Moodle 101

2010 Moodle 101

Beginning Guide to Moodle Information Technoloy Services Concordia College, Moorhead, MN June, 2010

About This Course and Its Goals This course is designed for participants who have little or no previous experience using Moodle, or are interested in learning best practices for their setting up their courses. This is a hands-on learning session where participants will construct a real Moodle course step by step. Participants will learn how to design an effective Moodle site and create reusable learning objects (activities) that can be used in future courses. Faculty participants will also learn how to set up and manage the grade book.

As part of this activity, participants are asked to bring the following electronic materials with them (or copy these items to their X drive) as these items will be built into the course:  Course syllabus (Word document)  Faculty photo (jpg file preferred)  Other photos that may be used in the course  An old grade book or Excel file (optional)  Sample files such as Word, Excel, or PowerPoint  Sample assignment  Course or assignment rubric  Links to websites used for the course (optional)

Trivia Question 1: Moodle is an acronym for: (Trivia answers are at the end of this handout.)

M___________ O___________O___________ D___________ L___________ E___________

About Moodle Moodle is a learning management system which enables faculty to provide more resources and educational tools to their students. Today much of our education occurs outside the classroom. Moodle can be used to support student interactions and discussions outside of class, control the flow of learning, assess students, manage learning progress, and create mentoring opportunities.

Businesses also recognize the value of learning management systems and use Moodle (or systems like it) for employee performance management, controlling training resources, skill-gap analysis, facilitating collaborative learning, and more. Using Moodle helps students to prepare for the expectations of the business world.

Trivia Question 2: Who, other than students and faculty, can access Moodle?

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Logging Into Moodle Task 1: Log into Moodle Moodle is accessed through C-Port. You can log into C-Port the following ways: 1. Navigate to http://www.cord.edu and click on the Faculty and Staff link. a. SHORTCUT: https://cport.cord.edu/cp/home/displaylogin 2. Enter your user ID (a.k.a. alias) and password 3. Choose OK 4. Click the Moodle icon at the top of the screen:

5. If necessary, maximize the Moodle window.

Orientation to the Moodle Interface Exercise Questions: Use the diagram below or your computer screen to answer the following: 1. Where would you look to find a course you taught last semester?

2. How could you display this screen in German instead of English?

3. Where would you find an incoming message from a student?

4. Trick question: ITS has a Moodle course with samples of learning activities, Moodle handouts and Moodle tutorials. Which course category would you choose to find this Moodle course?

5. How would you locate a course if you knew its number but not its name?

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Entering Your Course Choose a link to one of your courses from the My Courses list (pictured above) on the left of your computer screen. An example what you’ll see is provided below.

Exercise Questions: Use the figure above or your computer screen to answer the following: 1. What is a block?

2. How could I view my course as a student would see it?

3. Where can I access help?

4. How do I log out of Moodle?

5. What does the Turn Editing On button do? If I activate this button how do I turn editing off?

6. Where do I go to add information such as my syllabus or upload files? (not pictured) Moodle Site Design

Preparing to Design Your Moodle Site The design of your Moodle site projects an impression about your course. For example, think about the different impressions students would formulate between a Moodle site rich in resources and information compared to one with only a few items uploaded.

The manner in which you utilize various Moodle activities and features as well as the manner in which you organize your Moodle site can work to engage students and facilitate learning. Moodle provides appropriate activities for different course levels and learning goals. You can also format your Moodle site by week, by topic, or by social format.

When organizing your Moodle site, think about the course level and learning outcomes you wish to achieve, and how Moodle resources and activities can be used to motivate students toward achieving the goals you set for them. The next page contains an example table to begin structuring your ideas.

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Sample Planner for Moodle Resources and Activities Week or Topic: Lesson Objective: Use the table below to select Moodle resources and activities and use the space provided to plan how the resources and activities can help students achieve the lesson objectives. All activities and resources should be short, simple, and have a strong impact to keep students motivated in coming back to your Moodle site.

High-impact resources could include useful templates or information, should peak students’ interests, or have an immediate application. High-impact activities are those which will challenge the student and might even be fun or engaging.

