Using Moodle 2.2in College. Case study

Maryel Mendiola

iMoot 2012

This presentation is about my experiences using Moodle 2.2 in Computer Engineering Career at ESIME Culhuacan, this college belongs to National Polytechnic in Mexico Since many years ago, we were using Moodle as Virtual Environment to compliment our face to face classes.

All my students gather in Moodle every single night (as young people, they are connected to internet all nights). It is amazing to discover their quality feedbacks in forums, they are better students and learn more in a digital environment .

I encouraged myself to update to Moodle 2.1 since it was released and said bye bye to my old 1.9 version

Now we have VLE Moodle 2.2

The context

Level: Bachelor

Language: Spanish

Course Length: 3 Units. Each unit takes about 2 months

Participants: 4 groups from Computer Engineering Career

Mode: B - Learning

URL: http://humanidades.mmendiola.net

Case study

Customizing Moodle

Please keep in mind:

There is no single correct way to use Moodle

The creativity of teachers and course creators, makes each course a unique one

In this case study, I have 3 different roles: Admin, Teacher and Course creator as well.

Hope this case study could be useful to encourage those who are still using 1.9 version to upload to 2.x

Case studyIn our Moodle room there are participants of four college groups: 4CV1, 4CV2, 4CV3, 4CV3.

Each group holds 20 students more or less. They set their ‘academic group’ ID in ‘City’ field in their profiles.

This let me manage the messages I have to sent to a specific group.

Why do we use field ‘City’ to set their group?

First of all, we have face to face classes twice a week and we all live in the same City

Furthermore, we use ‘Groups’ feature in many ways and for different purpose. a Moodle group in our course is mixed with students of any ‘college groups’ (in forward pages you can find the way we use Moodle groups)

The course has 3 assessment periodsOur course is objective based and each Unit objectives takes 2 months of time to complete. That’s why we use Topics format course.

In topic 0 is the link to our Syllabus using Page resource with embedding googledoc

Embed code for googledocs:

<div align="center"><iframe src="URLgoogledoc/edit ?pli=1&amp;embedded=true" frameborder="0" height="600 px" width="100%"></iframe></div>

New Moodle 2.x blocksThe new blocks we use the most are:

✓ Setting Block✓ Navigation Block✓ Comments Block✓ Course completion status Block✓ Logged in user Block✓ Blog Menu Block (new version)

As first step, students are required to use dock with Navigation and Settings Blocks.

This will let them an easy navigation in the whole site and get more expertise like Moodle users

This block is the most liked by students.

They find that some HTML tags are allowed for their comments.

We use this block in front page course and within some activities.

✓ Comments Block

✓ Course completion status Block (teachers view)

The course completion status block shows what students have been done towards completing the course.

Teachers can see the status for each student in the course

course report content

Teacher view

Students can see their progress in the course when they click on "More details" link.

Sometimes students must mark an activity as completed on homepage course.

student view details

✓Course completion status Block (students view)

✓ Logged in user block

According to students,This block is very helpful because it allows to know our IP among other information, which can set by the teacher

✓ Blog menu Block (new presentation)

This block is not new, just has new context-sensitive links for adding an entry about the course or a particular activity

Blog menu 1.9

Blog menu 2.x

Exclusive Blocks

Moodle 2.x has some exclusive blocks that can only be added to a certain spaces

✓ Youtube Block✓ Flickr BlockCan only be added to a Tags page

✓ Course overview block

This block is only visible in 'My home' page and shows a list of all courses in which a user is enrolled.

Resources 2.x

In Moodle 2.2 the duplicate icon x2 lets you make a copy of that resource or activity.

6 Resources Moodle 2.2

The most used recourse is 'Page', because it is powerful and versatile. We create pages with content and multimedia, iframes with googledocs or even a URL. We manage content with this resource as a tiny web siteAnother awesome feature in Moodle 2.2 is the editor menu. I've created 5 videos showing how does it works but they are in Spanish. I'm sure your could be interesting in visit HRDNZ youtube channel with English videos.

