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Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 1
Introduction to Moodle: Lesson 1
Setting Up a Course Homepage
Browser Choice:
- PC: Firefox or Internet Explorer
- Mac: Firefox. Do not use Safari, because some screens do not display correctly
Go to this URL: http://www.woffordmoodle.com/
You now will see three course categories.
Choose 200909 (i.e., Fall 2009), where we have loaded courses for workshop participants.
You will see a list of courses that we have loaded into Moodle. Find one of your courses and click on its name.
You will need to login to Moodle. Your username will be your usual network username (e.g., whisnantdm). Your initial password will be your W-number.
You can change your password once you have logged in^1.
(^1) Although you will not need to do this, the process of creating an account is described in Appendix A.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 2
At the beginning, your course Homepage will look something like this.
The Homepage has three columns:
- Left: Menus
- Center: Course Information
- Right: Miscellaneous
Setting Up Your Course
The first thing you need to do is set up your course. Click on Settings in the Administration menu.
This will bring you to an “Edit Course Settings” page.
Most of the course already will be set up. Two options that may be of interest are the format of the Moodle Homepage and showing the gradebook.
The Course start date probably will have been set to the first day of the term. You can change the start date if you like.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage
In these lessons, the Homepage shows a weekly outline beginning on June 1 because I used a Weekly Format and June 1 as the starting date. If you choose a weekly
Metacourses
Metacourse are just like other courses except that they enroll courses rather than students. An example might be the Bio 150 sections. Suppose there are three Bio 150 sections in M (150A, 150B, and 150C). You set up a metacourse named Bio 150 Meta, with the three sections as children. Bio 150 sections automatically become participants in the Bio 150 Meta course. Other than the names of participants, in not pushed between metacourse and the children courses. The metacourse simply becomes a “room” to which all students in the three sections have access.
Metacourses are useful if you have the sections. Instead of posting the material on each section’s homepage, you simply post it on the metacourse’s homepage. Because they automatically are enrolled in the metacourse, all of the students would have access to the material by navig
Also, if you want to send out an announcement to all students in all of the sections, you could do it from the news forum in the metacourse. If you have the news forum in the metacourse set up so that it forces all participants to be subscribed, they all will get an email message of the announcement.
We will be glad to set up a metacourse for you. it in the same way that you set up a normal course metacourse?” question. When you save the course settings page for the metacourse, the next screen you see is a list of all courses on the Wofford Moodle site. You can select the courses from the list that you want to be children o
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ike other courses except that they enroll courses rather than students. An example might be the Bio 150 sections. Suppose there are three Bio 150 sections in Moodle (150A, 150B, and 150C). You set up a metacourse named Bio 150 Meta, with the three sections as children. All students in the three Bio 150 sections automatically become participants in the Bio 150 Meta course. Other than the names of participants, information is not pushed between metacourse and the children courses. The metacourse simply becomes a “room” to which all students in the
Metacourses are useful if you have material that you want to distribute to all the student the sections. Instead of posting the material on each section’s homepage, you simply post it on the metacourse’s homepage. Because they automatically are enrolled in the metacourse, all of the students would have access to the material by navigating to the Bio 150 Meta homepage.
Also, if you want to send out an announcement to all students in all of the sections, you could do it from the news forum in the metacourse. If you have the news forum in the metacourse set up icipants to be subscribed, they all will get an email message of the
We will be glad to set up a metacourse for you. If you want to set the metacourse up yourself, do in the same way that you set up a normal course, except that you answer “Yes” to the “Is this a metacourse?” question. When you save the course settings page for the metacourse, the next screen you see is a list of all courses on the Wofford Moodle site. You can select the courses from the list that you want to be children of the metacourse.
to distribute to all the students in all of the sections. Instead of posting the material on each section’s homepage, you simply post it on the metacourse’s homepage. Because they automatically are enrolled in the metacourse, all of the ating to the Bio 150 Meta homepage.
Also, if you want to send out an announcement to all students in all of the sections, you could do it from the news forum in the metacourse. If you have the news forum in the metacourse set up icipants to be subscribed, they all will get an email message of the
f you want to set the metacourse up yourself, do r “Yes” to the “Is this a metacourse?” question. When you save the course settings page for the metacourse, the next screen you see is a list of all courses on the Wofford Moodle site. You can select the courses
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 5
Editing the Course Homepage
At the beginning, the Miscellaneous column on the right probably shows the latest news, upcoming events, and a log of recent activity. Let’s make some changes in this column.
Click on the Turn editing on button in the upper right of the Moodle window.
Hiding an Item from Students
As a teacher, you would like to see recent activity in your Moodle course, but may not want students to see it. In the Recent Activity block, click on the open eye icon in the editing icons row below “Recent Activity.” This will “close” the eye.
A closed eye indicates that the students cannot see this information.
Switching to a Student Role
A quick way to view a page as a student will see it is to switch your role. Click on Switch role to... and select Student.
Note that the Recent Activity block is no longer visible. When you are ready, click on Return to my normal role to see the Teacher’s view again.
If you switch to the Student role, it will turn editing off. You will need to Turn editing on again to edit the page.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 7
Moving a Block in the Miscellaneous Column
Let’s make the calendar more prominent by moving it to the top of the column. Click on the arrow icon in the Calendar editing icons row three times to move the calendar to the top.