Resources

Use or Application

Activities (cont’d)

Light box Gallery

Forum

Text Page

Glossary

Web Page

Journal

Link to file or website

Lesson

Directory of files

Map

Blog

Podcast

Activities

Questionnaire

Assignment

Quiz

Chat

Survey

Choice

Wimba

Database

Wiki

Feedback

Workshop

Use or Application

(Detailed information on Moodle Resources and Activities will be covered in subsequent workshops and brown bag seminars.)

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Suggested Standards for Designing Your Moodle Site Students want to take classes from instructors who have expertise, a personable nature, and can engage students in the course. Interestingly, technology can help enhance these qualities. Listed below are just a few suggested standards for getting started:       

Create a personal profile and include a photo of yourself.

Create a headline with the course name and a subhead with your contact information. Include a picture of yourself or course-related image.

Change the name of the Forum in the headline area to "Announcements" so students know where to go for last-minute course updates.

Provide both a PDF copy of your syllabus and a web page version.

Include a short paragraph that summarizes the activities for each week and/or learning goals for each topic.

Place activities and resources in a logical sequence or a specific order you would like students to access them.

Survey your students throughout the course (using the Feedback activity, Choices, Questionnaires, or Colles surveys) to solicit input from your students.

Moodle courses richly populated with resources, information, and interactivity creates a positive impact with students. If you are unable to provide an adequate level of resources and information, consider using Moodle at another time.

Some institutions have formally adopted standards for courses. The Quality Matters Rubric Standards is one example of standards that were developed for online courses but can be applied to both off, online, or hybrid course development and instruction. Several organizations have published standards for courses ranging content standards, curriculum, instruction, and other standards. Before adopting standards consider the impact on students, the division or discipline, the institution, and faculty. Consider the resources which must be expended to formally institute standards and weigh that against both the short and long term benefits to be gained.

Be aware of trends in education and consider the future evolution of your instruction. For example, new trends in open education are redefining the kind of value students are seeking from their educational experiences. This trend has prompted some educators to record their lectures and produce offline lesson activities in order to provide more experiential learning opportunities in the classroom.

Customizing Moodle Customizing your Moodle site involves creating a profile, setting up your course layout and theme, uploading and creating a web page version of your syllabus, creating a course header with your picture and contact information, creating an area for course announcements. Each task below will step you through the process of customizing your Moodle site.

Task 1: Create your profile Having a profile in Moodle can convey to students that you are approachable, friendly, and open-minded.

All Moodle users have a single profile; it is not necessary to create a profile for each Moodle course. To edit or update your profile: 1. From your main classroom page, find the People block (upper left) and click the Participants link.

2. Find and select the link to your name.

3. Choose Edit profile. (If displayed, click the Hide Advanced button.)

4. Fill in the information you want other Moodle users to see about you.

Task 2a: Set up the course layout and theme The two most common methods for organizing your course are by week and by topic; there are other organizational methods as well. Follow these steps to change the way your course is organized: 1. Click Settings on the Administration block 2. Specify course full name (the name displayed on the top header of every page in your course) and short name (example: ENGL120) 3. Place a description of your course in the Summary window. You can copy/paste the description from your course catalogue here.

4. Choose the format for your course whether you want the course organized by topic, by week or something else.

5. Specify the number of weeks or topics.

Task 2b: Review course settings Most of the course settings can be left as their default however here is a list of settings you should check or can consider changing: 1. Verify the course start date 2. Show grade book to students: Yes/No 3. Force theme: Choosing No displays the Concordia theme. You can choose other themes.

4. Availability: you can control whether students can see your course or not.

5. Force language: you can control what language your course pages are displayed in.

6. Enrolment key: leave blank

Trivia Question 3: What is a Meta Course?

(See warning.)

