oit
Instructional Media Lab
Getting Started with Moodle
June 2011 Getting Started with Moodle .......................................................... 1 Moodle Overview ........................................................................... 2 Log in to Moodle ............................................................................. 3 The Moodle Home Screen .............................................................. 4 Five Things to Remember ............................................................... 5 Moodle Course Layout .................................................................... 6 Course Settings ............................................................................... 7 Adding Content ............................................................................... 8 Moodle Activities ............................................................................ 9 News Forum .................................................................................. 10 Roles ............................................................................................. 11 Groups .......................................................................................... 11 Assignments .................................................................................. 13 Best Practices for Making Moodle Usable for Students ............... 14 OIT Academic Computing
Lederle Graduate Research Center Room A205
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Phone: (413) 545-2823
Email: instruct@oit.umass.edu
http://www.oit.umass.edu/academic
OIT Academic Computing, University of Massachusetts
http://www.oit.umass.edu/academic
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Moodle Overview
Moodle is a widely-used open source learning management system (LMS), that can be used to
deliver course content and host online learning activities. UMass Amherst is transitioning oncampus courses with an online component to Moodle by January 2013. Instructors can begin
converting their courses from SPARK to Moodle as soon as Fall 2011. SPARK will be available
for teaching until the end of Fall 2012.
Moodle promises to be a more efficient and rewarding online learning environment for instructors
as much as students. It offers a variety of ways for students to communicate with each other and
collaborate on projects; and its design is simple and user-friendly compared to similar systems.
With so many tools, Moodle will be an asset to instructors who do everything online, as well as
those who use it to simply post grades.
If you don’t have a clear idea of how you wish to use Moodle in your course, please refer to the
Planning Questionnaire document or call the Instructional Media Lab at 545-2823 to set up an
appointment with one of our consultants. The consultants can give you an introduction on how
Moodle can help you reach your individual instructional goals.
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Log in to Moodle
Go to the Log in page: https://moodle.umass.edu
For easy access to Moodle, save this URL as a Bookmark or Favorite in your browser.
To log in, enter your NetID (OIT Account user name) and UMail password and click Login. The
Moodle Home screen will open.
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The Moodle Home Screen
The first screen you will see when you login to Moodle is the Home screen. The column at left
contains links to the Navigation Block. The center column is a list of information from the system
administrators. The column at right contains additional information about Moodle.
1. Home, My Home, and My Courses
The Navigation Block is the most reliable way to find your
way around Moodle.
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Home is the entry page for all of Moodle.
My Home lists the courses in which you are currently
enrolled. Anyone can customize their My Home page
by adding blocks such as the Calendar or Upcoming
Events, to show deadlines and events for the classes
they are teaching or taking.
My Courses lists each Course in which you are enrolled.
Course pages are listed by their “short names.”
Note: In the Navigation bar (or “breadcrumbs”) at the very top
of the page, Home links to the entry page for all of Moodle, not
the Course homepage! Also, unlike with most Web sites, some
locations in the Navigation bar may not be clickable.
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Five Things to Remember
1. The Back Button Works!
You can use the navigation in your browser to move around in Moodle.
2. Use the "Eye" Icon to hide things.
To hide sections, blocks, activities or resources from your students, click Turn Editing On and
click the Eye icon next to the course element (e.g. block, activity, etc.) you wish to hide or show.
3. URLs can link directly into your course site.
If you want to bookmark your course, or put a link to it in an email or Web page, you can use the
URL displayed in your browser's location bar to link directly to that part of your Moodle course.
A log in screen will control access, and only those enrolled in the course will be allowed in.
4. Moodle doesn't have a File Manager.
In Moodle, when you upload a file to your course it goes into the System Files for your course.
Moodle does not provide a tool for managing those files; rather, if you delete the link to a file
from your Moodle course, it deletes the file from the course's System Files. Be sure you have a
local backup copy on your computer!
5. Need help? Click the yellow circle.
Throughout Moodle, you will see yellow circles with question marks (?) or the letter (i) in
them. Click these to get information about the associated element. Some are simple glossary
entries, while others offer more details or links to help documentation on the Moodle
website (Moodle.org).
The "i" at the bottom of a page links to the Moodle Docs help for the page-type. moodle.org
offers many pages of documentation and forums which should provide answers to most
questions about Moodle. Just keep an eye on the date of the posts, and the version of Moodle
being referenced--we are using Moodle 2.0.
As this project evolves OIT will provide additional handouts and tutorials to help you use
Moodle. Instructors and TA's can contact the Instructional Media Lab with questions: (413)
545-2823 or instruct@oit.umass.edu.
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Moodle Course Layout
Moodle is structured around "Blocks" and "Sections"
In Moodle, a course is delivered via a single page, divided into columns. The side columns
contain Blocks and the center column contains Sections.
Blocks
Sections
Blocks
Blocks
The columns on each side of a Moodle page contain Blocks. The Navigation and Settings
blocks are required, but other blocks are optional. You can also rearrange the blocks in the
sidebars and set whether particular blocks show only on the course homepage, or on all
pages.
