Introduction to Moodle: Lesson 1 Setting Up a Course Homepage€¦ · Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 3 Version: Moodle 1.9.5+ Revised: Aug 20, 2011 One of your choices will be to arrange

Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 1 Version: Moodle 1.9.5+

Revised: Aug 20, 2011

Introduction to Moodle: Lesson 1

Setting Up a Course Homepage

Browser Choice:

PC: Firefox or Internet Explorer

Mac: Firefox. Do not use Safari, because some screens do not display correctly

You will have access to Moodle through myWofford. Click on the Moodle.Wofford.edu link in

the Systems Links channel under the Terriers tab.

You also can reach the Moodle site directly with the URL http://moodle.wofford.edu .

You will see an overview of the courses you are

teaching. Only one is listed in the example here,

but you probably will see more. Initially, the

text will be in a light gray font.

Click on the name of a course you want to set

up in Moodle.

http://moodle.wofford.edu/



The Course Homepage

At the beginning, your course Homepage

will look something like this.

The Homepage has three columns:

Left: Menus

Center: Course Information

Right: Miscellaneous

In the first part of this lesson, we will

concentrate on adding course information in

the center section.

Setting Up Your Course

The first thing you need to do is set up your course. Click on Settings in the

Administration menu.

This will bring you to an “Edit Course

Settings” page.

Most of the course already will be set

up. Here are some things you might

want to change.

You may want to change from a

Topics format to a Weekly format.

(see the next page)

The Course start date probably will

have been set to the first day of the

term. You can change the start date if

you like.

You may want to set the course up so

that the students do not see the

gradebook at first.



One of your choices will be to arrange your Moodle course Homepage with a weekly or topics

format. The default setting is topics.

If you choose “Topics,” the blocks in the center section will correspond to the number of topics

you specify (15 by default). If you choose “Weekly,” the center section of the Homepage will be

divided into blocks, each corresponding to one week of the course.

We will use the “Weekly” format in these lessons. You can use either a

topics or weekly format for your courses. You also can specify the

number of topics or weeks.

If you plan on using the gradebook, you may want to leave “Show

gradebook to students” set to Yes. You can change this to No if you do

not want to show the gradebook until later in the term.

Finally, all courses are initially set

up so they will be unavailable to

students. I generally leave the

Moodle page for a course as

unavailable until I have the page set

up. To make your course available

in Moodle, change Availability to This course is available to students.



When a course has been made available to students, the font for the course description in your

overview of courses will change from light gray to black.

Click on Save Changes when

you are finished.

In these lessons, the Homepage

shows a weekly outline

beginning on June 1 because I

used a Weekly Format and June

1 as the starting date

Metacourses

If you teach only one section of a course, you may skip this part. If you teach two sections of

the same course, you should read the below. A metacourse is the way to go for multiple

sections.

A metacourse is a combined course page to be used when you have more than one section of the

same course. Instead of duplicating information on separate Moodle pages for the two sections,

you can use the metacourse page as a combined course page for both sections. All information

that is shared by the two sections can be entered once on the combined course page.

An example might be the Bio 150 sections. Suppose there are three

Bio 150 sections in Moodle (150A, 150B, and 150C). Jason

Womick can set up a metacourse named Bio 150 Meta, with the

three sections as children. All students in the three Bio 150

sections automatically become students in the Bio 150 Meta

course. Almost all of the information for the course then can be

entered once on the Bio 150 Meta page.

When I teach two sections, I use the metacourse Moodle page for

all information except the gradebook. It simplifies transferring

grades at mid-term and the end of the term if the gradebooks for the

two sections are separate.

Jason Womick will be glad to set up a metacourse for you.



Adding Information to the Course Homepage

At the beginning, the Miscellaneous column on the right probably shows the

latest news, upcoming events, and a log of recent activity. Let’s make some

changes in this column.

Click on the Turn editing on button in the upper right of the Moodle

window.

Adding General Information

Now, let’s move to the center column that contains specific information about your

course. First we will put in the course’s title and brief description.

With editing on, click on the text edit icon under “Weekly outline”.

In the text editing workspace, enter

the name of the course. Designate it

as the largest heading, Heading 1,

and Center the text.

Click on Save changes when you are

finished.

The name of the course

will be surrounded by a

gray rectangle. Text that

has been set up with

“Heading 1” size will be

surrounded by this

rectangle for emphasis.

If you don’t want the

rectangle, you can specify the size of the text without specifying that it is Heading 1.



You also can add some descriptive text

below the tile, if you so desire.

This text would have Normal size.

Adding an Image

Suppose you would like to add an image. You

want the picture to be placed to the left of the

descriptive text.

Position the cursor to the left of the word “This.”

Click on the insert image icon above the text

editing workspace.