Considerations for Your Syllabus One of the most convenient ways to create a syllabus is to use Microsoft Word; Word documents can be uploaded to Moodle for convenient access. The formatting used by Word is readable by most other programs such as WordPerfect, WordPro, Microsoft Works, and other word processors however there is a risk that some formatting or fonts will not convert exactly. You can preserve the original look of your document by saving that document as a PDF file. You can also copy and paste your syllabus as a web page in Moodle which is the fastest way in which students can view the document. Saving your syllabus as a PDF file and as a web page in Moodle are covered next.

Task 3: Saving your syllabus as a PDF file Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free software program (Adobe.com) which “reads” or takes a picture of your document preserving its original look and makes the document more portable across computing platforms.

Acrobat Reader saves the file as a Portable Document Format or PDF file type.

Here’s how you can use Word 2007 to save a copy of your Word document as a PDF file:

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1. In Word save an original copy of your syllabus.

2. To save the syllabus as a .PDF file choose the Office Button, Save As… 3. Choose PDF or XPS 4. Specify a file name (pictured right) 5. Verify the file type is PDF 6. Choose Publish Your document will be displayed in Acrobat Reader.

IMPORTANT: If you make changes to the syllabus in Word, you must resave the document as a .PDF file.

Task 4: Copy/paste syllabus as web page If you make your syllabus available as a web page in Moodle, students simply click on a link to the syllabus and it is immediately displayed. This is a great option for students who simply want to look at the syllabus and not print or save a copy. You should note that not all formatting may paste cleanly into as web page. Be sure to check the results of what was pasted.

Here’s how to create a web-page version of your syllabus: 1. Have a copy of your syllabus open in Word 2007. Press Ctrl+A to select all. Press Ctrl+C to copy the text.

2. In Moodle, make sure that editing is turned on 3. Locate the week or topic where you would like the syllabus to be located and choose the Add a Resource drop-down arrow 4. Choose Compose a web page 5. Under the general section Specify a name for the syllabus and indicate a brief description 6. Press Ctrl+V to paste your syllabus in the large Compose a web page box 7. Verify that New Window is selected in the Window section. This means that the web page will open in a new window when the link is clicked.

8. Choose Save and Return to Course Creating Headings and Subheadings in Your Course Moodle is more than a file-sharing application. Moodle is a learning management system capable of hosting synchronous classroom instruction and can provide instructional support outside the classroom. Adapting creative uses for on and offline instruction using Moodle can do much to boost students expectations of your course; many of these techniques will be covered in subsequent courses. A more simple way of raising students’ expectations is by having a professionally presented and organized Moodle site. Your goal in this course is to create a professional appearance for your Moodle classroom site through the use of headings and subheadings.

No matter which layout choice you’ve made, there will be a special area at the top for you to create a header for your class. In the header you can indicate the name of the course, your name, the days and 8|Page

times of the class, room location, your contact information, and more. Including a picture of yourself or a picture related to the content of the class is a nice touch. See example below.

Task 5a: Creating course header, include contact information This task will be completed in two parts: placing written content in your headline and inserting a picture.

Part I: 1. Make sure that editing is turned on.

2. Click the Edit Summary icon in the top-most section.

3. Type the following information in your header: a. Course name, days and b. Your name, office hours, and contact information c. Save the changes or move on to the steps in Part II. Part II: 1. If you have closed the Edit Summary window, follow steps 1 and 2 above.

2. Position the cursor where you would like a picture inserted and choose the Insert Images button.

3. Upload a photo by choosing the Browse button below and then Upload.

4. Select the link to your picture in the File Browser window. This automatically places a URL of your image at the top.

5. Specify alternate text for your picture.

6. Decide the alignment of your picture.

7. Recommended size for your image is less than 300 for both width and height.

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Create Subheadings Just as you used the Edit Summary button to add a heading to your course, you use the Edit Summary button to add a subhead and/or a brief description to each week or topic area. You can add additional subheadings to each week or topic area by choosing Add a Resource and selecting Insert a label.

Task 5b: Adding a subheading to a week or topic area and inserting a label This task will be completed in two parts: adding a subheading to a week or topic area, and inserting a label.

