moodle 2 upgrade from 1.9
DESCRIPTION
This handout details some of the new features in Moodle 2.2.TRANSCRIPT
Update from 1.9
North Dakota Universi ty System
Advanced Learning Technologies
Moodle 2.2
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Copyright Information
This is a document of Advanced Learning Technologies of the North Dakota University System. North
Dakota University System institutions and its users are allowed to create, develop, copy, and use this
document or derivatives thereof for internal training purposes, pursuant to any licensing or copyright
issues.
With this document, portions were taken verbatim from http://docs.moodle.org. Moodle
documentation is Copyright @2005 onwards by the individual authors as noted. It is provided to all
under the terms of the GNU Public License.
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Table of Contents
About Moodle ............................................................................................................................................... 5
Training Goals ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Interface .................................................................................................................................................... 6
Themes .................................................................................................................................................. 6
Examples of New Themes ..................................................................................................................... 7
Docking Blocks .......................................................................................................................................... 8
Navigation Block ....................................................................................................................................... 9
Settings Block ............................................................................................................................................ 9
Course administration............................................................................................................................. 10
Settings ................................................................................................................................................ 10
Switch Role to… ................................................................................................................................... 10
My Profile Settings .............................................................................................................................. 10
Comments Block ................................................................................................................................. 10
Managing Content .................................................................................................................................. 11
Content Management Improvements ................................................................................................ 11
Workflow Example .............................................................................................................................. 12
Locating the File and Folder ................................................................................................................ 14
HTML Text Editor ................................................................................................................................ 14
Quiz Changes ....................................................................................................................................... 16
Conditional Activities .............................................................................................................................. 17
Grade Condition .................................................................................................................................. 18
Completion Tracking ............................................................................................................................... 19
Activity Completion ............................................................................................................................. 19
Course Completion status block ......................................................................................................... 20
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Blogs ........................................................................................................................................................ 21
Adding a blog entry ............................................................................................................................. 21
Course Blogs ............................................................................................................................................ 21
External blogs ...................................................................................................................................... 22
Wikis ........................................................................................................................................................ 22
Forums .................................................................................................................................................... 23
Standard forum displayed in blog-like format .................................................................................... 23
Workshop ................................................................................................................................................ 24
Setup phase ......................................................................................................................................... 24
Submission phase ................................................................................................................................ 25
Assessment phase ............................................................................................................................... 25
Grading evaluation phase ................................................................................................................... 25
Closed .................................................................................................................................................. 26
Rubrics..................................................................................................................................................... 26
MyMobile ................................................................................................................................................ 28
Training Resources ...................................................................................................................................... 29
Book: Moodle 2.0 First Look ............................................................................................................... 29
Websites.............................................................................................................................................. 29
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About Moodle
Moodle is an open source learning management system (LMS) used at institutions in the North Dakota
University System (NDUS) to support and manage learning for students, faculty and staff. Moodle
provides an opportunity for faculty to extend their teaching capabilities and service students, as well as
support learning communities.
Moodle’s structure is founded upon a specific learning-centered education philosophy called social
constructionism whereby people learn through engaging in the social process of constructing
knowledge. Activities like Moodle’s Workshop make learning central to the task. Moodle provides the
capability to discuss and share digitally created artifacts for learning. In contrast to other LMS’s, Moodle
focuses on sharing ideas and actively engaging students in the construction of knowledge; when used as
intended Moodle goes beyond simply delivering information.
The North Dakota University System first implemented Moodle in 2008. Moodle has always had the
capability to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies and now this latest version has evolved to incorporate
mobile computing, support stronger integration with third party add-on products, and to extend the
reach of learning communities.
Training Goals The goal of this course is to provide Moodle users with a comprehensive understanding of the changes
and new features in Moodle 2.2 including:
Moodle’s interface and existing activities Content management
Conditional activities Completion tracking
Updates to blogs and forums Rubrics
MyMobile
Prerequisite: This manual is intended for users with prior experience using Moodle 1.9 in an academic
or support environment. For an introductory overview of Moodle 2.2, see training resources located at
the end of this guide.
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Interface The Moodle 2.2 interface is more versatile than earlier versions with updated themes and Blocks that
dock to the side. Your Moodle course may look somewhat different, depending on which theme you or
your institution has decided to use.
