Introduction to Moodle for Teachers
Workbook
Edition 1 May 2012 Document Reference: 3756-2012
Introduction to Moodle for Teachers
Contents 1. Getting Started Logging In and Accessing a Course ................................................................................ 1 Course Formats .............................................................................................................. 3 Adding Names and Summaries to Topics........................................................................ 4
2. Adding Basic Resources Files ................................................................................................................................ 5 URLs ............................................................................................................................... 7 Images ............................................................................................................................ 8 Videos ........................................................................................................................... 11 Moodle Pages ............................................................................................................... 13
3. Improving the Appearance of your Course Adding Labels ............................................................................................................... 14 Moving Resources......................................................................................................... 15 Hiding Topics and Resources. ....................................................................................... 16
4. Blocks Hiding and Docking Blocks ............................................................................................ 18 Adding Blocks ............................................................................................................... 19
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[email protected]. Copyright © IS 2012 Permission is granted to any individual or institution to use, copy or redistribute this document whole or in part, so long as it is not sold for profit and provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. Where any part of this document is included in another document, due acknowledgement is required.
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1. Getting Started Logging In and Accessing a Course 1. Open a web browser and navigate to www.moodle.is.ed.ac.uk 2. Log in using the vletst EASE username and password that you have been given. 3. Click on My Home in the Navigation block on the left.
Moodle is divided into three columns. The columns on the left and right display small boxes called blocks. Blocks display navigation links and supplementary information such as the calendar and news. The Navigation block is always at the top left – it provides a useful way to move around within Moodle. The breadcrumb trail directly above the Navigation block can also be useful for this. The Settings block appears under the Navigation block, this is essential for administrating and editing your course. The breadcrumb trail appears above the Navigation block and can be useful to find your way around Moodle. The middle column is the content area, which on the My home screen displays all the courses you have access to. “Staff Moodle Help” – All Moodle teachers have access to this course, which contains resources to support people creating Moodle courses. “Sample Course – Higher Education Film Studies Module” - All Moodle teachers also have access to this course as an example of what can be achieved using Moodle. 4. Click on the Training Course to enter it.
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If you are attending a training session you will have been given access to an empty Training Course to use today. Please note that you will not have access to the Training course after today, so if you want to save any of the content you create during the training session you will need to download it before the end of the course – please ask the instructor how to do this. If you are working through this workbook in your own time you can use any Playground course that you can access as a teacher. If you do not have access to a Playground course please email
[email protected] and request that one is set up for you.
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Course Formats There are four course formats available in Moodle:
SCORM format – Allows you to display a SCORM package in the first section of the course page (SCORM is a standard for sharable e-learning content). Social format - A forum is displayed on the course page. Topics format - The course page is organised into topic sections. Weekly format - The course page is organised into weekly sections, with the first week starting on the course start date.
1. Go to the Settings block and click on Edit Settings.
Here you can change your course’s name and summary information (although please don’t change the name of the Training Courses). 2. 3. 4. 5.
Under Format choose Topics format. Under Number of weeks/topics choose 3 from the dropdown menu. Under Course start date choose today’s date. Go to the bottom of the page and click on the Save changes button.
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Adding Names and Summaries to Topics Each topic box has an area at the top where you can put a heading or title for that topic section. As well as the numbered topics there is also an unnumbered section above them that can be used for a subheading and general information about your course. 1. Click on Turn editing on in the Settings block.
2. In the main heading box at the top click on the Edit summary button to access the Summary page.
3. Untick the Use default section name box. 4. Type Polar Bears in the Section name box. 5. Type ‘Everything you ever wanted to know about polar bears.’ in the Summary box. 6. Click on the Save changes button. 7. Rename the three numbered topics as ‘Resources’, ‘Map’ and ‘Video’. 8. Turn editing off in the Settings block. Your course will look something like this:
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2. Adding Basic Resources Files You can add any sort of file that you want your students to be able to download - for example Word documents, PowerPoint presentations or PDFs. 1. Turn on editing. 2. In the Resources topic, click on the Add a resource… drop-down menu and choose File.