Part I: Inserting a subheading 1. Make sure that editing has been turned on 2. Select a week or topic and choose the Edit Summary button 3. Type and format the subheading information 4. Choose Save Changes Part II: Inserting a label 1. Make sure that editing has been turned on 2. Locate which week or topic you wish to add an additional subheading (label) to and select Insert a label from the Add a Resource drop down list.

3. Type the label information and any additional information needed 4. Choose Save and Return to Course Uploading and Organizing Files Previously you used Settings within the Administration block to define how your course would be laid out.

In the Administration block you will also find options to set up Grades and files. In this next task you will learn two methods for organizing and uploading your files. You will also learn to add a link to a directory of files.

Task 6a: Uploading files and pictures In this task you will use Files from the Administration block to organize and upload files. You will first create a folder to organize files and then upload files to that folder. A folder is also called a directory.

1. Click Files from the Administration block 2. Choose the Make a Folder button 3. Name the folder 4. Click the Create button 5. Select the folder from this list (this opens the folder) 6. Choose the Upload a File button 7. Browse to locate the file on your hard drive or external drive 8. Choose Upload this File The file you just uploaded is now located in the folder you just created. Repeat these steps creating folders to organize your files and upload files. Note that it is not necessary to store files in a folder however it is a good practice.

Task 6b: Uploading a file by adding it as a resource In this task you will upload a file by adding it as a resource.

1. Make sure that editing has been turned on.

2. Select a week or topic and choose Add a Resource 10 | P a g e

3. Choose Link to a file or web site 4. Specify a name for the file and indicate a description

5. Click the button Choose or upload a file…

6. There are two ways to select a file: a. If the file has already been uploaded, you can select it from one of the folders listed or within the main directory structure by clicking the CHOOSE link to the right of the file name. b. If you need to upload the file, choose the Upload a file button and browse to select the file from a local, network, or external drive. Once the file is uploaded, you click the CHOOSE link located to the right of the file name.

7. Choose Save and Return to course.

Task 6c: Adding a link to a directory (folder) Now that you know how to add a file, you can provide a link to the “directory” (folder). Before you begin this task, you should have created a directory (folder) within the Files link in the Administration block and you should have uploaded several files to this directory. Note that students cannot see “Files” in their Administration block therefore if you wish that students have access to a folder, you must follow these steps: 1. Make sure that editing has been turned on.

2. Find the week or topic area where you wish to have students access a directory of files displayed.

3. Choose Add a Resource 4. Choose Display a Directory 5. Provide a name and brief description of the directory (folder) 6. Under Display a directory select the directory/folder from the drop down list.

7. Choose Save and return to course.

Working with a Forum By default, a News Forum has been created for you to post announcements and important class information. This forum is one of four different types of forums you can create in Moodle. Other forum 11 | P a g e

types will be covered in subsequent training sessions. Since this forum is already located in the heading of your course, consider renaming this forum “Announcements” or something similar to draw students’ attention. When you post information in this forum, you have the option to e-mail that announcement to your students. Task 7 will walk you through the steps of renaming and posting to this forum.

Task 7a: Rename the News Forum to “Announcements” 1. Make sure that editing has been turned on 2. Choose the Update icon (hand and pencil) 3. Change the name News Forum to “Announcements” 4. Change the forum’s description if desired 5. Choose Save and Return to Course Task 7b: Post an Announcement and E-mail Students **WARNING: You may want to postpone this task until closer to your actual class date. Your first announcement can be a message to welcome students to class or you may want to walk through the steps and choose the back button in your browser window to cancel the operation. ** 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Select the Announcements forum Choose Add a New Topic Type a subject Type the announcement or message in the larger white box Click the Mail Now box (this one is easy to miss) Choose Post to Forum (or click the back button in your browser window to cancel)

Moving Objects on Screen Once you’ve added content in Moodle you may wish to change the order of the content so students will access the content in a more logical sequence. To begin this task, make sure you have several content items uploaded to your screen. You will move a content item to a new location.

1. Make sure that editing is turned on 2. Identify an object you wish to move and select the move icon 3. Dotted destination boxes will appear. Click the destination box where you would like the content object to be placed.

