Update Concerning Moodle Login Notifications

On Dec 27th 2013 Moodle Rooms applied a minor upgrade to our Moodle site.  This upgrade crippled a process critical for the seventh and fourteenth day Moodle login notifications to function. Our institution was the first to notice this failure and alert Moodle Rooms.   We have since removed the notification rules from all online courses this semester.  Students did not receive the planned notification on the fourteenth day if they did not log into your course. We encourage you to monitor student progress and contact any students who have not been participating in your courses.  Moodle Rooms has since fixed the issue, and we hope to utilize these notifications again next semester. 

New Process for Making Moodle Course Visible to Students

A new semester would not be complete without a few new changes and features to Moodle.  Most important of these is the process to make your course available to students has slightly changed.  You still need to go to "Edit Settings" in the course administration block, but the course available option has moved and been renamed to Visibility.   See the linked PDF for directions.

Another minor change you will find is that your resource and activities settings no longer appear as a long scrolling page.  Instead these settings have been collapsed into links.   Click the title of the settings to see those options for the activity or resource.    View the video below to see how the new feature works.

One new feature that is now available is in the Assignment Activity.  Teachers can now allow individual students to resubmit an assignment before the due date.  To do this, when creating a new assignment activity (or edit your existing assignments) in the submission settings section, set "Attempts reopened" setting to "Manually".

Click image to view full size.

When you are grading assignments, you can click the black arrow in the edit columns menu to see a list of options, choose "Allow another attempt."

Click image to view full size.

Keep reading our blog to learn more new features in Moodle.

Moodle Transition - SP2014

Your guide to transition Moodle courses each Semester and for preparing to teach online.

IMPORTANT SEMESTER DATES

JANUARY 10 -    Students enrolled in Moodle courses
JANUARY 13 -     First day of spring semester
JANUARY 20 -    Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – no classes
MARCH 7 -     Mid-semester date, Spring Break begins at 4:30
MARCH 28 -     Last day for student-initiated withdrawal
MAY 12-16 –     Final exams
MAY 16 –     Commencement
MAY 19 –     All grades are due in the Office of Admissions and Records

TRANSITION CHECKLIST

 

EXPORT GRADES

1.  From the main page of your course,  click Grades in the Settings  block under Course Administration.
2. Choose the Export tab, then  Excel spreadsheet sub tab.
3. Under Options, click the “Include Feedback in Export” check box.
4.  Scroll down and click submit.
5. Click Download and save the file to your computer or flash drive.  

EXPORT ATTENDANCE

1. Access your attendance.
2. Click on the Export tab near the top.
3.  From the Format pull-down menu,  choose the file format you’d like the report exported in.
4. Click on the OK button.
5. Choose Display or Save. 

IMPORT YOUR COURSE

Before the first day of class, import content into your new course shell from a previous course, if  applicable. Directions can be found here.

UPDATE YOUR COURSE

Make appropriate updates to your course.  To update your dated activities:

1. Turn editing on. 
2. Click the Edit icon for the activity you wish to update.
3. Change the availability or due date and click ‘Save and Return to Course’ at the bottom.
4. Repeat as needed.

EMAIL NEW STUDENTS

Invite your online students into your class, using SOAR to send all of your enrolled  students an introductory email. Include your contact information and Moodle login information. View a tutorial detailing how to email your online students through SOAR.  You may utilize the Template for Emailing an Online Class provided in Instructor Resources for  this purpose. For special instructions  regarding ILCCO students, see page two  of this document.

MAKE COURSE AVAILABLE TO STUDENTS

 Students will not have access to your class until you make it available to them. By default, all courses created for the spring semester will be hidden from students. Follow these steps to make the course available to students.

1. Go into your course.
2. Go to ‘Edit settings’ in the Settings block under Course Administration.
3. Scroll down to the Availability section.
4. Change the availability to “This course is available to students”, and Save Changes at the bottom. View a tutorial for changing your course availability.

OTHER INFORMATION

SVCC EXEMPLARY ONLINE COURSE CHECKLIST

Use this tool to review your online course with a colleague or IT staff. The four sections of course design can be used to help you incorpo­rate best practices in instructional strategies for online courses. http://www.svcc.edu/employ­ees/it/resources/SVCC_Exemplary_Online_Course_Checklist.pdf

STUDENT LOGIN INFORMATION

Students’ usernames are firstname.middleini­tial.lastname. For example, John Alex Smith’s username would be john.a.smith. If students do not have a middle initial in Banner it will not be part of their username. Students’ pass­words start with sv followed by the last 4 digits of their Sauk ID numbers.

For example, the Sauk ID @00001234 will have the password sv1234. Printable student login information can be found at http://www.svcc.edu/students/studentlogins.pdf.

