Check out our latest free themes: Cover and Liven. Cover features a sticky menu bar that remembers when the user collapses the header area and Liven features a custom login (among other features). We can also customize these themes to fit your needs within our Basic Package.
Control is the latest premium theme available from NewSchool Learning. It features a unique layout, a settings page (for logo and color changes) as well as a custom login page. It is available for all versions of Moodle 2.1 and above. To demo this theme, and to check out all of our Premium themes, visit: http://newschoollearning.com/theme/
In case you missed them, NewSchool Learning has added plenty of new (and free!) themes to Moodle.org’s plugins database. These include Fadeback, Fabric, Ville and many more! We can also customize these themes to fit your needs within our Basic Package.
We recently added a new Premium theme to our selection. This theme, called White Carbon, features an image scroller and settings page. It is available for all versions of Moodle 2. To demo this theme, and to check out all of our Premium themes, visit: http://newschoollearning.com/theme/
Before the holiday, we finished upgrading one of our most popular themes - Superfresh - for Moodle 2.0. After spending some much needed time with family and friends, I’m just uploading it now.
It’s a great theme with the same look and feel as Superfresh for 1.9, but includes a lot of great new features:
Buying the new 2.0 theme is quite simple. Just head on over to our themes page and add the theme pack to your cart. The download now contains both themes for Moodle 1.9 and Moodle 2.0.
Want to see the demo? Here it is.
And, as always, if you have any questions, let us know.
Over the past year, we’ve experienced significant growth in our custom theme business. As a result, we need to grow our team to continue providing the high level of support our clients have come to expect.
We’re looking to hire a theme designer/coder to work in a support role.
This individual will be responsible for the following:
The ideal candidate will be a good communicator, a proficient coder of CSS & HTML, and an existing member of the Moodle community.
This is a part-time position (10 hours per week). We have no office and no set hours. Therefore, you can work these ten hours when and where you want as long as the work gets done. Pay will be competitive and commensurate with skill and experience.
Interested candidates should send their resume and examples of their work (preferably a Moodle theme) to patrick [at] newschoollearning.com.
I’m happy to announce the release of our first Premium Theme to be upgraded for Moodle 2.0 - Accentuate.
As you may or may not know, our focus for the past few months has been working on a new set of attractive themes to go into the Moodle 2.0 core. Well, we didn’t do too bad.
Now that Moodle 2.0 has officially been released, we’re turning our attention to upgrading our Premium Themes. Please be patient. Moodle 2.0 requires that all themes be completely recoded from scratch. While the look and feel will generally stay the same, everything under the hood is different.
The upgraded Accentuate theme supports Custom Menus, the new Moodle dock, and a full settings page that allows you to change the theme colors, add a logo, or a tagline.
Buying the Accentuate theme is easy. Just visit our theme page and click the “Add to cart” link underneath the screenshot. The packaged files you’ll get after checkout include both the 1.9 and the 2.0 version of the theme.
Of course, if you have any questions, please let us know.
Moodle 2.0 includes a core dropdown menu function that we include in all our Plus and Max custom theme packages. It’s a great feature that we realize a lot of people are not yet aware even exists.
Moodle 2.0 themes coded to use the new Custom Menu will pull menu links and text from the Moodle admin interface. The easiest way to find this new setting is to search for “custom menu” in the Administration block.
We like this new feature a lot because it allows us to embed and style a menu into a Moodle theme that can be easily edited by just about anyone.
As stated above, this dropdown menu support is included in our Plus and Max custom theme packages. If we’re upgrading a theme from 1.9 that includes an older hard coded dropdown menu, we’ll add a custom menu support for no additional charge. If your theme does not include a menu and you would like us to add one, we’ll gladly do so for an additional $145.00 charge.
Of course, if you have any questions, let us know.
Late last week, we added a Moodle 2.0 Upgrade Package to our list of services. We’re excited to be able to offer this package at a very affordable price of $325.00.
Moodle 2.0 has greatly increased the flexibility for theme designers to alter the software’s look and feel. To do that, though, the theme engine had to be completely rewritten. Themes created for Moodle 1.x will no longer work on this new system; they will all have to be recoded from scratch to be used in 2.0.
Our upgrade package includes styling of the Moodle 2.0 custom menus and dock. We’ll take all your colors, background images, and typography from your existing Moodle 1.x theme, and we’ll create a 2.0 theme to match.
If you’re thinking about upgrading to Moodle 2.0 anytime soon, let us know. We’d love to help.
I’m pleased to introduce the newest member of our team, John Stabinger. John is an educator, like myself, who learned how to code Moodle themes while working for his district. He’s been working for us since the end of July, and he’s already made himself an indispensable member of the team.