Spanish videoshttp://www.youtube.com/user/MariaMoodle/videos

English videoshttp://www.youtube.com/user/HRDNZMoodlePartner

It is a dream come true!

Now in Moodle is possible to make a copy or backup of individual activities or resource in a course and then re use these activities anywhere you want: in other Moodle site or in other course on your Moodle.

If you’d like to use a lesson, you can backup it and then restore it in the course you want to re-use your lesson, just an individual backup!!!!

Reusing resources and activities

To make this kind of individual copy:

‣ you need editing rights of course ‣ click on the activity/resource you want backup‣ use in the setting block the link ‘backup’‣ follow the 5 steps

IMS Content Package

You can create IMS CP this way:

Using module ‘Book’.Meanwhile Book is a non standard module I use it only in local (This is to avoid complications when we update our Moodle site with a new version).

When the book is ready, we can Generate IMS CP from settings block and reuse it i n any course . You can read in docs.moodle.org: "The IMS Content Packaging specification makes it possible to store chunks of material in a standard format which can be re-used in different systems, without having to convert the material into new formats."

Activities Moodle 2.2

14 activities Moodle 2.2

New activities:

✓ External tool✓ Feedback✓ Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format✓ Workshop (renovated)✓ Wiki (improved)

An activities mind map shows how do we could see all Moodle activities in our mind, which are allowed to be graded, which are not graded, and the way they can be madden. In moodlebites we have tested this collective exercise with Stuart Mealor.

This last version is customized to my point of view. It shows how I see activities and how I use them in my course planning

¿How do you see your activities mind-map when planning your course?

The most used activity: DataBase

Database activity is versatile, powerful and flexible. It holds a bank of record entries about any conceivable topic

Is the most used activity in our course, We use database for:

✓Graphic design gallery✓PDF bank and document discussion (allowing comments)✓Show videos about an specific topic✓Gather participants URL Blog✓co evaluation✓etc

Database presets for Moodle 2.0http://www.slideshare.net/mariamoodle/database-presets-for-moodle-20

I love to customize DB templates and use to export them as presets.

You can find several presets at Moodle exchange

Please take a look to my tutorial

Managing CourseUsing Groups in our course.

As we said before, they set their ‘academic group’ ID in ‘City’ field in their profiles.

We use groups to show their grades they gain in each assessment period (3) and they are grouping by Period

Golden @ = 10 Silver @ = 9Cooper @ = 87 and 6 have other icons, the ‘epic fail’ and red number icon.

And this is good, because this strategy allows improve student learning, which is reflected in their most active and creative participation in activities. They like to approach and get a better @ each period.

Managing Groups:

Settings->Course administration ->Groups

Grouping views

The reward of using this tool is: Students feel good about participating in forums or in the list of participants, showing their groups icons.

This encourage them to achieve the longed golden @ or some special mention, and meaning better participation and better learning

Last but not least, regarding e-portfolio, we have a Mahara site in the same domain, to complement our Moodle VLE

One more thing . . .

Dock

Navigation Block

Comments Block

Resource/activity backup

Private files

Course completion Block

Purge all caches

Rubrics

Conditional Activities

Device type ThemesWhich are yours?

My Top 10 Moodle 2.x Features

...” si me dijeran, pide un deseopreferiría un rabo de nube . . .”

Silvio Rodriguez

Wish #1: Wake up someday and have news about ‘Book’ is already a standard module (yay!)

Wish #2: Someone has created another Moodle plugin that works just like ‘Hang out’ in google+

Wish #3: A workshop update that allows everyone could grade everyone, allow them to watch all works and allow any kind of file to upload and be graded. With an interface like DB . . . sort of

Making a wish

Thanks Moodle HQ: without your effort and dedication Moodle wouldn't be so awesome!

Thanks Martin Dougiamas: Moodle exists because of you

Time to be Grateful

THANK YOU

http://moodleblog.mmendiola.net/