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Fall 2013

Faculty Tutorial Moodle 2.4v

Nasreen Rahim, Instructional Technology and Distance Education

Evergreen Valley College

San Jose/Evergreen Community College District

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Moodle 2.4v Tutorial This is a faculty tutorial on using Moodle for San Jose/Evergreen Community College District (SJECCD). It

will cover most commonly used features in Moodle.

To get started, you need to go to https://sjeccd.remote-learner.net. This is a direct link to the site.

Moodle is the learning management system for SJECCD.

Login to Moodle To get started, you need to login with your Moodle account. Go the web site: https://sjeccd.remote-

learner.net

1. Click on Log in at the top right corner

User name: first initial + last name

Password: changeme (default)

2. Click to login.

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Once you login, you will see all the courses that you are assigned to teach.

1. Click on the course you would like to develop

Changing Course Intro One of the first things to do in starting a new course in a new semester is posting a heading to specify

the course title and the contact information and then post the course syllabus. So to do that, you need

to Turn editing on located on the top right hand side. Turn editing on allows us to make changes to the

course, such as adding new content removing stuff and so on.

Note: Keep in mind that anytime you make any changes, you need to turn editing on. It’s either on the

top right or under the Settings.

2. So click on Turn editing on. Then, you click on the little hand with a pen icon. Notice that there

are all kinds of little icons that show up after you turn editing on. If you hold the mouse to any of

these icons, it’ll tell you to what the icons do.

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Posting a Heading 3. To edit the top summary, click on it the Edit summary icon.

4. Then you get the window that looks very similar to Microsoft Word. Type the title of the course

and specify the different heading for it. You can also insert pictures and other links. Just hold the

mouse on any of these icons and customize it from there.

5. Then click on Save changes.

Note: At this time the course heading has been posted and the contact information have been

uploaded or posted. You might want to include additional information there such as a link or a video to

your favorite site or a video about yourself, or podcast of some sort introducing yourself to the class.

Now, you are ready to post the syllabus.

Drag and Drop Feature Uploading Course Resources Here, you will learn how to use the drag and drop feature for uploading the course resources including

the syllabus to Moodle. This is a new enhancement added recently to Moodle 2.4 and it is very powerful

and can be used for all type of resources that can be added to a course page. So you need to turn editing

on for all these little icons to show. Then we need to open our file browser where we have our course

files.

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Note: Make sure course editing is on and the course page is visible. Then the next thing we need to do

click on the file that we want to drag and drop to the course.

Posting Syllabus 1. What you have to do here is click on the syllabus, in this case it is in pdf and now you hold it

down and drag it to the very top of the course and just let it go. Then the syllabus at this point

has been posted. The same way you could post other resources and other video lectures. If the

file is large, it will take longer to load. That is how easy the drag and drop feature is. You can

drop word document, pdf, PowerPoint and other types of resources.

NOTE: If you want to rename the course, click on the black pencil icon , then change name. Then hit

Enter. Otherwise, they will not save the name change. If you wanted to edit this further, you can click on

Update icon and then customize other settings you may prefer to customize.

Manual Uploading of Syllabus and Resources

Uploading Syllabus Another method is to upload syllabus manually just like the way it was done in the previous version of

Moodle.

1. Turn editing on and click on Add an activity or resource.

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2. Then you click on File under Resources. Now, click on Add.

3. Then you will get the Adding a new file window. Here, you put a name of the file. You can put a

description if you like to and post this description in the front page if you choose to.

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4. Then under Content, either drag the file into the Files box or click on Add.

5. If you choose to Add file, you can upload it from a variety of ways. It could be from Recent files,

Server files, or Private files. The most common is the default Upload files from your computer.

Note: When you upload a file, it is similar to attaching a file to your email. Select wherever the file is in

your computer and click on Open. These are the options to upload resources manually.

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Adding a Course Description It is good to add a course description because it cites what is stated in the syllabus in order to make it

richer. Adding course description is very simple. In Microsoft word, open your syllabus and copy the

course description. Then switch back to your Moodle course page.

