SVCC IT Cafe

Moodle 2 Reminders and Tips

2013-06-03T11:52:00.001-05:00

As you begin to use Moodle 2 on a daily basis, here are a few reminders and tips to assist you.

Question: Why can't my students see their course in Moodle?

Answer: Students cannot see courses that have not been made available to them. Please be sure that you as the instructor have gone to the Settings block in each course you teach, select Edit settings, scroll down to Availability and select "This course is available to students." This is an instructor responsibility, just as it was in the former version of Moodle, and allows you to determine when to open the course between when students are enrolled on the business day prior to the start of the semester and the actual start date of the course. Some instructors use the weekend to allow students to view the syllabus, etc. prior to the actual start date of the course.

Question: I was in my course, and it disappeared. What happened?

Answer: It didn't really disappear, you've just moved out of it. Navigation in Moodle 2 is different than in our previous version because some areas, such as My private files, are associated with the user rather than the course and so are located in a separate area of the site. When you enter Home, My home, Site pages, My profile, and My private files or any of the submenus under those items, you are leaving your course. Navigate to your course again by using the My Courses section of the Navigation block.

Question: Why isn't the Latest News Announcement that I just posted showing up in the block?

Answer: Go into the Settings block and select Edit Settings under the Course Administration area. It will open a form; scroll down a bit and locate News items to show. Enter a number larger than zero, and scroll to the bottom of the page. Save changes.

Question: I added items to My private files area, or edited items there, but the changes weren't there when I returned to My private files. What happened?

Answer: After making any changes in the My private files area, you must remember to click on the Save changes button at the lower left of the files box to permanently record the changes.

Question: How do I add the Activities block to my course?

Answer: The Activities block provides another way for student to navigate to course materials. If you wish to add it to your course, turn the editing on in your course. Scroll to the bottom of your course, and look for the Add a block menu at the lower left. Scroll to find the desired block, and click on it to add it to your course.

Question: I can't seem to copy and paste in Moodle with a right mouse click; how can I do this?

Answer: You can copy and paste using the command Control C to copy and Control V to paste. In addition we have prepared a tutorial demonstrating how to copy and paste from Word into Moodle. You can view it here.

Question: What are some of the changes for students when they take a quiz in Moodle?

Answer: There are many changes for students in Moodle quizzes. Students can flag questions they want to review a second time before submitting the quiz; they no longer need to click Save without submitting on every page, and more. We have prepared a tutorial for students to help prepare them for Moodle quizzes. You may view it here.

Question: I'm getting a lot of notifications from Moodle as email. How do I turn them off?

Answer: Each Moodle user must determine what notifications and alerts they wish to receive from the Moodle system. We have prepared a tutorial for students and instructors demonstrating how to turn notifications off. View it here.

Here comes summer!

2013-05-13T13:34:00.000-05:00

The warm days of summer and the Moodle 2.3 upgrade are nearly upon us. Please remember to have grades in SOAR and to export personal copies of gradebook and attendance records from Moodle before students are unenrolled from Moodle at 8:00 a.m. Monday, May 20^th. Faculty who will be teaching summer courses are able to import their course materials into their summer courses now, and the courses will be automatically transformed to Moodle 2.3 during the upgrade process. The blank courses for the Fall semester will be created early in June, and faculty may import their course materials for fall at anytime over the summer. Remember, do not try to log into Moodle from May 20^th until you receive notification via email that the upgrade is complete, as that could interfere with the upgrade process.

All faculty members will be notified via email when the Moodle upgrade is complete. At that time, you will once again be able to login to Moodle.

Moodle Bootcamp is back! Join us May 29^th OR May 30^th for a day of training and focused work time. As usual, we will have two adjacent rooms for this event. In room 2C3A, Robin will lead training sessions, while Greg, Kathy, and Molly staff 2C3B for those who wish to work on their Moodle course with expert assistance available. Bring a bag lunch – there will be home baked cookies for dessert! Our schedule, which will be identical on both days of training, will be as follows:

9:30 – 10:00: Activity Completion, Course Completion

10:00 – 11:00: Personal Learning Designer

(break – those who have attended training sessions in March and April may want to switch to the workroom to work on their courses, while those new to Moodle 2 continue in the classroom)