John’s primary responsibility is coding custom Moodle themes, but he’s also helping us create twenty new themes for the Moodle 2.0 core. His work is solid and we’re lucky to have him on board.
Welcome, John!
The cost of a custom theme from NewSchool Learning has always been determined by a conservative estimate of the time it would take to complete the work from start to finish. With Moodle 1.x, this estimation was easy to predict since themes were only given access to the header, the footer, and the CSS.
One of our favorite new features in the forthcoming 2.0 release is that theme designers now have even more control over the presentation of the software. We can now create alternative layouts, add theme settings, and with a little programming even alter the way Moodle renders objects on the page.
While we think this is great news, it does throw a bit of a monkey wrench in the way we price our themes. How can we estimate the amount of time each 2.0 theme will take if the scope of each theme project we take on is completely different? Something needs to change.
We don’t want to move away from our package pricing model - it’s worked well for the past three years and we think it’s a very straight forward way of doing business. We do, however, need to set some limits on what is included in each package and provide some pricing, up front, for what we consider additional services. Here is a table showing our updated pricing and package descriptions for Moodle 2.0:
| Package | Description |
|---|---|
| Basic ($275) | For our Basic Package, we customize an existing theme. We take your branding, logo, font, and colors to make another theme your own. We’ve increased the price of this package slightly ($30) to take into consideration new features like the dock, custom menus, multiple layouts, and settings. Essentially, for this package, we’re committed to modifying all aspects of the existing theme. Of course, additional features will require additional charges. |
| Plus ($795) | Our Plus Package gets you a new Moodle theme that matches your existing site or design. For this package, we’ve increased the price slightly ($50) for additional time we anticipate spending on custom layouts. We’ll include up to two layouts (one for the front page and one for all internal pages) at no additional charge. Since we don’t anticipate that everyone will want the new dock, custom menu, settings page, multiple layouts, and renderers, we’ll be creating a new Add-On pricing table for these items. |
| Max ($1595) | Our Max Package is our complete custom design and development service that gets you your very own Moodle theme designed from scratch. For $100 above the 1.x price, we’re throwing nearly everything new with 2.0 into this package: multiple layouts, the dock, custom menu, and settings. Altering the core renderers will be an additional charge since we think most clients won’t need this service, and the time we’d invest in this area is tough to predict. |
As you can see, not much has changed. We’re increasing the price of all of our packages as little as possible while increasing the services we provide across the board. Our goal is to give our clients a better theme for Moodle 2.0 at a low core cost.
We’re going to wait until Moodle 2 is officially released (sometime in September last we heard) before we update things on our site, but feel free to contact us if interested in getting a jump start on your theme for Moodle 2.0. We’re knee deep in creating themes for the core and are more than ready to start your project.
There is, of course, more to come. Please stay tuned for more news on our Moodle 2 Theme Update Package and Add-on pricing.
We’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about our products and services in light of the forthcoming Moodle 2.0 release. I’m going to try to openly answer some of them here.
Unfortunately not. The Moodle theme engine has been completely rewritten in 2.0 allowing theme designers like us much more freedom to change the way Moodle looks. A drawback of this freedom is that all old themes will not work on a 2.0 installation and will require upgrade.
Yes. It is our goal to setup a straight-forward upgrade package at a reasonable price. We haven’t yet decided on what that price should be because we’re not quite sure how much time each upgrade is going to take. We’re currently working on a bunch of new themes for the Moodle 2.0 core, which is increasing our understanding of the new theme engine and thereby decreasing the amount of time it takes us to create each theme. As soon as I’m able to accurately predict the minimum amount of time each upgrade will take, I’ll announce upgrade pricing. It won’t be long.
Yes. We plan to upgrade all of our current themes for Moodle 2.0, but the upgrade process here will not be quick. Each theme has to be completely recoded from scratch to utilize the new Moodle 2.0 theme engine, and we are committed to creating a new set of attractive themes for the Moodle 2.0 core first. Once Moodle 2.0 is released, we’ll begin the process of upgrading our other themes.
No. Since Moodle 2.0 requires a complete rewrite of every theme, we cannot offer free upgrades.
Probably not. Since Moodle 2.0 offers us an opportunity to do a lot more with your theme, we’re probably going to have to include a standard set of modifications at a package price with a menu of add-ons and customizations at an additional cost. Our goal will be to provide the same level of products and services that we currently offer for Moodle 1.9 at the same package pricing. Additional charges will only apply for additional products and services not available prior to the Moodle 2.0 release.