1. Click on Add an activity. Then choose the Label under Resources. This is like a sticker on the pad.

2. Then click on Add.

3. Click on Save and return to the course and the description has been posted.

Configuring Grade book Categories The next thing to recommend is considering the category for your grade book. It will make building your

course in Moodle much easier. If you open the syllabus, every course has specific ways of calculating the

grade or assessing how students are learning in the course. For example, a course may have:

Quizzes and class labs = 25% of the total grade

Midterm and a final exam = 25%

ePortfolio = 15%

Weekly assignments = 25%

Powerpoint presentation and contributions to class = 10%

These are an example of categories and to each category there are sub items. For example, there could

be a number quizzes, class labs, assignments, etc. There could be 15 to 20 items in the categories. The

system in the grade book needs to know that there will be different categories for all the activities

(assignments, quizzes, exams, discussions, etc.) in this course. The key is that all these categories must

add up to a 100%.

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1. To specify categories, Click on Grades under Settings categories as shown below:

2. Then go to Categories and items. In the first Aggregation select Weighted mean of grades from

the drop-down menu.

3. Click on Add category

Note: If you don’t know what the components are, please click on the blue question marks.

4. Give it a name in the Category name box. Then click Save changes.

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5. For the category Aggregation, select the Simple weighted mean of grades and specify the

category Weight i.e. 25.0 (25%).

6. Now, click Save changes.

Note: You have set up one grade category and now you can add the rest following the grading criteria

you set up in your syllabus.

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Posting Lectures The next step is to add a specific lecture or presentation for the next topic or week.

1. Click on the Edit summary button under that particular week or topic.

2. Write the brief description on the Summary box of the lesson for that week/topic

3. Click on Save changes

Now, you can drag and drop your PowerPoint presentation or other lecture files under the

description. You can also add them by manual uploading. Both of these are similar to the way it is

listed in your syllabus posting steps.

Add URL From time to time, you may want to utilize videos or websites from YouTube or TED Talks:

1. From Add activity or resources, select URL under Resources. Then click Add.

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2. Give the URL a name and short description.

3. You may copy and paste an External URL or click Choose link to search for a web link in YouTube,

Wikimedia, etc.

4. Then click Save and return to course and your Moodle Website link has now been posted.

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Adding Assignments Now you’ll get into the activity of posting assignments for students then grade and assess their

understanding of the subject.

1. Click on Add an activity and resources. There are two types of assignments under Activities:

Assignments and Turnitin Assignments (anti-plagiarism tool)

2. Select Assignments and click Add

3. Let’s assume that you are assigning a PowerPoint presentation to your students

4. In the Assignment settings, you are allowing the following configurations (which is the default):

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5. The default options of Submission settings and Feedback settings are set below:

6. Now to set up Grade options. The following is the default settings:

7. Click on Save and return to course.

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8. Your assignment will now be available for the students:

9. Once students click on the assignment, they will go to the following window that will enable

then to upload and submit their work.

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Couse Discussions/Forums Another powerful tool for online and hybrid courses is the use of discussions or forums. Discussions can

be configured even for regular classes. In order to engage the students to discuss and research a topic,

and discuss it among them outside of a classroom.

1. To configure a forum, Add an activity or resource. Then under Activities, choose Forum. Then

click on Add below.

2. Now, put a forum name. Under the forum Description, you post your question for students to

respond.

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3. Under Grade, specify the Grade Category. Here, you select the Discussion option that you had

already created in the grade category in the previous section of this training tutorial.

4. If you choose to give a rate, select Sum of ratings, and here a Scale of 5 points have been

assigned for the discussion post.

5. Note that a date range has also been selected by choosing the Restrict ratings of items box.

6. Now, Save and return to course. This brings up the discussion post as shown on the course page

for students to access and participate.

7. When students click on the discussion link, they will be able to open up the window to read the

discussion question and respond to it.

