Thursday, March 21, 2013

New Tools / Apps for Spring 2013

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

Monday, March 4, 2013

New Navigation Features in Moodle 2


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The Administration block has been replaced by the Settings block.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