Making Moodle Gradebook more Managable.

Navigating Moodle's gradebook can be challenging at times.  Especially if you have a class with a large number of students enrolled.  The interface lists all your students at once which forces you to  scroll up and down quite a bit.

You can adjust your preferences to only show you a few students at a time. Follow these steps to make the change.
1.  After entering your grade book, choose the "My preferences" Tab
2.  The very last option lets you choose how many "Students per page"  you want to view.   Enter 10.
3.   Save Changes and you will return to your gradebook.

Collapse Modules you are not using.

As the semester progresses and you begin working in modules further down the screen, it becomes cumbersome to continually scroll up and down as you edit and work with your Moodle course.   Clicking the small white box in the upper right of a Module will collapse all other modules expect that one you are working in, and the very first one.  

Clicking this box again returns you to the original view.  This does not effect what your students will see when they log in, only you.

View Student Activity

Occasionally you may need to view student activity.  Perhaps you need to see if a student has been active in a class, or perhaps you want to see participation as an assessment.   To see student activity on your Moodle site, begin by looking at Participants in the Course Menu Block.

This screen will show you who has accessed the class in order of most recent first.   From here you can choose several other view option.

 Here you can choose to see users by group or inactivity. 

You may also click on a participants name, then click on Activity Report tab to see what activities a participant has been active in.

Then:

The Outline report simply shows which activities a participant has accessed.  The Complete Report will show forum posts and responses as well as what activities the participant has viewed.

Gradebook - Hidden Grades

While individual assignments can be hidden in the gradebook, so can categories of grades.   If you haven't created categories, all of your grades will be in one category.  This can be hidden by closing the eyeball for "Grade Category". If students tell you that they cannot see their grades, look to see that this setting hasn't been checked and students grades are hidden. 

Moodle Lock Feature: create prerequisite locks for resources and activities

The Moodle Lock feature allows an instructor to lock out an activity or resource from a student until they have completed prerequisite activites.  Prerequisites can include achieving a set score on an assessment or assignment, or be as simple as opening a resource.

To lock an activity or resource, click on the lock icon at the end of the editing tools.  In this example I am clicking the Lock for Chapter 1 Quiz



On the webpage that opens you see a list of all activities and resources for your course.   Checking "User must access this activity" forces the student to open the activity before they can access whichever item you clicked the lock for.  You can also require prerequisite scores on an activities.  In this instance, I am requiring that students receive a 75 on their study questions.   Now students are not allowed to take Chapter 1 Quiz until they have passed the Study Questions activity with at least a grade of 75.

If you are familiar with Blackboard, this function was called 'Selective Release'.

Stop by the ITC if you want to learn more about this feature.

Moodle Inbox - managing your moodle student mail

Managing email from students in Moodle is made easy with Course Mails Inbox.

Step 1:  In your courses turn on your 'eMail List' block.
With editing turned on, choose 'eMail List' from the drop down menu in the 'Blocks' Block

Step 2:  Enter your Course Mails Inbox 
The 'eMail List' block will appear at the bottom of your right column.   It will show a notification if you have email from students for the course you are in.  (keep reading to find out how to easily see email from all your courses.)    Clicking on the 'Inbox' Link in this block will take you to your Course Mails Inbox.

Step 3: Switch betweeen courses. 
Once in your Course Mails Inbox you will see a Mailbox with a list of all your courses.  Clicking on individual courses will take you to the inbox for that course.   From here you can easily click through your courses to read your mail.

Step 4:  (Optional) Create a bookmark for the Course Mails page. 
While you are viewing your Course Mail create a bookmark.   Clicking the bookmark will prompt you to login (if you are not logged in already), but then take you straight to your Moodle Course Mails. Here is the link:
https://svcc.mrooms3.net/blocks/email_list/email/index.php?id=9

Typeit.org - adding characters for other languages

¿Have you ever wondered how to add characters from other languages while typing?


Typeit.org makes it easy.  Simply choose the language for which you need to type, then use the buttons above the text area to add those characters when you need.   When done, copy and paste into whatever document you want to use. 


It's that easy!
(as always, if you are typing a long docuement, make sure you save often - or in this case, copy and paste often.)


For a printable reference sheet click here. 

Screenshot from Typeit.org