11:00 – 12:00: Review of Navigation, Quickmail, editing tools and file management in Moodle 2

(Lunch – brown bag – cookies provided)

12:45 – 2:00: Review of joule gradebook, rubrics and checklists, activity reports, any leftover time for questions

Adjunct Moodle Training will be offered from 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. on May 28^thin room 2F05. This training will offer an overview of the new Moodle 2 system, and will be particularly useful for those who couldn’t attend our earlier March or April training sessions. The schedule will be as follows for this evening:

6:00 – 7:10 – Navigation, communication, file management, resources and activities

7:20 – 8:30 – Joule gradebook, rubrics and checklists, activity reports, quick look at Personal Learning Designer

Please register for Moodle Training Events at the IT Registration page. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Rubrics in Moodle 2

2013-04-15T11:31:00.003-05:00

Rubrics are scoring guides including one or more criterion upon which student work is rated, detailed information explaining ratings for each level of student accomplishment, and a point range associated with each level. Rubrics are particularly useful in grading assignments such as essays, where grading can be perceived as being subjective in nature.

A good rubric can

· provide guidance regarding expectations for an assignment to students

· allow students to self-evaluate drafts prior to assignment submission

· aid instructors in scoring assignments and offering feedback to students

Moodle 2 allows instructors to create rubrics for use with Assignments and Advanced Forums. Instructors will have the option to allow students to view the Rubric before an assignment or forum post is submitted, permitting students to ascertain whether their submission meets the criteria for the assignment. Instructors may also use the rubric for scoring during grading, displaying points and text remarks to students upon completion.

The following links to sample rubrics may be helpful to those unfamiliar with this assessment tool:

http://www.ucdenver.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/center-for-faculty-development/Documents/Tutorials/Rubrics/1_what_is/index.htm

http://www.lmu.edu/about/services/academicplanning/assessment/Assessment_Resources/Rubrics/Example_Rubrics/Creative_Writing_Example_Rubric.htm

http://www.lmu.edu/about/services/academicplanning/assessment/Assessment_Resources/Rubrics/Example_Rubrics/Psychology_Paper_Example_Rubric.htm

Our April 19^th and April 26^th Moodle 2 training events include instruction on the use of Moodle 2 rubrics; if you would like to join us for a morning or afternoon session, please register at

http://svcc.edu/employees/it/training/registration.html

You can also view online tutorials for Moodle 2 Rubrics here:

Creating a Rubric from Scratch video

How to Create a Rubric as an Advanced Grading Method in Moodle 2

Great Features Make Grading Easier in Moodle 2

2013-04-09T15:19:00.001-05:00

Preparations for the rollout of Moodle 2 continue this month with our second level training event. This month, we offer Moodle 2 training on the topics of the new Joule Gradebook, rubrics, checklists, and activity reports in our face to face training events.

The Joule Gradebook offers several quick and easy options for those times when grades are entered manually. Scores can be added without turning editing on; all students enrolled in the course appear in the left hand column, and scores are entered in the right hand column. The need for horizontal scrolling is reduced, as is the need to move to a separate page to access student names.

Another exciting addition to Moodle 2 is the option to create and grade with a rubric or checklist. These options are available for Assignments or Advanced Forums in Moodle 2.

These topics and more will be the subject of our April training events! Please remember to register at http://svcc.edu/employees/it/training/registration.html for a morning or afternoon training event on either April 12th, 19th, or 26th. We hope to see you there!

New Tools / Apps for Spring 2013

2013-03-21T16:37:00.001-05:00

Looking for new online apps and tools? LifeHacker website has generated a list of several apps that can increase your productivity and/or make teaching easier. A few you may not have heard of to check out:

Pocket - collect useful articles and media to read and watch when you have time.
Flipboard - a mobile app for reading content
Wunderlist - a very popular to do list
7-zip - compress a bunch of files.

Check out the list!
The 50 Free Apps We’re Most Thankful For

New Navigation Features in Moodle 2

2013-03-04T11:38:00.001-06:00

Our SVCC Moodle system is scheduled for upgrade to the latest version May 21, 2013. This week's blog post will introduce you to some new navigation features in Moodle 2.