I am the Moodle Themes Manager. As such, it’s my job to find, create, and manage the themes in the Moodle 2.0 core. Right now, I’m working on twenty fresh themes that are completely different from anything you’ve ever seen in Moodle before. Once I’m finished with this, I’ll turn my attention to making them stronger.
Over the past week, while the community has been rating the themes submitted to our Moodle 2.0 theme contest, we’ve been testing them out and looking over the underlying code. While we’re extremely pleased by the high quality of themes submitted by all of the contestants, this is a contest with a magical prize, so we’re going to have to declare one winner.
In the end, the Grand Prize winning theme is one that was highly rated by the community, is cleanly coded with few (if any) display errors, and makes creative use of the Moodle 2 Theme Engine. I’m pleased to announce that the winner of our Moodle 2.0 Theme Contest, and the proud new owner of a 16GB iPad, is Caroline Kennedy for her theme called Splash.
In addition to winning the iPad, Caroline’s theme will also be included in the Moodle 2.0 core along with other submitted themes that we’ll announce next week.
We’d like to again thank all who participated in our contest - both the theme designers as well as the raters/commenters. It’s always nice to see a positive community response to an event that strengthens Moodle overall.
I’ve just put the finishing touches on a community review page for the twelve themes that were submitted for our Moodle 2 Theme Contest. Please head on over to have a look at what the contestants have done. While there, please be sure to rate all of the themes using the quick and simple rubric we’ve provided. There are a lot of great themes here that take advantage of just some of the new theme features that have been added to Moodle 2.0.
Don’t forget that we’re buying the developer of the theme with the highest community rating, the tightest code, and the most creative use of the Moodle 2.0 theme engine a brand new 16GB iPad. Plus, the best themes will all be included in the Moodle 2.0 core. The stakes are high. Please take your time reviewing these themes and ask the developers questions in the submission comment area if you have any.
I’m pleased to announce that we’re officially taking submissions for our Moodle 2.0 Theme Contest. Since full contest rules and selection criteria can be found on the contest page, I won’t bother repeating that information here. I will say, though, that we’re giving away a new 16GB Wi-Fi iPad to the contest winner, which will be announced on July 16, 2010.
The goals of this competition are to:
If you have any questions about the contest, please feel free to post them in our new Support Community Forums. We’re always happy to help out.
I look forward to seeing what the community can create. Good luck!
We’ve just finished work on our first free Moodle theme of the new year.
It’s called Afterburner after the GPL theme of the same design created by Rocket Theme and is unique for a number of reasons:
You can demo the theme on our server, or just download it today!
Our most popular theme just got a whole lot better with an awesome upgrade.
Here’s what’s been changed:
A lot of work went into this upgrade, making Superfresh one of our best looking and most stable themes ever! If you’ve previously purchased Superfresh and would like a free upgrade, forward us a copy of your download email and we’ll renew your download link so you can get a new copy.
If you haven’t yet purchased Superfresh, what are you waiting for!
I’m pleased to announce the release of Accentuate - the newest and most advanced Premium Theme from NewSchool Learning.
Besides the fact that it looks great, here are just a few reasons why you’ll like it:
Each theme download comes with four color variants: blue, green, red, and black. Changing colors is as easy as renaming a file.
Want to use your logo? Accentuate looks inside its image directory for an image called logo.png. If it finds one, it displays it. If doesn’t, it shows your site name and description. It’s that simple.
Accentuate uses a stable javascript dropdown menu that looks good in every browser. And, we’ve included a “My Courses” dropdown that dynamically pulls the courses for the logged in user.
I’m proud and happy to officially announce the addition of Olivia Freeman to our team. Olivia has been working with our clients as Project Manager since November, and has quickly made herself an indispensable member of our team.
Prior to joining NewSchool Learning, Olivia worked at a large international law firm where she managed all aspects of Attorney Development. At the law firm, she supported the needs of over 900 attorneys while coordinating, marketing and executing all in-house attorney training.
Olivia has taken over Nick’s previous responsibilities handling all our incoming correspondence and working with each project to ensure a quality theme and experience is delivered to everyone we work with, every time. Basically, it’s her job to keep things running smoothly so Nick and I can focus on making themes.
If you have a custom Moodle theme you’d like us to work on, drop her a line.
We’re pleased to announce the opening of our new Premium Theme Club, which provides two tiers of access to all the Premium Moodle themes in our library.
To join the club, compare membership types, and see our frequently asked questions about the club, look here.
Of course, let us know if you have questions beyond those we’ve already answered.
We’re pleased to announce the reopening of a “Themes” section on our site. We made our name selling and giving away attractive Moodle designs. After nearly six months of tweaking and adjusting our site and our business, we’re happy to have them back.