Themes
If your NDUS institution allows for selecting your own course theme, you will notice there a total of 20
new themes with updated looks. Some of the themes have a classic Moodle feel, while others allow for
more customization.
To change your course theme:
1. In your course, go to Settings > Course
administration and click on Edit Settings.
2. In the edit course settings page, scroll down and
find Force theme.
3. In the Force theme menu, pick your theme and click Save changes at the bottom of the page.
Changing Themes
If you don’t like the theme you have chosen, you
can always switch it back simply by repeating the
process and choosing your original theme again.
*View themes at:
http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6552
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Examples of New Themes
Binarius theme
Boxxie theme
Splash theme
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Docking Blocks Need more space on your course page? Want to focus more on the content of the page? Moodle allows
you to dock course blocks to the left side and then return them back to their original position one at a
time or with a single click. Currently, the default NDUS theme does not support docking of blocks
however other themes do.
How to dock course blocks
1. Locate the block you would like to dock and click
on the right-most rectangular icon.
2. The dock disappears to the left and is
replaced with a tab.
3. To see the content of the block hover your
mouse over the tab.
4. To return the block to its original place, hover
your mouse over the tab and click on the blue shaded
dock icon.
5. If you have many blocks docked to the side,
you can return them all by clicking on the blue
shaded box at the bottom left of your main course
page.
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Navigation Block The new Navigation block provides easy access to various sections of the Moodle site and includes:
Home - quick access to the NDUS homepage
My home - a personalized home page displaying links to the
courses a user is associated with and activity information
such as unread forum posts and upcoming assignments.
Site pages - links to site pages and resources from the front
page of Moodle.
My profile - quick links allowing a user to view their profile,
forums posts, blogs and messages as well as manage their
private files.
My courses - links to courses (by course short name) the user is associated with. Click the
course's short name to view the front page of the course or use the arrows to navigate quickly
to a specific section, resource or activity.
Settings Block The settings block is new to Moodle 2.2 and is
divided into 3 main sections:
1. Course administration
2. Switch role to…
3. My profile settings.
Using Navigation Links
You can avoid navigating to an expired page by using the Navigation links or “breadcrumbs” instead of the back and forward buttons in your browser. This ensures you always see the latest version of a page (example: a Forum with new posts). Be careful to update, save or post any changes you make before moving on to another page to avoid losing your work.
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Course administration Settings
New Course administration settings in Moodle 2.2 include the addition of
completion tracking, filter settings, and access to your repositories.
Switch Role to…
Switch Role To allows instructors to see Moodle in different roles such as a
student, non-editing teacher or even a guest. The roles you are allowed
depends on your access to Moodle.
My Profile Settings
My Profile Settings allows you to work with your own personal profile.
You can also configure your messages and add/configure blogs.
Comments Block
It’s now much easier to “have your say” in Moodle. The Comments block
can be added to any page to allow users to add comments. Comments
placed in this block can be seen by all within the course.
Ideas for using the new Comments block:
Place the Comments block on the main course page so
students can give feedback to the tutor
Place the Comments block on an individual resource or
activity
Place the Comments block on a teacher-only page (the
assignment marking screen) so teachers can moderate work
together privately
Use for adding a blog post to a specific course commenting
on a blog entry
Use for importing an external blog into your Moodle blog
(Source: http://www.moodleblog.net/?p=227)
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Managing Content The way Moodle 2.2 handles and stores files works a lot more like Web 2.0 systems, such as Facebook
and Google Docs in that each activity and each text has its own file area, and files are associated directly
with the place it is used. For example, a file attached to a forum post is stored "with" the forum post,
and becomes subject to exactly the same access restrictions.
The Files system is closely connected with the Repository system and a file picker which makes it easy to
browse external and internal repositories for files and then copy them into Moodle. Certain repositories
also allow you to link directly to their media files. Repositories in general are the way of the future for
content - most Web 2.0 systems are really repositories of data with various management interfaces. The
advantage with such systems is eliminating redundancy; it is no longer necessary to store the same file
in multiple locations.
A private files area is provided for each user to store a collection of files for their own use. This is useful
for students as well as teachers, and makes it easy to access files such as media. Only you can access
your own private files.
Content Management Improvements
Integrity
If a forum post with attached files (such as images) is imported into another course, then the files move
with it. Anyone in the new course will also see the files. This makes activities more portable and re-
usable. If two activities use the same file and one is deleted, then the other one is not affected.