In addition to the familiar breadcrumbs at the top left of the page, which allow users to track backwards from any page, Moodle 2 offers a new Navigation block.

Breadcrumbs

The Navigation block has an expandable menu. Use the blue arrows to expand or collapse Site pages, My profile, or My courses.

Navigation Block

The My home link takes the user to his or her personal dashboard. Users may customize this page if they choose. My home is intended to serve as a place where users can access links to all of their courses and all of the activities within their courses, such as unread forum messages and upcoming assignments.

My profile allows users to view his/her profile, forum posts, messages, Activity reports, and My private files.

My Profile

My courses, below, provides links to the front page of each of the courses in which a user is enrolled. Use the blue arrows to expand the menu to include links to a specific section in the course.

My Courses

The Course Front Page

There are a few navigational changes and additions within courses as well. Turn on editing for the course in either of two locations.

Turn editing on in two locations

The Administration block has been replaced by the Settings block. To make a course available to students, change the format of the course, or otherwise edit settings for the course, use the Edit settings link.

Settings > Course Administration > Edit settings

Settings Block, Edit settings

Docking

Individual users have the option to "dock" blocks at the side of the screen to free up more workspace on the monitor screen. These changes are only visible to individual users - your screen with docked blocks will not affect students and the way they choose to view their own blocks.

To move blocks from the side of the screen and place them in small tabs, individual users may "Dock" any block by clicking on the "dock" symbol.

Dock a block

Docked blocks

Use your mouse cursor to hover over a tab in the dock to open the block and use it. Return a docked block to the sides of the screen by clicking on

Return a docked block to original position

The #1 Reason Leadership Development Fails

2013-01-10T12:10:00.001-06:00

If you consider that the students in your seats could (should?) be leaders in the near future, this article present a thoughtful perspective how to approach students.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/12/19/the-1-reason-leadership-development-fails/

Prepare for Spring!

2013-01-07T16:04:00.002-06:00

The IT department wishes you a successful Spring semester! To help that happen, we suggest reviewing the following best practices and tips for updating your Moodle courses.

Prepare your online quizzes to avoid time out problems, set security settings, and to promote quality assessments. To do so, see these links.

Make sure your course is available to students by January 14. See this link for instructions.
Preview resources and assessments, checking that images are viewable, hyperlinks are still active, and that content is up to date.
Online instructors can use this template to welcome students to their course.
Check that open/close dates are accurate for activities and quizzes.

New Course Creation Process

If you haven’t already, please import content into your SP2013 course. See step-by-step directions here.
If you want to combine sections into one Moodle course, please email IT@svcc.edu

Don’t Forget!: Get Ready Get Set Day!

IT is hosting “Get Ready Get Set Day!” this Thursday, January 10^th. See the flyer for details on our two morning sessions on active learning strategies and student motivation, and for details on our afternoon Moodle Studio.

Flipped Learning: A Response To Five Common Criticisms

2012-11-27T10:24:00.002-06:00

If you have been reading the IS/IT Blog over the past 18 months, you have read about the flipped classroom and Eric Mazur. The response, which is linked here, does a good job of describing a balanced approach to the flipped classroom. The five common criticisms are all important for an instructor to understand and think about when considering flipping a classroom.

My own criticism of this article comes from this quote,

"To continue, we would guess that a large majority of students who do not do their work at home are not doing it because they are either bored and feel like the work is there simply to keep them busy, or they are struggling and do not understand the work."

I would not say the only reasons for students not doing work at home are boredom or lack of understanding. What do you think? Leave a comment on this post.

A few quote highlighted from the article.

"In a Flipped Learning environment, the teachers are more important than ever."

"At least in the classroom, they get some kind of interaction with me and with their peers."

"...do not replace an hour-long classroom lecture with an hour-long video."

"Make sure you provide more than just video."

"You do not have to have all of this material from the start; you can build your library over time."

"...his goal is to have the best teachers he can find teaching his students every single day."

http://novemberlearning.com/resources/articles/flipped-learning-a-response-to-five-common-criticisms-article/

Ted Talks

2012-11-26T16:33:00.002-06:00

If you have yet to discover TED Talks, you are missing an inspiring and thoughtful resource on ideas that are shaping our present and our future.