In the “Insert Image” window that appears, click on

Browse to find the image.

When you have found the image, click on Upload.



At this point, you should see

the name of the image in the

File Browser window, in this

particular case,

“Internet_Visualization.gif”

(#1 in the picture on the right).

You can specify various

properties of the image: border

thickness, alignment, and white

space around the image, if you

like.

1. Double-click on the name of the image

2. This will add its URL to the Image URL text box.

3. Enter alternate text for the image in the Alternate text box.

4. Choose a number for the Border thickness (in pixels). I usually choose 1.

5. Specify the Alignment of the image. I have selected Left to align the image to the left of

the text.

6. Specify the Spacing. This is the blank space that will be left around the picture, so that

the text will not be placed right next to the picture. I usually choose 5 to 10 for both the

horizontal and vertical spacing.

7. The Size of the picture is given in pixels. You can change this if you want.

Click OK when you are finished.

You should see the picture

displayed below the text. You

may need to move the text

down a row to position it below

the top of the picture.

Save your changes.



Posting a Document

You probably will want to post documents such as a syllabus or course schedule to the Course

Homepage.

In the Add a resource

menu, select Link to a file

or web site.

In the next screen do two things:

Enter the name you want to give

the document, for example

“Syllabus,” in the text box.

Click on Choose or upload a file

Click on Upload a file in the next window.



In the following window, browse to the file you want and click on Upload this file. Finally,

choose the document you have selected.

You now should see the name of the file in the

“location: text box.

Click on Save and return to course.

A link to the document now will

be on the Homepage.

You can post any kind of file:

Word, Excel, PDF, PowerPoint,

audio, video, etc.



Linking to a Web Site

You also can add a link to an external web site. Let’s add a link to the Honor Code on the

Wofford web site:

http://www.wofford.edu/uploadedFiles/studentLife/0708HonorCode.pdf

From the Add a resource menu select Link to

a file or web site.

Type in “Honor Code” as the name.

If you so desire, you may add a

summary in the “Summary” text

editing workspace.

Enter or paste in the URL of the

Honor Code web page in the

Location text box.

Click on Save and return to course at the bottom of the page.

You will see a link to the Honor Code on the course Homepage



Posting News or an Announcement

If you would like to post a general news item or an announcement, click

on the News Forum link that is already on the Course Homepage.

NOTE: If you are “practicing” with Moodle while you build your page

for a course, you probably do not want to send automatic email

messages to your students when you post an announcement. See the

Appendix on how to NOT force everyone to be subscribed. You can change this when you are

ready to use the Course Homepage for real.

Click on Add a

new topic

Enter a Subject and some text describing

the news or announcement in the

“Message” text editing workspace.

The text can include a hyperlink to an

external web page on the subject. To

insert a hyperlink, select the text that will

be hyperlinked, click on the hyperlink

icon, and enter the URL of the external

web page

When you click on Post to forum, you will see it in the list of discussions.



On the example course page, you also will see the forum you have posted

listed under Latest News.

Adding a Label for a Week or Topic

One of the first things we may want to do is add a title to first week or topics block .

Choose the Insert a Label resource in the

week or topic block you want. Make sure

you use the “Add a resource” menu under

the topic or the week you want.”

Enter the subject for the week or topic in the

“Label text” text editing workspace – here I

simply used “Example: Week #1.” Center the

text and designate it as Heading 3 in size.

When you click on Save and return to the

course, you should see the label. With

editing turned off, it will look like this.



Moving an Item

What if, perish the thought, you make a mistake and

place a resource in the wrong section? For example,

suppose that you chose the upper resource drop-down

menu and put the label in the upper section rather

than under the first week.

We want to move this label down. This is easy to do.

Move the cursor over the four-way arrow icon in the

editing row below the label. When you do, the cursor will

change into a larger four-way arrow shape.

Hold the mouse button down and drag the label where

you want it, Drop it in place. (In my experience, this

takes a little practice.)

You now should see the label in the correct place.

Adding a Text Page

An alternative to posting information in a document, such

as a Word or PDF file, is to post it on a text page. Let’s

post a text page in the first weekly block. In the Add a

resource menu, select Compose a text page.

Enter the Name of the text page.

Note that the first text editing

workspace is for a summary of the

resource.

The text that will go on the text

page is entered below in the

Compose a text page section.



When you have added the text, click on Save and return to course.

The text page link will be in the first weekly block where you placed

it. You will see the text on the page if you click on the link.

The summary will be displayed if you click on the Resources link in the Activities

menu

Hiding an Item from Students

As a teacher, you would like to see recent activity in your Moodle course, but

may not want students to see it. In the Recent Activity block, click on the

open eye icon in the editing icons row below “Recent Activity.” This will

“close” the eye.

A closed eye indicates that the students cannot see this information.