Creating an Assignment To add an assignment you go under “Add and Activity.” Moodle provides an option for four types of assignments: Advanced Uploading of Files (electronic submission), Online Text, Upload a Single File, and Offline Activity. If you wish to post a score for an in-class exam, project or activity you can choose Offline Activity.

Part I of this task will walk you through how to create an “offline” assignment – one that is turned in during class. Part II of this task will walk you through creating an assignment that can be uploaded to Moodle.

Part I: Task 8a: Creating an offline assignment 12 | P a g e

1. Make sure that editing is turned on.

2. Under “Add and activity…” select Offline Activity 3. Specify an assignment name and description and/or rubric information 4. If a grade will be issued for the assignment specify its value or choose no grade (Note: you control the display of the grade in the grade book.)

5. “Available from” automatically displays the date when the assignment was first made available to students.

6. Due date shows the date and time the assignment is due.

This date synchronizes with the Moodle calendar.

7. Choose Save and Return to Course.

SUGGESTION: This may be the first time your students have uploaded a file to Moodle so give them an opportunity to practice first. Create a practice online assignment for your students.

Creating a practice assignment also helps you become more familiar with grading online assignments and providing feedback.

Additional options: a. You can place students into groups and have each group turn in their assignment. Information on groups will be covered in subsequent training sessions. b. You can choose to show or hide the assignment using the Visible option. You can also show or hide an assignment from the main page of your classroom when editing is turned on. c. You can group assignments in grade categories such as “homework” or “case studies”. This information will be discussed in the next section Part II: Task 8b: Creating an online assignment 1. Make sure that editing is turned on.

2. Under “Add and activity…” select Advanced Uploading of files 3. Follow steps 3-6 above.

4. Underneath Due Date notice the “Prevent late submissions” option (Yes/No). a. If you choose Yes, the electronic drop box will be unavailable to students after the deadline has passed. b. If you choose No, the electronic drop box will still be available to students however the submission date will appear in red indicating to you the assignment was turned in late.

Additional options: a. Allow deleting permits students to delete a file and an upload again as long as the file has been designated as a draft. b. You can designate the total number of files you will allow for uploading. c. Allowing notes permit students to include comments about their assignment.

Exercise Questions: Work with a partner to answer the follow questions while viewing the main page of your Moodle classroom: 1. How would you rename an assignment?

2. How could you change the point value for an assignment?

3. How could you hide an assignment?

4. How could you delete an assignment?

5. Can you change an assignment that is currently offline to one that is online?

6. What would you use an online text assignment for?

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Setting Up the Grade Book (Before you begin, make sure to complete tasks 8a and 8b so you have some grade content to work with.)

The term “grade book” refers to Grades located in the Administration block. The Grades feature provides students with immediate scores and feedback on assignments, projects, exams and progress in the course.

You can use Grades to communicate information on any activity or exam.

As you create offline and online assignments, you have already gotten a start on putting your grade book together! Your next task will be to organize your grade book so it matches your syllabus and change your grade book preferences. The two most helpful views in the grade book are the Grader Report (default view) and the Full View. Each will be described next..

Accessing Grades / the Grader Report To view the grade book for your course, make sure you have logged into your course. Locate the Administration block on the left side of your screen. Click the grades link. This opens the Moodle grade book. By default, the Grader Report is displayed. Notice the “Turn Editing On” button.

Exercise questions: Work with a partner to observe and answer these questions: 1. As you turn editing on and off, observe the Range numbers. Will students see a percentage or a number as their grade?

2. Above the first graded item you’ll see your course name with a symbol. What happens when you click on the symbol?

3. What happens when you click on the link for an assignment? (choose the Back button) 4. What happens when you click on the link for a student? (choose the Back button) 5. What are some of the options under “Choose an Action”?

Working with the Full View The Grader Report is useful to see a breakdown of assignments and students, or to quickly input a score for an individual student. Another helpful way to look at the grade book is Full View where you can create categories for grade items and change the display of grades.

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To see the grade book in Full View select “Choose an action…” and Full View under Categories and Items.