For the uninitiated, TED talks are short videos (presenters are given no more than 18 minutes) to share their idea. TED was started with the idea of sharing ideas in the areas of Technology, Entertainment, and Design, but has grown to include many more topics. These topics include business, science, math, education and global issues.

Access the videos on education here, or go their home page, www.ted.com.

Two of my favorites.

Margaret Wertheim: the Beautiful math of coral

Dave Egger's Wish: Once upon a school

-Greg Noack

Deleting Quiz Attempts

2012-10-29T14:39:00.000-05:00

Occasionally faculty need to delete a quiz attempt for a student who needs to retake an online quiz. To do so, go the quiz and click on the Results tab.

Students will be listed in the order that they completed their attempt. Next to each name is a check box. Select the attempt(s) you wish to delete.

After the list of attempts you will see a button for Deleting Selected Attempts. Click it. You will see a pop up window asking if you are absolutely sure you want to delete the attempt. If you are sure, say yes, and the attempt will be deleted.

Moodle Monday - Course Creation FAQ

2012-10-22T16:28:00.001-05:00

Since we announced the new, automated course creation process for Moodle courses last week, we’ve received several questions.

Q. How does the new process differ from the way IT has been creating Moodle courses?

A. In the past, we used a manual process to create blank courses for instructors to build courses or to back up and restore a new version of an existing course. Instructors had to contact us to request a Moodle course and to specify several details to communicate exactly what was needed. The new process is automated. A computer program has been devised to create a blank course for every class scheduled at SVCC. The import process simply copies the materials from past courses into the new, blank one. The import process is similar in many ways to the reset feature in Blackboard, with which many of you may be familiar.

Q. Do I have to completely rebuild my course?

A. You will not have to rebuild your course; you will simply copy the materials you want into the automatically created Spring 2013 course. If you import all materials from your old course, your new course will look exactly the same as the course from which you import the materials. There is no need to rebuild your course unless you choose to do so.

Q. Will I still need to fill out the Moodle Course Request Form for each class?

A. No, the Moodle Course Request Form will no longer be necessary, since your course will be ready and waiting for you to copy your materials through the import process.

Q. How much of my time will this import process require?

A. Generally, the import process is quick and requires only a few minutes for each course.

Q. What if I don’t use Moodle with my students?

A. If you choose not to use the automatically created Moodle course, do nothing. The courses are hidden from students upon creation. Your course will only become visible to students when you make it available to them.

We’ve prepared a tutorial demonstrating how to import course materials into a new course and a tutorial on how to convert hidden courses to ones visible to students. If you prefer, you may attend any of several sessions scheduled in the Instructional Technology Center, where we will be available to answer questions and offer assistance. Dates and times of scheduled sessions appear below. Please feel free to contact us at extension 229 with any questions.

Date Time Place

November 2, 2012 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. ITC, Room 3M17

Nov. 8, 2012 2:30-4:00 p.m. ITC, Room 3M17

Nov. 16 , 2012 1:30-3:00 p.m. ITC, Room 3M17

Nov. 29 , 2012 2:30-4 p.m. ITC, Room 3M17

Dec. 12, 2012 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. ITC, Room 3M17

December 13, 2012 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. ITC, Room 3M17

January 2-11, 2013 By appointment ITC, Room 3M17

Linky Thursday October 4th Edition

2012-10-04T14:45:00.001-05:00

Are you hooked on Pinterest yet? Mentormob.com operates in a similar manner, but is for education.

See the What is MentorMob video at the link below to view an overview of the site.

http://www.mentormob.com/learn/i/how-to-use-mentormob/what-is-mentormob-7

Are you frustrated by a file that you received in the wrong format? Upload your file to Zamzar.com and indicate the format you’d like to convert the file into, and you’ll soon receive the converted file as an email.

www.zamzar.com

Assignments Activity: Advanced Uploading of Files.

2012-09-24T16:05:00.003-05:00

Today's Moodle Monday features the acitivity, "Advanced Uploading of Files".

If you have only ever used the activity "Upload a single file", you may want to take a look at the extra features available when using the Advanced Uploading of Files activity. Here is a list of the extra features available.