3. Enter the Name ‘Document 1’ and the Description ‘Test document’ for the file you will be adding. 4. Click the Add… button in the Content section. The File picker window will appear. 5. In the File Picker choose Upload a file.
6. Next to Attachment click the Browse button. 7. Browse to a Word document on your computer and click Open. If you are attending a Moodle training session you can find a Word document in the Moodle folder within the Documents folder. 8. Click Upload this file. 9. Click Save and return to course. 10. Find and click on the Document 1 you just added to the Resources topic. 2 Adding Basic Resources
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11. Choose Open and check that the document opens in Word. Click Cancel if you are prompted for a username or password.
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URLs 1. Check that editing is still turned on. 2. In the Resources topic, click on the Add a resource… drop-down menu and choose URL. 3. Enter the Name ‘Polar Bears International website’ and the Description ‘Conservation through research, stewardship, and education’. 4. Enter www.polarbearsinternational.org in the External URL box. 5. Choose In pop-up from the Display menu. 6. Click the Save and return to course button. Your Resources topic will now look like this:
It is good practice to tell people if a URL is going to open in a pop-up window – we will add a label to do this later in the workbook.
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Images There isn’t a specific choice to add an image in Moodle so we will add one using the Label resource. 1. Open http://tiny.cc/arctic-map in a web browser and save the image Polar_bear_range_map.png to your computer. 2. Go to your Moodle training course and check that editing is turned on. 3. In the Map topic, click on the Add a resource… drop-down menu and choose Label. 4. In the Label text editor click on the Insert/edit image icon.
5. Click on the Find or upload an image… link.
6. The File picker will open, click on Upload a file. 7. Click on the Browse… button, locate the Polar_bear_range_map.png file and click Open.
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8. Delete the text in the Author field so it is blank and change the Choose license: drop-down menu to Public domain. This image came from the Wikimedia Commons website, where it is explicitly stated it is in the public domain. Be aware of the copyright status of images downloaded from the web. 9. Click on Upload this file. 10. Type ‘Map showing Polar Bears’ range in the Arctic’ as the Image description, then click the Insert button. It is important that you include a useful image description to improve accessibility for visually impaired people using screen readers. 11. In the Label text editor, press return to create a new line under the image and type ‘Map of Polar Bears’ Range’ as the image title. Text below the image could also be used to display any copyright information - see the Film sample course for examples of this. 12. Click the Save and return to course button, the map image should be displayed in the second topic.
Note that the image is too big to fit on the page and a horizontal scroll bar has appeared. Try to avoid horizontal scrolling in your courses, as it makes it more likely that students will miss information. 2 Adding Basic Resources
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Introduction to Moodle for Teachers 13. Click on the Update icon below the image.
14. Select the image in the Label text editor and resize it using the grab handles.
15. Click Save and return to course.
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Videos 1. Check that editing is turned on. 2. In the Video topic, click on the Add a resource… drop-down menu and choose Label. 3. In the Label text editor click on the Moodle Media icon.
4. The Insert/edit embedded media window will appear. Click on Find or upload a sound, video or applet... link.
5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
The File picker window will appear. Choose YouTube videos. Type in ‘polar bears’ into Search videos and click the Search button. Select the fourth video (“HD: ‘Ice Skating’ Polar Bears – Nature’s Great Events”). Change the Author to BBC One. Under Choose license select Other. 2 Adding Basic Resources
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You can embed YouTube videos in your course as you are not making a copy of the video, just linking to it. Make sure you consider the copyright of any other sort of video you want to include. 10. Click the Select this file button. 11. The video will be previewed in the next pop up window. Click the Insert button. A blue link to the video will appear in the Label text editor.