Switching to a Student Role

A quick way to view a page as a student will see it is to switch your role.

Click on Switch role to . . . and select Student.



When you are ready, click on Return to my normal role to see the Teacher’s

view again.

If you switch to the Student role, it will turn editing off. You will need to Turn

editing on again when you return to your normal role.

Adding a Block in the Miscellaneous Column

Let’s add a calendar in the right-hand miscellaneous

column. Under Blocks, click on Add and select

Calendar.

You will see a calendar at the bottom of the column.

Moving a Block in the Miscellaneous Column

Let’s make the calendar more prominent by moving it to the top of the column. If

you move the cursor over the shaded area at the top of the calendar block, the

cursor will change its shape into four arrows. If you hold down the mouse button,

you can drag the cursor to where you want and then drop it. Drag the calendar to

the top of the column.



Deleting a Block in the Miscellaneous Column

To avoid clutter, you may want to remove block(s) from the Miscellaneous

column. In editing mode, clicking on the X icon in a block’s editing row will

delete the block from the column.

Showing Only One Week or Topic

One problem with Moodle course pages is that a long list of weeks or topics with many activities

can produce a very long web page. Because scrolling up and down a long web page can be a lot

of trouble, you or your students may want to hide weeks before and after the current week.

In the non-editing mode, clicking on the

Show One Week icon for a given week

will hide all weeks except that one.

Hiding a Week from the Students

You may not want your students to see the

activities awaiting them in future weeks. If

not, with editing on, click on the open eye

icon in the week blocks you do not want them

to see. Clicking on the open eye icon will

close the eye. Clicking on the closed eye icon

will open it again.

The students will see “Not available” by the dates of the

weeks you have hidden.



Moodle Docs

Moodle is very well documented. If you have a

question about an individual setting you can

click on the question mark icon beside the

drop-down list for the setting. If you want more

information about the settings on the page,

click on Moodle Docs for this page, which

will be found at the bottom of the page. I have

found this information to be extensive and

quite useful.

The Moodle Gradebook

Although it is not absolutely necessary, it is useful to start setting up the Moodle gradebook for

your course early in the process.

See Lesson #2 for instructions on setting up a Gradebook in Moodle.

Recording Attendance

To set Moodle up so that you can record

attendance, in the section at the top of the page,

click on Add an activity and then Attendance.

If you have set the Moodle gradebook up

with Graded and Nongraded categories do

the following:

In the Grade category menu, choose

Nongraded if you do not plan on

including attendance in the grading

for the course.

Grades if you plan on including

attendance in the grading for the

course.

Save and return to the course.



In this example, I have chosen to record attendance, but not include it

in the grading.

You now will see “Attendance” included in the list of links in the

weekly outline.

Click on the Attendance link.

You will be told that no session

exists for the course. To add

sessions, click on the Add tab.

Under Create multiple sessions, enter the start and

end dates of your course. Suppose that your course

meets on MWF from June 1 through July 30.

Enter this information and click on Add multiple

sessions.

If you click back on the Attendance tab, you

will see that the dates for the class have been

filled in.



NOTE: When you click back on the Attendance tab, if you still see a “No Session exists for this

course” message, then do the following.

If you still see “No session exists for

the course,” you need to change the

Course start date in the Settings for

the course.

Click on Settings in the Administration menu.

Change the Course start date as described on page 2 of this lesson.

You also can set up “nonregular” single class sessions

– a field trip for example.

You can specify the number of points you want to give

for attendance under the Settings tab.

You can give a grade of “0” for all categories if you

don’t want attendance to count toward the points in the

course.

When you are ready to take attendance, click on the Attendance link, the

Attendance tab, and the green circle by the class session you want. Fill in the

attendance and click on OK.



Note: An easy way to record attendance is to click on the

“P” link, which will record all students in the class as

present. Then you can change the few who are absent, late,

or excused.



Appendix: News Forum – Forcing Everyone to be Subscribed

The default setting on the News Forum is to force everyone to be subscribed to the forum. This

means that all users will be sent an email message whenever you post an announcement on the

forum.

Forcing everyone to be subscribed may be a good thing when you are using the News Forum as

part of your class – you probably want your students to be aware an announcement has been

posted. On the other hand, it is not a good thing if you are testing your Course Homepage as you

develop it prior to the course.

While you are testing your Course Homepage, I would recommend

turning this feature off. With editing turned on, click on the Edit icon

beside the News forum.

In the “Updating” page, change Force

everyone to be subscribed to No.

Save and return to the course.

When you are ready to use your Course Homepage, you can change this option back to Yes.

Documents

Introduction to Moodle: Lesson 1 Setting Up a Course Homepage€¦ · Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 3 Version: Moodle 1.9.5+ Revised: Aug 20, 2011 One of your choices will be to arrange