Allow students to upload more than one file to the same assignment. Up to 20.
Allow Notes. Students can leave a note about what they uploaded for you to read.
Hide description before available date.
Enable Send for marking. When students are done uploading assignments, they send for marking, which disables the ability to delete files and upload more files.
When grading assigments, instructors can upload response files.

Settings for Advanced uploading of Files.

Student View when submitting assignments.


View of files submitted by students.

View when grading assignments.

Create Banners

2012-09-17T16:32:00.001-05:00

Looking for a simple tool to create a banner for your Moodle Course? Check out the tool Banner Fans.
http://www.bannerfans.com/banner_maker.php

When choosing a size, an optimal setting is 450 pixels wide by 200 pixels high. It's important to keep the width near 450 pixels or the center column of your moodle site will not load properly.

Also, if you need a banner created, or have an image you want to use that is too large, please email Robin or Greg. We can resize your image or create a new one for you.

Linky Thursday

2012-09-13T09:26:00.003-05:00

Today’s Linky Thursday includes links to some thought provoking articles and two new tools.

1. Can creativity be automated? You may think the answer is obvious, but technologists are working to identify and imitate the creative aspects of the human mind.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428437/can-creativity-be-automated/

2. Open educational resources are attractive for several reasons. Here is a current article summarizing where to find copyright friendly items for your courses.

http://crln.acrl.org/content/73/6/334.full

3. This simple to use banner creator could be handy for a variety of purposes. It could be used to make a nice graphic for any web page you create in Moodle, for instance.

http://www.bannerfans.com/banner_maker.php

4. Jon Mandrell shared a very nice iPad app that allows the user to create a teleprompter for use when recording video. Get it in the iPad App store under the name “Listec Promptware Plus”

Thanks for sharing, Jon!

Promoting Argumentation in Forum Discussions.

2012-09-04T14:06:00.002-05:00

Every semester more than one instructor approaches me with interest in improving the dialogue on their forums. An article I recently read might be of interest to those with this question. The study shares research on promoting argumentation in online forum debates. During the study students were asked to label discussion posts as: argument, elaboration, issue, evidence, evaluate, and suggest. While the findings were not conclusive, it led me to think that this management tool might be helpful as a guide to students new to online discussion and debate. It also might help curb the repetitive or pointless posts that students sometimes sumbit, such as "I agree". Read the full research at the link below.

-Greg Noack

Effects of Pre-structuring Discussion Threads on Group Interaction and Group Performance in Computer-supported Collaborative Argumentation
C. Darren Brooks* and Allan Jeong
Florida State University, USA
http://www1.open.edu.cn/elt/26/epdtgigpcca.pdf

IT September, 2012 Schedule of Learning Opportunities

2012-08-31T13:48:00.007-05:00

Join in on one of our learning opportunities this month...in person or online on our own schedule!

All sessions are open to full-time or adjunct instructors and any staff who are interested in participating!

i3: Innovative Internet Instruction [online] Workshop

The i3 Workshop is designed for instructors interested in learning more about teaching online, whether you are new to online teaching or experienced and wanting to learn some of the latest best practices. Participants learn the strategies used to teach online, including instructional design strategies and online teaching approaches, how to utilize the Moodle course management system, and much more. Full time faculty members receive one promotional credit for successfully completing the online course. To register for the fall session of the i3 Workshop: http://svcc.edu/employees/it/training/registration.html or contact us at extension 229.

Tablets, iPads and More User's Group

Do you have a tablet PC, iPad or other lightweight mobile computer? If it’s a new technology for you, you probably have questions that someone with experience can answer, such as what does ___mean? How do I ____? If it’s familiar technology, you may have recommendations for how to make the most of its capabilities…favorite apps? common problems with solutions? the coolest thing? accessories? Let’s organize ourselves into a user’s group so we can share our knowledge/questions!

Sept 14, 2-3PM, Library Conference Room

ILCCO Book Discussion

ILCCO sponsors a book discussion each semester in which faculty and staff involved in online education read a book and discuss it via web-conferencing for 4 sessions throughout the semester (begins late September). If you like to read or would enjoy engaging in lively discussions with faculty throughout the state, let us know and we'll be in touch when we know what book has been selected for the Fall term. ittraining@svcc.edu or ext. 229

Blogs

These learning opportunities are designed to meet the needs of busy faculty who may not have time to attend workshops, but appreciate ideas and resources, shared in small chunks and in easy-to-read, online formats. Comments and questions are always welcome!

