Getting Started with Moodle

The first instructional video for Moodle is out! We start of with the basics of configuring course settings, naming and organising course sections and uploading files.

Moodle: allowing self-enrolment

New courses added to Moodle will allow students to self-enrol by default. However, you may not always wish this to be the case. Similarly you may want to enable self-enrolment in a pre-existing course. In this case you need to enter the course in question. Open the Settings menu and expand the Course administration section, within the Users submenu you need to access the Enrolment methods section and click Self enrolment. Refer to the image below:



If the Setting menu is not obvious check the top left for a small vertical tab- the menu can be collapsed to a left-hand ribbon bar.

Moodle resources - uploaded files.

The way that Moodle 2.4 handles uploaded files has changed: files can now be easily embedded into a Moodle page for viewing. When uploading new files you can select how the link will behave, however some of you may wish to change the behaviour of an existing file. In the example below I change a .pdf file from being displayed embedded in the page to opening in a new window. Locate your resource on the course page and click the cog icon to edit ("update") the resource:

On the menu that follows you will see the resource name and a white box for a description- if this is empty you must enter something here- in Moodle 2.4 this is a required field as the resources will appear as a list for the course (if the name is self-explanatory I have just copy and pasted it here again on occasion).

Below the file selection area is the Options block, here you need to change the drop-down menu to your preference- in this example Open.

Click 'Save and return to course' and check that clicking the link does what you expected.

Crossword maker

Crosswords are always a favourite but can be a bore to create. ArmoredPenguin.com allows for really easy creation of crosswords that actually look good when printed (no adverts or branding). See my example:

You can type your clues and answers in on the web-based creation page or import a .txt file, so long as you separate your words from the clues with a colon :

Unlike many other crossword makers, this one supports multiple word answers, either leaving spaces or combining the words for the grid and automatically adding the number of words to the clue.

The site is explained well and is easy to use, click below and check it out:

ThingLink

Quick post today.

Label diagrams or photos with interactive labels. This can be a really useful homework task with huge potential. I've created my own ICT related example below to demonstrate the idea.

When setting a 'thinglink' task as homework I suggest you include success criteria such as - "X youtube links and Y wikipedia links maximum, all links must have a description." to make sure students get the most out of this. Links to thinglinks could be uploaded to Moodle or emailed to you and can easily then be embedded or linked for future use by your students.

QR codes

What is a QR code?

The short answer is that a QR code is like a barcode that can be scanned by a smartphone and contains information, usually a web link. For a more detailed answer to this, see whatisaqrcode.co.uk

Why would I want to use a QR code?

Any time you want to be able to easily share a piece of electronic information with a smartphone user really. What I tend to use these for is sharing links (URLs) to video clips on YouTube or providing hints or additional background information for support or for extension to tasks and QR codes are an ideal way to do this. Not every student will have access to a suitable device but at WGSB the ratio appears to be somewhere between 1 in 5 to 1 in 2 students (from Year 7 -13) from my observations so small groups sharing a device is likely to work without a problem.

In my classrooms I tend to have a projector (although for the most part visibility is far from optimal) and most of the time, working speakers and I may want to show a short video clip for a starter or a longer clip that students will answer questions on in a longer activity. I show the clip once or maybe twice to the whole class but some students will not have taken everything in and will need or want to watch the clip again. Why not let them do so on their own device so they can watch just the bits they need to, as many times as they need to?

How do I go about using a QR code?

Let's look at an example: I recently put together an activity for a Year 7 lesson on the greenhouse effect and global warming. I found an excellent YouTube clip that I wanted to set questions based on.

I posted the link on Moodle so I, my colleagues and our students can all easily find this both in the lesson and later on if needed, the short link (found using the 'Share' option on YouTube) is http://youtu.be/HK8LLWSIIm4. This is worth including in your resource so students without the ability to scan a QR code have the option of typing in a short URL instead. To generate the QR code I visit a free generation service such as QRStuff.com and paste the URL for my YouTube clip into the relevant box, click 'generate' if required (not on qrstuff) then preferably try scanning the code onscreen to test it. Here's my QR code:

Download the image (give it a sensible name!) and you can then Insert the image into your worksheet or handout in the same way you'd insert any other image. The images can be pretty small but should have some clear space around them. Older and cheaper phones won't have brilliant cameras so could struggle if you make the image too small. If you have a long URL the QR code will be more complicated and will be harder to scan so consider using a URL shortener such as Google's offering or the 'qrs.ly' service offered by QRStuff (both are free). I've shared my example worksheet through Dropbox and you can get the file here to see how it looks

Word/Tag Clouds

Traditional word clouds can be really useful as a visual summary of a text, the size of the word depends on how often it appears in the text, allowing the key points to be conveyed quickly. I have used these traditional word clouds to convey the specification points for GCSE Chemistry units.

In an interactive word cloud each word or 'tag' becomes a clickable link. I have found that these clouds work best with a list of keywords and with maximum sizing rather than linking to occurrence. An example is provided below, with key words about spreadsheets. In this example clicking a tag will search for "spreadsheet" and the text of the tag.

Tags can also be fitted into shapes that provide additional visual stimulus- for this to be effective a larger word list is needed and trying to size tags by frequency of occurrence makes shape fitting awkward but good results can be achieved:

Try it yourself at Tagul (excellent for interactive and shaped clouds) or Wordle (best for traditional clouds)