Create an Calendar Invitatioin while Composing an email in Gmail.

Kudos to Dave Habben for this tip.

In Gmail, under the Subject box there is a link to insert an invitation.  Clicking this link will open a pop-up that will let you create a calendar invitation.  Everyone you send the email to will receive the email as a Calendar invitation.  They will be able to reply and add the event directly to their calendar.  While the pop-up does not give you all the functionality that you can choose when making an event directly in Google Calendar, it works wonderfully for quick or single events.   See the attached screen shots for a quick over view of this process. 

Below is the pop-up window you will see.  Notice how the Subject heading of the email becomes the "what" heading for the event. 

Invite attendees to an Event in Google Calendar

We often receive emails for invitations to events for meetings, programs, or other activities on campus.   Instead of sending an email, send a Calendar invitation.   Attendees will receive an email and be able to accept, decline, or mark maybe.  The benefits are two-fold.   Attendees who choose to accept the invitation automatically have the event added to their Google Calendar.   The creator of the event will be able to see who has accepted the invitation. (so will all attendees unless you change the default settings)  This saves time for both parties. 

To learn how to do this, see the attached tutorial.   Tutorial
Learn more about Google Calender and other Google apps, see the IT department's website. http://www.svcc.edu/employees/it/index.html

Upload many files to Moodle at once - Use a Zip file.

Today's Moodle Monday will show you how to upload multiple files to your Moodle course files at once.

Place all the files you want to upload into the same folder.  Here you can see I have four different file types I want to upload.  They are in a folder titled "Unit 1".

Next, RIGHT CLICK on the folder and choose SEND TO and COMPRESSED (ZIPPED) FOLDER.

You will now have a new folder on your desktop (or in the same folder as the original) that has a zipper on the icon.

Log in to you Moodle Course.  Go to your files and upload a file just as you normally would, only select the Zipped folder you just created. The zipped folder will upload and appear with the rest of your files.  To extract the contents of this folder, choose UNZIP.

Moodle will create a new folder with the same name, but unzipped, in your files.

Open that folder an you will see all the files that were in the original folder on your computer.

Moodle Resources - Moodle Training

This week I want to highlight a training resource available to you.   It is a Moodle Course on our Moodle Site named Moodle Resources.

https://svcc.mrooms3.net/course/view.php?id=9

In this course you will find many training resources that your IT Department has created for you.  These include printable handouts, screencasts, and examples.   A few highlights to check out are:

Screencast: Creating a Book in Moodle
Handout - Introduction to Moodle Gradebook
Handout - Email Options
Handout - Creating and Using Groups and Groupings in Moodle

Take a few minutes to explore the site and look at these resources.  If you don't have access to the course, please let us know.  email: ittraining@svcc.edu

Moodle Monday - embed a webpage into a Moodle Web Page

This tip will show you how to embed a web page into a Moodle Web page so that students view outside links while still in Moodle.  Doing this can help students feel secure that they are working on the activities you have prescribed.

After Creating a new web page, click on the  Toggle HTML button.

In the text editor, paste this code, replacing the link to CNN with which ever link you want your students to go to.

 

Go to the bottom of the page and SAVE. 
Now when you students click the link to the web page, they will stay in Moodle, but see  the web content you have linked.

Linky Thursday

We have just a few interesting links for you this week.

 http://intervue.me

Intervue.me is a questionnaire creator on the web that allows interviewees to respond via web cam. Link to your questionnaires, and upload video clips as mp4 files into your course.

http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2011/04/create-video-questionnaires.html

This is a nice tutorial created by a blogger to explain how to use intervue.me

www.codecademy.com

Would you like to upgrade your computer skills? Codecademy.com is a simple, free website where you can learn basic javascript programming.

Spring Break!

Moodle Monday

Adjusting Your Course Outline to reflect Spring Break

Spring break is scheduled for March 5 – 9, 2012. If you have a course full of resources and activities and are using the Weekly format option to organize your course in Moodle, you may wish to add a blank week for spring break. Follow the steps below to quickly and easily reformat your course.

Click on the Settings link in the Administration block.

      

           Scroll down to the “number of weeks/topics” drop down menu and add an extra week to the current number. Save the changes.

You will now have a blank week at the bottom of your course.

Scroll down to the new, blank week, and left click on the arrow to the left of the indicated dates for that week.      

 

 

      With the left mouse button still depressed, drag the arrow up until the blank week is on top of the March 5 – 11 week. Release the button.

There! Moodle will automatically renumber the dates to reflect the extra week, and all of your course materials will reflect the correct date. Remember to change the label for the week if you are in the habit of titling each week with additional labels.