Most blocks update themselves automatically with information about the course. For
example, blocks such as Calendar and Upcoming Events update themselves as date-based
activities are added to the course.
Blocks are displayed at any given moment depends on your location in Moodle. The blocks
displayed on your Course homepage are different from those displayed when viewing an
assignment or forum page. These blocks also depend on your Role. For example, instructors
may see blocks that students don't see.
Sections
The central column is divided into Sections where course content and activities are displayed.
You can use the sections in a similar manner to Folders in SPARK; to organize your course
by topic, or you can have Moodle automatically create a section per week.
Inside each Section, you can put links to Resources (PDFs, HTML pages, URLs, etc.), and
Activities (e.g. discussion forums, assignments, quizzes, etc.). The Label resource can be used
to add text, pictures, or links to other resources on the web.
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Course Settings
Settings > Course Administration > Edit Settings
The overall settings for your course are found in the Settings Block of your
Course homepage. Click Edit Settings to make changes.
Some settings are populated automatically with information from SPIRE
when the course is created. Other settings are up to the instructor.
The Edit Settings page is where you format the course by Topic or by Week,
choose how many sections appear in the center column, choose a theme
(visual style), and make grades visible to students.
Note: The Settings block is context-aware and provides access to a different
group of settings based on your location in your Moodle course. To edit the
settings for your course, you need to be on your Course Home page. To
edit the settings for a forum, go to the forum and then to the Settings block.
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Adding Content
Click "Turn Editing On" to add content to your course homepage
There are two ways to turn editing on and off, the Turn editing on button in the
upper right-hand corner, and the Turn editing on link in the Settings block.
When editing is on, small icons will appear next to
each editable element on the page. Place your cursor over an
an icon to find out its name and what it does.
Add Resources and Activities to Sections
To add content or activities to your
course, first go to a section, and then
use the drop-down menus in that section
to add a resource or activity.
Tip: To help students find activities
or resources of one type
(e.g. all assignments),
add the Activities block to your course.
Each new type of activity you use will be
added to the Activities block, similarly to the
Course Tools Menu in SPARK, but automated!
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Moodle Activities
Moodle has a number of built-in activities you can use to build your course and interact with your
students.
Assignments allows you to collect and manage student homework. Options for assignments
include online homework collection and offline homework tracking.
Chat allows participants to have a real-time, browser-based conversations. These chats can be
logged for reference.
Choice allows you to create a simple, one-question survey to poll your students. Choice survey
results can be open or anonymous.
Database allows you to create an organized collection of content or media that you and your
students can populate. Content in the database can take almost any form: files, images, text, links,
etc.
Forum, also known as discussion boards and bulletin boards, allow for asynchronous group
communication between students and instructors.
Glossary allows instructors and students to create and maintain a list of terms and definitions.
Lesson provides a highly customizable structure for presenting course material based on student
responses to questions and choices. Lessons combines the functionality of course content,
quizzes, and surveys.
Quiz allows an instructor to deliver online quizzes consisting of a range of question types,
including multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions.
SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) are packages of online course materials
and activities you might receive from a text book publisher.
Survey allows instructors to gather data from their students using a pre-built set of questions.
Turnitin Assignment lets you connect to the UMass Library's Turnitin "originality detection"
service which checks student writing against the Web and against a database of previously
submitted works.
Wiki allows you to create collaboratively-authored Web documents with your students. Wikis
can be individual or group activities.
Workshop is an assessment activity that allows for peer evaluation of student work through
phased review.
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News Forum
The News Forum is really an Announcements tool.
Every course comes with a special forum, the News Forum, that acts something like the
Announcements tool in SPARK.
The News forum has some unique behaviors:
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It can only live in the top section.
The News Forum is always located in the top section of your course.
The Latest News block and News Forum are interconnected.
The Latest News block displays the titles of your most recent posts to the News Forum,
and links to those posts.
Subscribing to the forum sends new posts as emails.
By default, the News Forum forces all members of the class to subscribe, which sends an
email of your posts to the entire class. You can make subscription optional or disable it,
but when subscription is forced, the News Forum is a great way to email notices to your
entire class, as there is no mail tool in Moodle.
Moodle gives you half an hour to edit a new post before it is sent out as email—unless
you are feeling very confident and check the Mail Now option before posting.
If you don’t wish to use the News Forum you can hide it (click the Eye icon), but many
instructors find it a useful tool in Moodle for posting announcements and updates.
Who can post to the News Forum?
By default, only the instructor can post to the News Forum and there is no commenting. The
instructor can extend the ability to make posts to any class member by setting Locally assigned
roles.
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Roles
You have different "Roles" you can use to view your course
Within Moodle, each user has a default role.
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Teacher (default role for instructors) - can add resources and activities, change course
settings, grade student activity.
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Non-editing teacher (default role for TAs) - can view content, review and grade student
submissions.
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Student (default role for students) - can view resources and participate in activities but
cannot create them.