Exercise questions: Bring the Full View on your screen and work with a partner to answer these questions: 1. How can I mark an assignment as extra credit? (There are two places.)

2. Where can I go to input individual grades for an assignment?

3. How can I change the default settings for an individual grade item such as changing the display to a number rather than a percentage or even hiding that grade item?

4. How do I create a category such as “Case Studies” to group my grade items together?

5. I want to add a case study assignment. Can I do that from here? How? (See special note.)

6. How do I delete a grade item?

7. In the example above, the course total doesn’t appear to be adding correctly. Why? Task 9: Add a new category and move grade items to that category 1. Make sure you are in Full View 2. Click the Add Category button 3. Specify a category name 4. Choose save changes 5. Locate a grade item you wish to move under the new category 6. Select the move icon in the action column 7. Click the destination cell within the new category

If Full View is a lot of information to look at give Simple View a try!

SPECIAL NOTES: a. When adding a grade item you’ll notice there is no place to input due dates. Grade items added through the grade book will not appear on students’ calendars in Moodle. b. The maximum value you can assign a quiz or assignment is 100 points however you can use Full View to enter grade items worth more than 100 points. You cannot adjust the points for a quiz or assignment using Full View. c. When creating a New Category you’ll notice some extra fields to input a grade item. Note: i.

When you have multiple grade items within a category, it is only necessary to enter the category name and save the changes.

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ii.

When you have a new category with a single grade item, you can enter them both in the New Category window.

IDEA: If your discipline tracks progress against specific competencies or competency models, you can use grade categories to track students’ progress against those models. You can measure students’ performance against industry standards by creating categories for each competency in the grade book.

Exporting Grades to Excel If you’re accustomed to using Excel for managing grades and flagging student progress, you do have the option to export your grades to an Excel spreadsheet. Exporting grades to Excel is recommended as a good method for backing up your data.

Task 10: Export the grade book to Excel 1. In the grade book select “Choose an action…”

2. Select Excel Spreadsheet under the Export category 3. If desired check “include feedback in export” (your comments and feedback) 4. Choose submit 5. A preview of the export file appears.

6. Choose the download button.

7. Select Save the file and choose okay. a. If you’re using Firefox the file will be saved to the Downloads folder in My Documents. b. If you’re using Internet Explorer you will be prompted to specify a location for saving the file.

Shortcuts Using Blocks   

Use the Activities block to quickly navigate to assignments, forums, and other resources and activities. The Activities block is a great way to quickly view groups of activities rather than try and find them in their respective weeks or topics.

As you’ve been adding assignments and due dates, you’ll notice the Upcoming Events block has been populated with due dates. Click the “Go to calendar…” link in the Upcoming Events block.

Additional blocks can be added to your course. Make sure that editing is turn on. Locate the Blocks block to add additional blocks.

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Overview and Questions In this course you have learned: 1. What Moodle is, it’s uses and applications for the education and even business 2. How to log into Moodle 3. How to enter your course 4. How to prepare for designing your Moodle site 5. How to customize the look of the Moodle interface 6. Special considerations for your syllabus 7. How to create a heading, subheadings and labels within your main course page 8. How to upload and organize files in directories 9. How to create a special forum called “Announcements” and e-mail forum postings to your students 10. Move objects on the Moodle screen 11. Create assignments 12. How to access and use the Grader Report, Full View and Simple view in the Moodle grade book 13. Create grade categories and specify grade items as extra credit 14. Change the default settings for grade items 15. Export grades to Excel 16. View activities by groups 17. Add additional blocks to your main classroom screen

Answers to Trivia Questions: 1. Moodle Acronym: Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment 2. Moodle can be used for non-academic purposes such as research, compiling information, and training for staff. Access to Moodle is limited in two ways: “authentication” meaning you must have a user ID and password to be able to log into the network and into Moodle, and by course enrollment.

3. Meta Course: If you teach more than one section of a course you may want to combine them into one course in Moodle. This is called a Meta Course. WARNING: You must contact your Moodle administrator if you wish to have a Meta course created; do not change the course settings.

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