1. Teaching Evening Classes

One would think that teaching is teaching, but there are a number of special issues involved in teaching evening or any extended-time classes. Check out the tips on a blog shared by Black Hawk College's Teaching/Learning Center: http://15ideasteachingevening.blogspot.com/ Tip: Scroll down to Day One and read that first as an introduction to the blog's contents, and then read up in order to Day Twelve, as several of the posts refer to earlier posts and it will all make more sense. Let us know if you like this format and we'll do more of these over the next year!

2. Moodle Monday and Linky Thursday

Almost every Monday, we post a tip, idea or resource related to using Moodle for online, hybrid or web-enhanced teaching. And almost every Thursday during the school year, we post annotated web resources for instructors teaching with technology. Both are available on our blog at http://isitcafe.blogspot.com/ A short email will be sent to all faculty announcing each post. Comments, questions or additional ideas welcome!

3. Teaching Tips for SVCC

Most of us struggle to keep up in our discipline and have little time to keep up with the literature on college teaching, technology integration, online or hybrid teaching, etc. This blog will pos,t on a weekly basis, nuggets of great information from these areas to support your teaching and your students' learning. Many of the tips come from faculty or faculty support personnel at colleges all over the country, written in response to an invitation to share tips and strategies for teaching today's students! http://teachingtips4svcc.blogspot.com A short email will be sent to all faculty announcing each post. Comments, questions or additional ideas welcome!

Coming in October---Student Focus: What can we do about THAT? eFolios; Copyright...and more!

Moodle Monday - Test Banks and i3 Workshop

2012-08-27T15:16:00.000-05:00

I3 Workshop

The i3 Workshop will be offered beginning September 10, 2012. The course is designed for instructors interested in learning more about teaching online, whether you are new to online teaching or an experienced instructor wanting to learn some of the latest best practices. Participants learn the strategies used to teach online, including instructional design strategies and online teaching approaches, how to utilize the Moodle course management system, and much more. Full time faculty members receive one promotional credit for successfully completing the online course. To register for the fall session of the i3 Workshop fill out the form at http://svcc.edu/employees/it/training/registration.html or contact us at extension 229.

Test Banks

Publisher provided test banks are one of many tools available to instructors. However, publishers utilize many different formats to publish these test banks. The procedure for uploading your test bank to Moodle will vary depending upon the format of your test bank.

Today we will share four tutorials for the most common test bank formats and has provided links to each, below. Click on the pertinent link to open a .pdf document with step by step instructions.

Import a Test Bank to Moodle: Diploma

Import a Test Bank to Moodle: Examview

Import a Test Bank to Moodle: Pearson

Format and Import a Word Test Bank to Moodle

Linky Thursday August 23, 2012

2012-08-23T10:25:00.000-05:00

1. popplet.com

Today's first shared link features an interesting web tool with several potential classroom applications.

Users add photos, text boxes, and so forth to the work area. This work area has the potential to

become the basis for a presentation with zooming effects similar to prezi.com, but also allows for

flow charting, audio, and more. See examples at the site.

www.popplet.com

2. storybird.com

This little web tool could be fun for personal use if you have young children, or could serve as the

basis for a classroom project for early childhood education students. The free application provides

graphic images in the style of a child's picture book. You add the text. The books are printable and

may be viewed on a variety of devices.

www.storybird.com

3. Student Success

Learner analytics is a hot topic in higher education right now. This article examines two case studies in a university setting.

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/two-case-studies-learner-analytics-university-system-maryland

4. Geometric Shapes

These geometric shapes are in a printable .pdf document and include cutting and fold lines for constructing a 3-D geometric shape. Follow this link to download a copy.

http://www.edgalaxy.com/journal/2012/8/5/great-collection-of-3d-shape-nets-to-download-and-print.html

Linky Thursday August 16, 2012

2012-08-16T10:29:00.001-05:00

Linky Thursday

August 16, 2012

Today we have some new links for a new school year. Check them out!