12. Click the Save and return to course button at the bottom of the page. 13. Play the video embedded in the Video topic.
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Moodle Pages A Moodle course does not have to be just the home page - you can add pages to the topics. Pages are a useful way to add information without making the home page very long. Reading lists, videos and images can all be put on their own page. 1. Check that editing is turned on. 2. Click on the Add a resource… drop-down menu in the Resources topic and choose Page. 3. Type ‘Reading List’ for the page Name and ‘Books to read’ as the Description. 4. In the Page content editor type ‘Andrew, M. (1990). Nanook the polar bear’. 5. Enter a new line and type ‘Wikipedia Polar Bear Article (this link opens in a new window)’. 6. Select Wikipedia Polar Bear Article and click on the Insert/edit link button.
7. In Link URL type ‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear’. 8. In the Target menu select Open in new window (_blank). 9. Click on the Insert button. 10. Click the Save and return to course button at the bottom of the page. 11. Click on the Reading List link to view the page.
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3. Improving the Appearance of your Course Adding Labels 1. Check that editing is turned on. 2. In the Resources topic, click on the Add a resource… drop-down menu and choose Label. 3. Type ‘The following link will open in a pop-up window:’ in the Label text editor. You can change the font style, size and colour using the commands at the top of the text box – these are similar to the usual Microsoft Word formatting commands. However, please think carefully before using lots of different fonts and colours on your Moodle pages as it can be distracting to the reader. If you want to have headings, use the heading styles in the Paragraph drop-down menu as this aids accessibility. If you know HTML you can use the Edit HTML Source button to edit the page in HTML.
4. Click on Save and return to course. The Resources topic should look similar to this:
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Moving Resources 1. Check that editing is turned on. 2. Click and hold the Move icon next to the “The following link…” label in the Resources topic.
3. Drag the link so that it is above the Polar Bears International website URL (a grey line will appear indicating its position) before releasing it. The Resources topic should now look like this:
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Hiding Topics and Resources. Both whole topics and individual resources can be hidden in Moodle. This can be used so that students cannot see areas you are working on. Students can’t see hidden resources, but other teachers can. By default, students can see that a hidden topic exists, but not its name or content – you can change the course settings so that hidden topics are completely invisible. 1. Check that editing is turned on. 2. Click the Hide icon to the right of the Video topic.
3. Click the Hide icon next to the Document 1 file in the Resources topic.
4. In the Settings block on the left, click Switch role to…, then Student.
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You are now viewing your course as a student – notice that neither the Video topic, nor the Document 1 file link, is visible. 5. Click Return to my normal role in the Settings block. 6. Turn editing on again and click the Show icons next to the Video topic and the test document file link to make them visible again.
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4. Blocks Blocks appear on the left and right sides of the main Moodle content. They usually take information from another part of your course (such as a glossary or forum), or from an external site (such as Twitter). You can decide whether the block will appear in the left or right column, and can set the order of blocks in each column. Students cannot add, delete or move blocks but they can hide them or put them into the dock. Most blocks need configuring before they will display information.
Hiding and Docking Blocks 1. Click once on the grey arrow at the top right of the Search forums block (top right) to hide it. Click again to show it.
2. Click on the Move this to the dock icon in the Search forums block to dock it on the left side of the screen.
3. Hover over Search forums in the dock and click on the Undock this item icon to move the block back to the main area.
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Adding Blocks 1. Check that editing is turned on. 2. Find the Add a block block at the bottom of the left column. Choose Twitter Search from the menu. 3. Click on the Edit icon in the On Twitter block.
4. Type polar bears into the Search Term box. 5. In the On this page section choose Region Right and Weight -8. The lower the weight the higher the block will appear in the column, relative to the weights of the other blocks in the column. 6. Click the Save changes button. The Polar Bears on Twitter block should appear at the top of the right column and display 2 tweets containing the words “polar bears”. You can also set the block’s location using its Move icon.
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