Security
Access to files is governed the same way as the items that they attached to, which is what people
expect. All files are now controlled by the settings in the Moodle interface, including roles and
permissions.
Re-usability
It is now fast and easy to re-use files across Moodle. Using the file picker, a recently-used file may easily
be chosen, or a file from any course a user has access to.
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Backups
Backups of activities are small and accurate, because Moodle knows exactly what files to include.
Internationalization
There is no restriction on file names - even files with names in Japanese may be used.
Repositories
The world is turning towards better management of files and less "dumping" of files into disks. There are
many repository solutions out there (such as the one we will use called Alfresco) that focus on better
management of files, with versioning, workflow, metadata and other features.
Workflow Example
Goal: add a syllabus for an English 101 course.
1. In the course, turn editing on.
2. Select the Add a resource drop-down list and choose File.
3. In the Adding a new File page give the resource a name and a
description.
4. On the same page, under Content, choose Add… to add a file or Create a Folder for storing
multiple files.
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Creating Folders for Storing Files
5. Give the folder a name and click OK. In this
example, a folder named “Syllabus Folder”
has been created.
Adding a File to the Folder
6. Click on the Syllabus Folder (notice the change in path/location).
7. Click Add…
8. New in Moodle 2, the File Picker window appears and you can now find and upload your file by
clicking on Upload a file on the left side of the screen.
9. Click Browse to find and open your file.
10. Optional: use the Save As field to assign a different file name.
11. Select Upload this file to finish and view uploaded files.
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Locating the File and Folder
You can find the file on the server from within your course by:
1. Turn editing on
2. In the Add a resource dropdown list, choose to Add a file or folder
3. Locate the content section and choose Add… The File picker appears
4. Click on Server files (Note: In the picture below, the view is set to View as list)
5. In the list, you can now follow the path to your uploaded item
HTML Text Editor
Moodle 2 has a new text editor called TinyMCE. This new editor has a few more functions than the older
version including a new feature that allows you to cut and paste from a Microsoft Word file without
losing your format. Some of the usual places you will find the text editor include Editing Section
headings, description of an activity, writing an answer to a quiz question or editing the content of many
blocks. You will find that Moodle 2 offers the text editor in more places than it did in older versions.
The text editor divides functions into groups lightly shaded in the background. Here is a list of those
groups:
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Row 1-
- Font, size and heading group
- Undo and Redo group
- Find and Replace group
- Full screen toggle
Row 2-
- Text effect group
- Line format group
- Formatting group (clean up messy code, remove formatting, paste as plain text,
paste form Word)
- Color group
- Paragraph group
Row 3-
- Number and Bullets and indents
- Link group
- Insert group (images, emoticons, media, non-breaking space characters,
custom characters, tables)
- HTML source toggle & spellchecker
The color picker now gives many more options than before for getting the exact color you need! Just
click on More colors at the bottom and select the best tab for your needs: Picker, Palette, or Named.
A quick pick 5x8 matrix
of colors
A rainbow color picker
tab
A Pallet tab with a 18x12
matrix of colors
A Named tab with custom
pallets
(Source: tinymce.com)
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Quiz Changes
The quiz activity in Moodle 2 has been given a fresh look and some added features. Here are some of
the biggest changes you will find.
Improved aesthetics of main quiz features
and layouts
Progress notification system available to
students as they work their way through the quiz.
A built in option for marking specific
questions for later, before or after a quiz is
finished. Students may want to mark a
question and come back to it before submitting
their quiz, or to let the teacher know they had a
question or concern that needed to be
addressed.
Clearer quiz submission options, including a quiz
attempt summary on the last page of a quiz that
shows students stats on their progress (and
shows any unanswered questions).
Reorganization of quiz configuration and setting
options with more options for html editing of
feedback and more review options.
The quiz building page has been reorganized,
including:
o faster building options
o clearer quiz organization and page breaks
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Individual overrides for specific students or groups of students
Manually graded quiz questions.
Conditional Activities
Conditional Activities is one of the most anticipated features of Moodle 2. This new feature enables
teachers to restrict the availability of any activity according to certain conditions such as dates, grade
obtained, or activity completion. This gives flexibility in how your course appears, when items are
available, and even allows you to send students down different learning paths within the same course.
You will find the Conditional activities in the Restrict access area of the settings page for any activity in
Moodle. Restrict access settings options may change slightly depending on the activity.
