Monday, June 3, 2013

Moodle 2 Reminders and Tips

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.