At this moment, we have 17 Moodle themes available for download. Nine are free. The other eight are Premium Themes - themes that are generally more complex, include different color variants, and come with a full year of support against bugs on the current Moodle version. They can be purchased for the low cost of $45.
The shopping cart system we use is offered through a unique company called e-junkie. We use their services primarily because they deliver your theme files immediately after purchase is made.
Purchases can be made using any major credit card or by Paypal. If you experience any trouble, please let us know and we’ll gladly sort things out for you.
Of course, if you like one of our designs but need some tweaking done to get it to match your specific brand or colors, we do offer customization services starting at only $245!
After releasing Greenie last night, I felt a bit inspired, so I’m happy to release a second free theme this week - Leatherbound.
Leatherbound is another admittedly simple, lightweight theme that can be easily modified to use any color combination. My goal is to create a bunch of these themes now so that the community can pick those they think would work best in the Moodle core for 2.0.
You can download Leatherbound here.
Of course, if you don’t feel comfortable making changes to this theme yourself, keep in mind that we do custom work, too.
We’re happy to announce the release of our newest free theme for Moodle - Greenie. Greenie is a fluid-width theme that uses no background images to accomplish a modern (if not basic) look and feel.
This theme will undoubtedly make it into the Moodle core for the 2.0 release. Since the themes engine for 2.0 is still being worked on, we’ve coded it here for 1.9.
You can download Greenie here.
Of course, if you don’t like green, keep in mind that we do custom work, too.
Update: You are certainly free to use these links to make your purchase, but we’re pleased to announce that the Themes section of our site is back up and running.
We’ve been getting a lot of requests for our Premium Themes. They are still available, but we’re reworking on the back end of the site to sell them again. In the meantime, I’d like to provide the links where they can be purchased since the old shopping cart mechanisms are still in place.
All downloads begin automatically after payment has been made.
All downloads include all theme color variants shown in the demo.
I’ve just added a page for each of our custom Moodle theme packages, detailing what the work entails. You can find links to these pages on our service summary table. The details I’ve provided are brief, but should give you an idea of what to expect in terms of our process and timeline.
Of course, no two projects are ever exactly alike. So, drop us a line explaining your project and we’ll gladly fill in the details related to your specific needs.
I stole some time from my weekend to put together a well overdue portfolio of our work. Nick has been getting an increasing number of requests to see custom work that we’ve done for our past clients. I hope this does the job.
I have only added a small handful of our most recent clients, but I’ll continue adding themes from our past and future from here on out. The nice thing about moving to ExpressionEngine for managing our content is that adding new entries to our portfolio is as easy as writing to this blog.
The goal of the portfolio is to highlight our work and give you an idea of what we’ve done in the past. The descriptions will tell you what the client gave us at the start of the project and what we gave back in return. If you have any questions about a past project, feel free to let us know.
Most of the entries have links to the clients’ live site. Others do not. I’ll do my best to provide live links whenever I can.
I’d like to formally welcome our new (and first) project manager, Nick Gutschow.
Nick has been a friend of mine since we took German together our junior year at Michigan State University. After earning his bachelor’s degree in Analytic Philosophy, he moved to Taiwan to study and learn Mandarin Chinese. While there, he co-owned Intangible Logic, Inc, a brand development and design company where he oversaw many large projects covering not only web design, but print media and video development, marketing services, and exhibition design as well.
Nick’s role at NewSchool Learning is to take care of our clients. He answers all of our incoming emails and works in close liaison with our designers to ensure a quality theme and experience is delivered to everyone we work with, every time. He’s a genuinely great guy to work with and we’re very lucky to have him on board. If you have a project that you’d like to get started on, let him know.
I’m happy to announce the fifth redesign of NewSchool Learning in two years. While we still have a bit of work to do to get everything looking great and fully functioning, the essentials are certainly all here.
Most notably missing is our “themes” page. We’ll have that back up soon, I promise. We’re going to take our time to sort through our existing stockpile of themes. Some will inevitably make their way into Moodle 2.0. Others will get completely refreshed or recoded before they return for download here. A few of our older themes may never return. As we go through our inventory, we’ll keep you posted on what ends up where.
In the meantime, you can still download our free themes directly from the database on Moodle.org.
If you happen to notice something glaringly ugly over the next couple days, please be patient while we do some additional testing. This site is built on ExpressionEngine, which is flexible but new for us.
If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know. All in all, we hope to have the site completely back together within the next couple of months, but that deadline will be largely influenced by the amount of custom work we have coming in. If our business over the past two months is an indicator of the business we’ll have for the next two months, I wouldn’t hold your breath. Regardless of the pace, we’ll keep you informed.
Update: Everything appears to be working fine now in all browsers. Let us know if we missed anything.
