What’s New? Welcome to Moodle 2! A host of improvements have been driven by staff feedback from the eLearning survey and student requests for more consistency within and across module pages. The font is re-sizeable for improved accessibility and a quick-search enables easy switching between module pages. The upgrade also includes long-awaited features such as drag and drop file uploading, quicker, easier editing and improved navigation.
Moodle Homepage Your homepage lists all your modules. You will be alerted to activity that requires your attention since your last login.
YOU WILL NOT NEED TO RE-BUILD YOUR MOODLE PAGES. All content will be copied across during the Summer upgrade.
Navigation Block The Navigation block appears on every Moodle2 page and is contextual. What appears in the expanding menu depends on your role (e.g. Lecturer/Student) and the page you are visiting. My moodle takes you to your personal dashboard. Site home is the front page of Moodle. Site pages expands to show pages and resources available site wide, such as user blogs or the calendar. My profile expands to allow you to view your profile, forum posts, blog entries and access to your Private files. My Courses lists the courses you are enrolled on. Clicking a folder icon will expand the link to show each section of the corresponding course and any activities/resources within it. Administration Block The new Administration Block is also contextual, e.g. when you enter the News Forum, a new Forum administration folder will appear at the top of the block. The Switch role to… option, which allows you to temporarily view your page as a student, is now located in the Administration block. Edit settings, which allows you to alter the course start date and the number of weeks/topics, also resides here within the Course administration folder. Section Links Block Section Links help you to quickly navigate to a particular section of your module page. Once you have scrolled away from the top of the page, a floating Back to Top button will appear at the bottom of the screen. Activities Block The Activities block, which provides quick and easy navigation to all activities in module, is not a new feature, but is particularly useful for students trying to locate various set tasks such as Turnitin assignments. This block will be automatically added to your Moodle2 page. Activity Chooser The Add a Resource and Add an Activity menus are now accessible via the Activity Chooser by clicking on the +Add an activity or resource link. Several new resources and activities are available. Click on each to reveal a synopsis, helpful links and video clips on the right.
Conditional Activities Moodle2 enables you to restrict the availability of any activity, or even an entire section, according to certain conditions. E.g. Students are only able to download PowerPoint slides after 1st March and once they have completed a Checklist activity. To set conditions, edit the Restrict access settings of the relevant resource. Managing Resources and Activities The set of editing icons that used to reside next to each resource can now be accessed via a sliding Three-dot menu: You are now able to Duplicate existing resources and use the Edit icon to quickly rename them without re-loading the page. You can easily move Resources, Sections and Blocks using the Drag and Drop cross threads The icon to Edit Settings of a resource/activity is now a Cog
Text Activity & Consistent Formatting Click the Toolbar Toggle in the text editor to reveal the full range of improved editing options. Paragraphs offer a set of pre-formatted options to enable quick and easy text editing. Styles allow you to highlight important text in a consistent fashion. The Insert Template button allows you to display text in a pre-defined format, such as a Reading List.
Drag & Drop File Upload To add files to your Moodle page, Turn Editing On and simply drag and drop them onto the course section where you would like them to appear. You can also drag images: Moodle will ask if you want to display the image by selecting Add image to module page or Create a file resource. To add a folder of files, zip the folder then drag it to the course section where you would like it to appear. Select Unzip files and create folder from the popup dialogue box, then click Upload. NOTE: Drag & drop does not work in IE9. You may wish to use Chrome to take advantage of this feature.
File Picker Moodle2 no longer organises files through a central Files Area associated with an individual module. The new File Picker allows files to be selected and displayed in Moodle from a variety of sources and can be accessed in a range of ways. E.g. The File Picker will open when you select File from the Activity Chooser or add an attachment to a forum post. The File Picker lists a selection of Repositories on the left hand side, including the Upload a file option that you will already be familiar with: Server files allows you to see files from any module you are teaching. Recent files allows you to locate the last 50 files that you uploaded. Upload a File enables you to browse and upload files from your computer. Private files is an area for you to upload and manage a set of files that cannot be seen by anyone else. This area is also accessible via the Navigation or Private Files blocks. Enrolling Lecturers Lecturers and Department Administrators are able to assign the roles of Lecturer and Associate Lecturer to other users: In the Administration block open the Course administration folder. Select Users and then Enrolled users. You will be taken to a page that lists currently enrolled users. Click the Enrol users button. Select the role you wish to assign from the drop down menu. Under Enrolment options, you may set a starting date and enrolment duration, if you wish. Enter the name or email address of the user you wish to enrol in the search box and click Search. Locate the correct name and click Enrol and then Finish enrolling users.
If you have any questions, the eLearning Team is available at the SIZ * Mon
Tues
Wed
Thurs
Fri
9–10.30am
SIZ - BOC
SIZ - BRC
SIZ – BOC
SIZ - BRC
Tel/email
2–3.30pm
SIZ - BOC
SIZ – BRC
SIZ – BOC
SIZ - BRC
Tel/email
Telephone 01243 793535 or email eLearning@chi.ac.uk
* Subject to change – please check http://tinyurl.com/elearning-siz