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Grade Condition
Grade Conditions can
be used to hide specific
activities until a certain
condition or set of
criteria has been met.
You can specify that a condition be met on one or more of the following: any graded activity in the
course, the full course grade, the grade for any activity, or a custom grade that you create manually.
When adding more than one condition, all the conditions must be met in order for the activity to
appear.
Creating a Grade Condition
1. Under Grade condition, find the activity for which the specific condition must be met.
2. Enter a minimum value (at least percentage), a
maximum value (less than percentage), both, or
neither. The activity will only appear if the student has a value for the specified grade, and if it
falls within any specified number range. The range numbers can be fractional (up to five decimal
places) if necessary.
Maximum values: if the maximum is set to 7.5, only scores up to 7.49999 will be included.
Setting multiple activities for different learning paths: When creating multiple activities
that appear according to grade ranges, use the same number for the maximum of one
activity, and the minimum of the next. For example, you could set a new learning path for
students depending on
a module quiz. In the
settings of activity #1,
you could set the
module quiz score to a
minimum of 7.5 before
activity #1 is available
to students. Then, in
the settings of activity
#2, set the module quiz to at least 7.5. Students scoring up to and including 7.49999 will
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have activity #1 available; students scoring 7.5 or better, will have activity #2 available. This
will send students down a different learning path.
3. The last setting allows the instructor to either hide or gray out the activity before conditions are
met.
4. Click Save at the bottom of the page.
Completion Tracking Moodle 2 allows you to track the completion of an activity, a course, or both.
Activity Completion
Activity completion allows the teacher to set completion criteria in the settings for a specific activity. A
check (tick) appears against the activity when the student meets the criteria. The criterion might be
viewing, receiving a certain score, or a student marking it as complete.
You can turn the activity completion on or
off in the Settings block > Course
administration > Edit Settings. > Student
progress section.
In the Navigation block, instructors can find
detailed activity completion reports.
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You can set the activity completion requirements in the settings page of each activity under the section
called Activity completion. If you require your student to achieve a specific grade before an activity is
complete, then you must set a grade for the activity through the Gradebook.
Setting a Completion Activity Using the Gradebook
1. In the Settings block select Grades.
2. In the Gradebook, click on the Categories and items tab.
3. Under the Actions column for the grade item click the edit icon.
4. Select the Show advanced button.
5. Fill in the Grade to pass field.
6. Save changes at the bottom of the page.
Course Completion status block
Course Completion is a block that you enable and add to the
course. The student and teacher will both see this block. It
displays what has been done towards completing the course. The
More details link will lead to a more detailed report.
This report can have some interactive elements in the form of
check boxes for the student and teacher including the ability to
download to a spreadsheet.
Course completion can
also be set to allow for
self-completion by students or teachers. In this case, another
block, the Self completion block, must also be added.
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Blogs Blogs in Moodle 2 are user based rather than course-based. Each user has their own blog. Users can also
register their external blogs, such as Blogger or Wordpress, so that entries are automatically included in
their Moodle blog.
Adding a blog entry
1. From the Navigation block, click on Blogs > Add a new
entry.
a. Alternatively, if the Blog menu block is enabled in
the course, click Add a new entry.
2. Write your entry and give it a title.
3. If you want to attach a file, click the Add button to access
the File picker to locate a file. Be sure your document is
smaller than the maximum attachment
size.
4. Choose who you wish to publish the
entry to. There are three options:
a. Yourself (your blog entry is a
draft)
b. Anyone on your Moodle site
5. Select appropriate official tags for your
entry. Multiple tags should be separated
by a comma.
6. Click on the Save changes button.
Course Blogs If you click Add an entry about this
course in the Blog menu block then you will have the option to associate your blog entry with
your current course.
o Note: your blogs can still be seen elsewhere in
Moodle, but this is a way outside of using tags to
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Creating Wiki Pages
When creating a new page with the Navigation block’s new option under
your Wiki, you will still need to copy and paste the name of the new page onto
the immediate parent page and surround it with double brackets. This
creates a link to your new page and makes it accessible from the main Wiki page. Otherwise nobody will find the so
called lost new page.
filter entries about a particular course within the course.
Permalink, located at the bottom of the blog, gives you a direct link to that particular blog
posting. This is so you can send a link to this specific post to someone else.