Depending on your role in Moodle, you may be able to switch to other
roles; for instance, if you are a Teacher, you can switch to a Student
role to see how the course looks to a student.
Groups
The Groups feature allows an instructor to assign students and instructors to one or more groups
for the entire course or for individual activities.
Using groups allow the instructor to:
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Set up groups of students that are completely separate from other groups.
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Partially separate groups, where one group can see other groups' activities, but cannot
interact with the other group(s).
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Identify each group with an icon.
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Communicating with Students
"Mail" in Moodle is a little different!
Moodle does not have a dedicated mail tool like SPARK for sending individual and mass emails.
If you’ve relied on SPARK’s mail feature, you'll need to adapt a little bit. Moodle does provide
many other ways for you and your students to stay in contact:
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Subscribing to Forums
Forums provide the closest thing to SPARK’s mail if you like to keep all
communications within the course. Subscribers to a forum get an email when new
posts are added.
As with the News Forum (described above) instructors can force subscription or
make them optional. Class members can also opt to receive emails from forums as a
daily digest or each time there's a new post. You can limit participation in a forum to
particular groups as a way to facilitate group communication.
Messages
Moodle's Messages module (in My Profile) is the most reliable way to engage in
synchronous one-to-one messaging (like instant messaging, or messaging in
Facebook). Once you add someone as a contact, messages are logged and you’ll be
able to access the history of exchanges with a particular student.
Note: Messages are people-based, not course-based. Individuals determine (in My
Profile Settings) how they want to handle incoming messages: they can choose to see
a pop-up notification on-screen, receive an email when a new message comes in, or
they can choose neither.
Mail settings in “My Profile”
You and your students can go to My Profile Settings to set up Moodle to send emails
about a number of other activities. For example, you can get an email when posts are
made to particular forums or students can get an email when they receive feedback
on an assignment, or if they want a receipt confirming they completed a quiz.
Moodle sends email to your official UMass address
Moodle sends all messages to official UMass email addresses (UMail). If a student
(or instructor) wants to have email delivered to a different address they can set up a
forwarding using the UMail Post Office.
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Assignments
An Assignment can be added to a course section by an instructor. When you add an assignment
you can configure it through the Assignment Settings page. You also access these settings through
the Update Assignment button.
Assignment name
Give your assignment a name (e.g. “Report on Topic Content”). The name entered here will be
the title that students see in the course content area. Students will click on this name to view the
details of the assignment and, if applicable, submit their work.
Description
The description of the assignment, which should include precise instructions for students
regarding the subject, the format, and grading criteria for the assignment, etc.
Available from
This date prevents students from submitting their assignments before the indicated time.
Due date
This date is the deadline for the assignment your students will see.
Prevent late submissions
If set to "No", assignments submitted after the due date will be marked as late, but students will
still be able to submit them. If set to "Yes", assignment submission will be blocked after the due
date.
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Best Practices for Making Moodle Usable for Students
Use simple, consistent visual design
To avoid increasing cognitive load for your learners:
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Use no more than 3 font styles per page—this includes text color, size, font face, etc..
Use the same set of font styles across each course site.
Make your course universally accessible
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Avoid low contrast text color or distracting highly saturated colors
Provide alternative text for images
Provide captioning for audio content
Tricks for avoiding the “Moodle scroll of death”
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Use the Collapsed topics mode for your course Format.
Don't deliver course content right on the Course Page (in labels, for instance), rather, use
the Course Page as a "launch pad” and link to content.
Teach your students to use the Show Only [this] Topic/Week button, and limit the
content in each section to fit in one screen (without having to scroll down)
Don’t use huge pictures, especially not in the top section. If you insert images, keep them
small and align them left or right so that text will wrap around them.
Allow users (your students) to dock blocks. Especially in a three-column layout, docking
the blocks in the left column can open up screen "real estate."
Avoid side to side scrolling
Avoid placing large images or wide HTML tables in topic/weekly sections or on HTML pages.
Keep Activity names short!
Don't use the Activity name to deliver instructions, use a section label or description for that.
Activity names are displayed in breadcrumbs and navigation so they may be truncated, or make
the breadcrumb bar too long.
Use Labels to guide students
Use headings, annotations, and indents to organize the content of each topic/weekly section.
(Continued.)
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Best Practices for Making Moodle Usable for Students
(continued.)
Avoid using links in Labels
Links that are created in label text rather than as resources are not logged, so their use can’t be
tracked.
Be careful if you copy & paste from Word
Moodle’s “clean word” button helps, but can’t strip out all the junk code created by pasting text
from MS Word. If you are writing in word, you may want to wait and format text in Moodle. If
you experience problems, try copying text from Word into a new Word document using Paste
special: unformatted text. Then copy the next from the new page and paste it into Moodle.
Use Topic Names and Topic Summaries for course sections
Topic Summaries not only help to organize your course page; they show in various menus.
Because they show in menus you’ll want to keep them short. Use labels for descriptions, rather
than topic Summaries.
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