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Creating Quizzes Another key tool in Moodle is the use of quizzes. Quizzes can be configured so that the students will

take them either in the classroom or outside of the classroom. Quizzes can be timed for true and false,

multiple-choice, and essay questions. Quizzes can be graded automatically by the system and the

students will receive their grades as soon as they press submit. You can also incorporate essay questions

and you can grade those questions separately.

To configure a quiz in Moodle, you need to go to the course and perform the following steps:

1. Click on the Turn editing on button.

Note: You can Turn editing on under Settings as well.

2. To create a quiz, go to the course section where you want add the quiz.

3. Click on Add an activity or resources

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4. This takes you to the Add an activity or resources window.

5. Under Activity, choose the Quiz option. Then click on Add.

6. Now, give the quiz a name.

Note: You can specify an introduction and this will be what you’ll call the quiz.

You can also set up further details on when it is going to be available and how much time you’ve allotted

for the quiz. You can specify the opening and closing time (duration of the quiz). You can enable a time

limit so that student will have to complete it within certain time. As far as the attempts, you may select

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form the drop-down menu for example, Attempts must be submitted before time expires, or they are

not counted, etc. This means students have to complete everything before their time expires.

Note: When you give them more attempts, you run into the risk of students copying from each other.

Therefore, we need a balance!

Under the layout, you can specify to Shuffle the question. Taking quizzes in the classroom, this prevents

students from cheating.

Based on the number of attempts, you allow the students to Review the quizzes. For example, if you

allow more than one attempt, you don’t want to provide feedback Immediately after attempt so that

other students cannot copy from the right or wrong answer. But if you’re giving only one chance then

you leave those options checked. Note: Make sure to scroll down and Save and display.

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Now you have set the quiz which will now show on your course page:

1. Click on the quiz and that will take you to the eidt window.

2. Click on Edit quiz .

Note: Once we click on Edit quiz, we will need to add questions to this quiz.

3. Click on Question bank contents if you have a question bank. If not, click on Add a question.

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4. When you click on Add a question, you’ll be asked to Choose a question type to add.

5. Most common choice is true and false, so click on True/False. Then click Next.

6. Type an identifiable name in the Question name box.

7. Type the question in the Question text box (this is what the students can see, so you can

actually copy and paste the question name into the question text.)

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8. Select the correct answer from the drop-down menu

9. You may provide the feedback in both boxes as shown below

Note: The correct answer in for this question is False.

10. Scroll down and make sure you click on Save changes. Now you have added one question to

your quiz.

11. Now, click on Add question to add another type of question. This time, select Multiple choice

type of question:

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12. Again, copy and paste the Question name to the Question text box.

13. Type your answer into the Answer box. Since Choice 1 is the correct answer, choose 100% from

the Grade drop-down menu. Choice 2, 3 and 4 are incorrect, so the grade is selected as None.

14. Now, click Save changes to go back to editing quiz window.

Note: You can have default feedback for any type of question no matter how the student answers it.

Note: Also, if you allow multiple tries, make sure you look at the Settings and set the Penalty for

each try.

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15. Click on the Show button

Note: If you are creating your question bank or already have a question bank uploaded, you can

choose to add more questions and reuse the questions you already have in your question bank and

add them to specific quizzes.

For this demonstration purpose, you are using the three questions. Here, you’ll set the maximum

grade as 100. You can give each question a different value. For this quiz, give it 25 points each for

question 1 and 2 and 50 points for question 3. Make sure to click Save each time. You can also

reorder the questions

Note: Now that you’ve defined your quiz, click on Preview under Settings to see how the quizzes will

look for the students. That’s how you configure a quiz in Moodle.

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Manage Moodle Grade book 1. In Moodle course, Go to Settings

2. Within Settings, Click Grades under Course Administration

3. You are now in the Grader Reports for the course

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4. You’ll see all of your Students names on the left and Assignments names above the grade

columns

5. To enter grades for your students, Turn Editing On in the upper right corner

6. Now, enter the numerical grades in the Open Boxes

7. After you enter the grades, click the Update button at the bottom of the page

8. You may have a long list of students in your course, please be sure to click the Update button

every time before going to the next item. This will keep you from losing the data you’ve already

entered.