Assignments Activity: Advanced Uploading of Files.

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

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

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.

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