ILCCO/ICE STUDENTS

If you receive an email from the ICE system, you have a student from other Illinois com­munity colleges in your class. This means you will need to access the ILCCO site to enter tenth day attendance, midterm grades and final grades. Let us know if you need help accessing the ILCCO site at http://ice.ilcco.net/. Please be sure to contact these students. View a tutorial detailing how to send email to the group via the ICE website. You may utilize the Moodle Email ILCCO Students Template pro­vided on the IT website.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Moodle Course Availability

Tutorial for Emailing your class through SOAR

Templatefor Emailing an Online Class

Directions for Importing your course

Exemplary Online Course Checklist

Student Login Information

http://ice.ilcco.net/
How to Email ICE Students

Email ILCCO Students Template

Where did the Google Apps Bar Go?

This week's blog post is a redirect to the official Google Search Blog.

Many of you may have noticed that your Google bar, which you used to open your calendar, Gmail, or drive is missing. (If it hasn't yet, it soon will.)  It's been replaced with an Apps grid.

Read more about it here;
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2013/09/updating-google-bar-many-products.html

Note:  this is a change Google made, SVCC has no control over the change, we can't change it back.

Did you Know? - Moodle 2.0 - Joule Grader

Did you know Moodle 2 has a quick and easy tool for grading Assignments and Advanced forums? The Joule Grader makes it easy to grade assignments, Advanced Forums  (regular forums are not available for grading in the Joule Grader), and more - all from one screen!

To learn more, check out the images below or see more detailed information at this link:  http://manuals.moodlerooms.com/display/JOULE2/Joule+Grader+Manual

Did You Know? - Moodle 2.0, Restrict Access Setting

Did you know Moodle 2.0 has a new setting for activities called Restrict Access? Restrict access enables instructors to choose variables that control when an activity is available and when it will become unavailable to students.  This differs from, and should not be confused with, timing settings with which you are already familiar. The timing settings disable a student's ability to complete an activity. For example, enabling opening and closing dates could prevent students from uploading a file past the due date, or from starting a quiz attempt. In contrast, Restrict Access closes the eye on the activity until the variable conditions you set have been met, such as a time, completion, achieving a passing grade in a previously completed activity, or entering a code. Restrict Access is a great tool for assignments requiring mastery prior to proceeding to the next level.

Warning! Setting restrict access for an activity will also have an effect in your gradebook. The activity's eye will be closed there as well. This may have an effect on how your grades are totaled. Contact the IT Department for assistance if you are interested in using this feature.

To learn more read the help file posted on our IT Moodle 2 Training Resources page.

http://video.svcc.edu:8080/download/IT/Moodle2/How_to_Restrict_access_in_Joule_2..pdf

A screen shot of the restrict access controls.

A Little Fun with Closed Captions

Has this ever happened to you?  You are happily preparing for the next semester, carefully selecting the best resources for your course when you receive notification that your class will include a student who will need multimedia items to be closed captioned. Great, you think, those really wonderful YouTube videos include automatic captions, so I'm all set! Right? Well, probably not.

The automatic captions rely on speech recognition technology, which can be less than reliable.  Do you want to have some fun while examining evidence of the folly of relying on automated captions? Compare these lyrics to the song "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction to the a video created to demonstrate the issues with automated captions. Click here to view the video, and see our suggested solutions below. I think you will agree that a student would be quite confused by the automated captions in this video, which are -sadly - fairly typical examples of automated captions.

"What Makes You Beautiful"

[Verse 1]

You're insecure,

Don't know what for,

You're turning heads when you walk through the door,

[Bridge]

Don't need make-up,

To cover up,

Being the way that you are is enough,

Everyone else in the room can see it,

Everyone else but you,

[Chorus]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else,

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

You don't know,

Oh, oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

If only you saw what I can see,

You'd understand why I want you so desperately,

Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,

You don't know,

Oh, oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Oh, oh,

That's what makes you beautiful

[Verse 2]

So c-come on.

You got it wrong.

To prove I'm right

I put it in a song.

I don't know why

You're being shy,

And turn away when I look into your eye-eye-eyes,

[Bridge]

Everyone else in the room can see it,

Everyone else but you,

[Chorus]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else,

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

If only you saw what I can see,

You'll understand why I want you so desperately,

Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Oh oh,

That's what makes you beautiful

Na na na na na na na na na na

Na na na na na na [x2]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else,

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

[Chorus]

Baby you light up my world like nobody else,

The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed,

But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful (Oh),

If only you saw what I can see,

You'll understand why I want you so desperately

Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe,

You don't know,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Oh oh,

You don't know you're beautiful,

Oh oh,

That's what makes you beautiful 

So what is a great instructor to do? Always proofread the captions provided in a video to ascertain that they are accurate. Not all captions in YouTube are created with automatic captioning, so you might be fortunate enough to stumble upon a video with clear, accurate captions. If not, call us in IT at extension 229 for help. Planning ahead is desirable - it takes many weeks just to ask and receive permission to caption and stream a video. Now would be a great time to review your videos and determine which, if any, present a problem.