At this point, a student’s view of the right column would look like the picture at the right.
Deleting a Block in the Miscellaneous Column
To avoid clutter, you may want to remove block(s) from the Miscellaneous column. In editing mode , clicking on the X icon in a block’s editing row will delete the block from the column.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 8
Adding a Course Summary
Now, let’s move to the center column that contains specific information about your course. First we will put in the course’s title and brief description. With editing on , click on the text edit icon under “Weekly outline”.
In the text editing workspace , enter the name of the course. Designate it as the largest heading, Heading 1 , and Center the text.
Click on Save changes when you are finished.
The name of the course will be surrounded by a gray rectangle. Text that has been set up with “Heading 1” size will be surrounded by this rectangle for emphasis. If you don’t want the rectangle, you can specify the size of the text without specifying that it is Heading 1.
You also can add some descriptive text below the tile, if you should so desire.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 10
At this point, you should see the name of the image in the File Browser window, in this particular case, “Internet_ Visualization.gif”
If you double-click on the name of the image, its URL will be added to the Image URL text box. Enter alternate text for the image in the Alternate text box.
Click on OK when you are finished.
You should see the picture displayed below the text. Click on the Center icon to center the image.
Save your changes.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 11
Posting a Document
You probably will want to post documents such as a syllabus or course schedule to the Course Homepage.
In the Add a resource menu, select Link to a file or web site.
Enter the name you want to give the document, for example “Syllabus,” in the text box. Click on Choose or upload a file and then Upload a file in the next window.
In the following window, browse to the file you want and click on Upload this file. Finally, choose the document you have selected.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 13
Type in “Honor Code” as the name.
If you so desire, you may add a summary in the “Summary” text editing workspace.
Enter or paste in the URL of the Honor Code web page in the Location text box.
Click on Save and return to course at the bottom of the page.
You will see a link to the Honor Code on the course Homepage
Posting News or an Announcement
If you would like to post a general news item or an announcement, click on the News Forum link that is already on the Course Homepage.
NOTE: If you are “practicing” with Moodle while you build your page for a course, you probably do not want to send automatic email messages to your students when you post an announcement. See Appendix B on how to NOT force everyone to be subscribed. You can change this when you are ready to use the Course Homepage for real.
Click on Add a new topic
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 14
Enter a Subject and some text describing the news or announcement in the “Message” text editing workspace.
The text can include a hyperlink to an external web page on the subject. To insert a hyperlink, select the text that will be hyperlinked, click on the hyperlink icon, and enter the URL of the external
web page
When you click on Post to forum , you will see it in the list of discussions.
On the example course page, you also will see the forum you have posted listed under Latest News.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 16
Moving an Item
What if, perish the thought, you make a mistake and place a resource in the wrong section. For example, suppose that you chose the upper resource drop- down menu and put the label in the upper section rather than under the first week.
We want to move this label down. This is easy to do.
Click on the up-down arrow icon in the editing row below the label.
This will open up rectangles with dotted-line borders in all the potential places to which you can move the label. Click on the rectangle in the section corresponding to the week you want.
You now should see the label in the correct place.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 17
Adding a Text Page
An alternative to posting information in a document, such as a Word or PDF file, is to post it on a text page. Let’s post a text page in the first weekly block. In the Add a resource menu, select Compose a text page.
Enter the Name of the text page.
Note that the first text editing workspace is for a summary of the resource.
The text that will go on the text page is entered below in the Compose a text page section.
When you have entered the text, click on Save and return to course.
If you click on the text page link, you will see the text page.
The summary will be displayed if you click on the Resources link in the Activities menu
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 19
Moodle Docs
Moodle is very well documented. If you have a question about an individual setting you can click on the question mark icon beside the drop-down list for the setting.
If you want more information about the settings on the page, click on Moodle Docs for this page , which will be found at the bottom of the page. I have found this information to be extensive and quite useful.
Starting to Set Up the Moodle Gradebook
Although it is not absolutely necessary, it is useful to start setting up the Moodle gradebook for your course early in the process.
The main thing we need to do right now is decide on the kind of activities that will be graded in your course and what each will count. Don’t worry about locking yourself into a particular grading scheme. It is easy to make changes later.
Let’s suppose that you plan on grading four types of activities in your class: exams, written assignments, online discussions, and online quizzes. The exams will be 40% of the total grade, the assignments 30%, the discussions 20%, and the quizzes 10%. We will use these percentages as we set up the different activities in the course.
We will begin by dividing the gradebook into two categories: items that will contribute to the grade and items that will not.^2
Click on Grades in the Administration menu to reach the Moodle gradebook.
(^2) This is a convenient trick that Jason Womick taught me. It allows us to record activities in the gradebook for which
we actually will not give any grades.
Moodle Lesson 1 – Homepage 20
At the point there won’t be much in the gradebook except for the students’ names.
Click on the Choose an action menu.
Select Categories and items from the menu.
Click on Add category to add a category of grades to the gradebook.
Name the category Grades.
Choose Weighted mean of grades as the aggregation method. Do NOT choose “Simplest weighted mean of grades.”
Make sure the “Aggregate only non-empty grades” is checked so that the gradebook will not count activities that have not been graded yet.
Save changes.
I have been asked how the weighted mean of grades calculates the course grade. See Appendix C: Weighted Mean of Grades for an explanation.