External blogs
If enabled by an administrator, you can register external blogs, such as Blogger or Wordpress so
that entries are automatically included in your Moodle blog. Go to Settings > My profile settings
> Blogs > Register an external blog.
In the URL box, add the RSS feed of the blog you wish to register
Blog widgets or “Blidgets” can be embedded in your course. For example, if you have an
external blog in WordPress you can place the widget on your main course page so students can
click on a link to your latest blog post. The
widget is automatically updated through an
RSS feed.
(Source: http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/Using_Blogs)
Wikis A new Wiki module in Moodle 2 makes it easier to
create and delete pages. Pages can also be added
through a link in the Navigation block. New links in the
Navigation block allow immediate access to view, edit,
comment, history, map, and Wiki files.
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Updated Wiki Interface
Forums The Moodle Forum module now offers a new choice called:
Standard forum displayed in blog-like format.
Standard forum displayed in blog-like format
This forum behaves in the same way as the default standard forum for general use, allowing users to
start their own discussions. However, it displays differently in that the first post of each discussion is
displayed (as in a blog) so that users can read it and then choose to respond by clicking the "Discuss this
topic" button bottom right from the post.
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(Source Moodle.org)
Workshop The Workshop Activity allows for peer assessment of assignments. Students submit their work via an on
line text tool and attachments. There are two grades for a student: their own work and their peer
assessments of other students' work. There are five phases of workflow in a typical workshop:
Setup phase
In this initial phase, Workshop participants cannot do
anything (neither modify their submissions nor their
assessments). Course facilitators use this phase to
change workshop settings, modify the grading
strategy or tweak assessment forms. You can switch
to this phase any time you need to change the
Workshop setting and prevent users from modifying
their work.
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Submission phase
In the submission phase, Workshop participants
submit their work. Access control dates can be set
so that even if the Workshop is in this phase,
submitting can be allowed in the given time frame
only. Submission start date (and time), submission
end date (and time) or both can be specified.
Assessment phase
Workshop participants assess the submissions
allocated to them by their peers for review. As in
the submission phase, access can be controlled by
specified date and time since when or until when
the assessment is allowed.
Grading evaluation phase
The major task during this phase is to
calculate the final grades for submissions and
for assessments and provide feedback for
authors and reviewers. Workshop participants
cannot modify their submissions or their
assessments in this phase any further. Course
facilitators can manually override the
calculated grades. Also, selected submissions
can be set as published so they become
available to all Workshop participants in the
next phase.
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Closed
Whenever the Workshop is being switched into this phase, the final grades calculated in the previous
phase are pushed into the course Gradebook. This will result in the Workshop grades appearing in the
Gradebook. Participants may view their submissions, their submission assessments and eventually other
published submissions in this phase.
Rubrics Rubrics have been a long-requested feature in Moodle and is now available in Moodle 2.2. The Rubrics
feature is the first of new advanced grading methods. Currently, Rubrics is only supported for the
Assignment activity, but Moodle is working to extend the Rubrics feature across all modules.
By default, numerical grades in Moodle are selected by the teacher from a range like 0-100. When
advanced grading methods are enabled, the grade selection element is replaced with a more complex
assessment form provided by the Rubric plugin. The plugin contains the logic how to calculate the grade.
Such a calculated grade is then passed back to the activity module as if the teacher used the standard
grade value selector.
How to Assign Rubric as a Grading Method
1. Using Add an activity create an assignment in your
course.
2. Assign a grade for the activity. By default the grade is
set to 100.
3. Within the Grade section change the grading method to Rubric.
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Rubric Advanced Grading Method Video Tutorial
For a video tutorial on using Rubric advanced grading method, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KXavtUhDINA#
4. Finish with the settings for your activity and click Save and display
at the bottom.
How to Create a Rubric
1. In the Settings block located on either the left or right side of your
screen, click on Advanced grading.
2. A new page appears allowing you to create a new rubric grading
form from scratch, or you can select a template that has been pre-
made, saved and shared.
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MyMobile In Moodle 2.2 there is a standard theme custom-designed for
smartphone browser screens. This means that when users visit
any NDUS Moodle site on a small screen they'll see a completely
different layout that is suitable for small touchscreens.
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Training Resources
Book: Moodle 2.0 First Look
http://issuu.com/livcoll/docs/packtpub.moodle.2.0.first.look.sep.2010
Websites
Moodle: http://www.moodle.org
Moodle Editor: http://www.tinymce.com/