distractions, and when you're working on a computer you have access to many of them. So do your students.

Imagine the potential if you and your students could work in an environment which
maximised focus and minimised distractions?
Imagine creating an environment that fostered and encouraged creativity in writing.

With Focuspad you can.

Good writing skills are important. Focuspad is designed to support your students in their writing endeavors, be it essays, assessments, journals and more, and to make your life easier in managing these activities.

Focuspad is the combination of an elegant library and a simple editor designed to get out of the way and let you focus on the most important thing, your work.

For the small one off investment of $99.95 AUD ($5 of which is donated to Moodle.org) you get awesome value considering you get:

• Free access to all future upgrades
• A detailed manual to help you get the most out of it
• Solid support
  • We'll make sure Focuspad continues to work by testing it in new versions of Moodle as well as new browsers
  • Want a new feature? Let us know and we'll see if we can't cater for it in the next version
  • We're keen to fix any bugs you may stumble across ASAP

There are many addons for Moodle and a lot of them offer great features. Sadly, often their user interface is poorly designed or they are not kept current with new versions of Moodle. With Focuspad we have put a lot of effort into the interface and are keen to keep it supported and constantly improving. We use our products on a daily basis (Meahq, Homebush Boys High) so we're keen to keep our products as good as they can be.

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Focuspad is a Moodle module/activity aimed at encouraging and supporting creative writing. Pieces of writing are saved as posts and managed through the library.

Strong creative writing skills are important for a student and Focuspad is an ideal tool to facilitate it's development.

Both the library and the editor have been designed to be elegant and smooth in their operation. We believe that the content should take center stage and the tools should fade into the background. This is what happens when things Just Work.

Focuspad is similar to blogs and assignments that are already in Moodle but differ in a few key ways that make it a cleaner solution for a lot of tasks.

• Unlike blogs, Focuspad posts can be graded.
• Unlike assignments, Focuspad allows you to easily submit multiple items.

Focuspad also has these features:

• Word limits on posts.
• Time limits on posts.
• Autosave of documents every 5 minutes.
• Templates on posts so that you can guide students writing.
• Notes area so that you can encourage students to plan their work before diving in.
• A streamlined marking process. Run through the posts smoothly as you mark them.
• Pause posts. For some students with special needs it is not uncommon for them to be allowed to pause their assessments. Focuspad allows for this.
• An editor designed to maximise focus and minimise distractions.

What can you do with Focuspad

There are quite a few activities that Focuspad can help you with. You really are only limited by your imagination. Here are a few examples to get the ball rolling. You can probably come up with many more (especially after you've had a play with Focuspad).

• Basic Blogs - but in a more localised, managed manner.
• Essay based assignments and assessments.
• Learning Logs/ Journals
• 25 word or less style competitions (works great in conjunction with a specially set grading scale).
• Allow for a fun component in student election campaigns.
• Guided learning on how to write essays or reports (by use of templates).
• Open creative writing (let the students form their own targets).
• Fill in the blanks, use a template to provide the framework for a story and let the students expand on it.

See more examples of class activities you can run with Moodle in our blog.

Reviews

The following are reviews from people that are using and have played with Focuspad

• Moodlerific - an in-depth review of Focuspad
• Video review of Focuspad - See it working

You can also have a play with Focuspad and some of our other addons at meahq.com. Get yourself a free account and organise your life with a journal, todo lists and more.

The Editor

The editor is one of the key elements to Focuspad. It has been designed to be simple and elegant yet efficient. We want the students work to take center stage and the tools used to create it to fade into the background. We want to minimise distractions and maximise focus. To this end the editor has simple editing functions only and a very large editing area. Put into kiosk mode (F11 on most computers) the editor takes up the whole screen and provides for maximum focus.

Because everyone is different we have also provided several themes for the editor which users may pick. They all have the same features but provide a different look. Each look however is designed to be elegant and simple.

Requirements

Focuspad is compatible with Moodle 1.9.

We have tested Focuspad with the following browsers:

• Firefox 3 - works
• Firefox 3.5 - works
• Internet Explorer 6.5 - Usable (hover effects in the library don't work)
• Internet Explorer 7 - works
• Internet Explorer 8 - works
• Safari - works
• Safari 4 - works
• Chrome - TBA
• Opera - TBA

New versions of browsers can change behavior however we will keep track of these and release updates as necessary.

License Details

The Focuspad module is released under the GPL.
The Focuspad editors are separate and released under a commercial license.