Word Clouds

Word clouds are mostly for fun, but a creative instructor might use one to briefly emphasize new vocabulary words or key concepts in a lesson. They can also be useful as illustrations or images to add visual interest. Wordle brought us the first web tool for creating word clouds, but tagxedo.com allows the creator to make a shaped word cloud. Click on the links below to locate these tools.

www.wordle.net

www.tagxedo.com

Student Presentation Tool

Do you want to stress the importance of primary documents as a source of information in a history course? Perhaps you'd like students to collect examples of art for an art history or humanities class. Here's a neat little application that allows students to place documents and images into an interactive grid called a "museum box" for presentation.

www.museumbox.e2bn.org

Moodle Monday - Five Tips to Start your Semester

2012-08-13T13:46:00.003-05:00

Welcome Back for the Fall Semester!

As you are prepping your courses for Fall here are a five tips to make sure the online portion of your courses are off to a great start!

Send an introductory email to your students. Sending an introductory email to your students tells them you are geared up and ready to go, inspiring them to do the same. Make sure to include contact information, important dates from your syllabus, and other information that will help your students learn and succeed. This is a great idea even for face to face courses.
Prep your Moodle course. Check your course to make sure it’s ready for Fall semester. Make sure all your due dates and start dates are correct, links still work, and that your sections or resources are shown or hidden as you need.
Introductory Ice Breaker / Forum - a best practice for online classes is to include an ice-breaker activity which allows students to get to know each other. An easy way to do this is an introductory forum. Read more about online ice-breakers here.
New Timeout Default Procedure - you received an email from Dr. Molly Baker, our new Director of Instructional Technology, concerning the new default timeout for Moodle and best practices for quizzes. Please make sure to read through this change to Moodle.

To recap:

Moodle Timeout is 3 hours
Quiz default time limit is set to 2 hours (this can be changed), with this on students will see a timer as they take a quiz
create quizzes with no more than 5 to 7 questions per page
this change only affects future quizzes you create, it does not alter existing quizzes. Please edit existing quizzes to meet these best practice guidelines.

Make your course available- if you have hidden your course, be sure to go to the settings link in the administration block and make your course available in the “Availability” section

If you haven’t requested your Fall Moodle Course, please do so soon!
Request using the form here: http://svcc.edu/employees/it/Moodle-Request

Moodle Monday - Digital Habitats

2012-06-18T11:33:00.006-05:00

This weeks Moodle Monday is a book recommendation.

Digital Habitats: Stewarding technology for communities. - Etienne Wenger, Nancy White, and John D. Smith. 2009.

Digital Habitats is recommended for anyone who is interested in building an online community in their class. It does a great job of framing theory and the tools together in way that helps the reader understand how technology can be used to foster a community of learners.

I found this book helpful in understanding how learning happens in an online environment. I like that it's focus is not on tools, but on the activities that people engage in online. After explaining the activity it then shares tools that might be used to accomplish that activity.

Here is a diagram from the book showing a graphic organizing tools from a community perspective.

You can read about the book at it's website:

http://technologyforcommunities.com/about-the-book/

Moodle Monday - Orientation to Online Learning Course

2012-06-04T15:23:00.004-05:00

Help students new to Moodle learn to use Moodle activities and resources by pointing them to the new Online Learning Orientation Course. https://svcc.mrooms3.net/course/view.php?id=901

This course is free and open to any Sauk student enrolled in a Moodle course.

The course was designed to instruct students who have never used Moodle in how to use it's basic activities: quizzes, forums, assignments, and email. It also provides information on how to save files in different formats before uploading, and in how to access and open several different file types.

The course is only two sections long and is designed to be completed in about two hours.

Alternatively, we can make this course available to you so you can import any of the activities or resources directly into your course. This way you can integrate an introduction directly into your course.

Call the ITC for more details or for help with this course.
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Moodle Monday - Screen capture tool in Windows

2012-05-07T09:26:00.001-05:00

Windows 7 features a screen capture tool named 'Snipping Tool'. With this tool you can capture images of your computer screen, annotate the image with the pen or highlighting tool, then save the image as jpeg to use in your online classes. To find the program go to All Programs >> Accessories.

You can capture a free form shape, a rectangle, a window, or the full screen.


The snipping tool control window.

After you capture an image it will show in the editing window. Clicking on the pen icon will give you the option to choose a different pen color and to customize a pen size and shape.