Contents: 1. What Is Moodle? 2. Your User Profile 3. Moodle Navigation 4. Participants 5. Using Discussion Forums in Moodle 6. How do I access my grades in Moodle?
1. What Is Moodle? The name Moodle is an acronym that stands for modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment. Moodle is a learning management system or LMS for short. It is an online place where you, as a learner, can have access to your teacher, to other learners, and to a variety of tools, features, and interactions that will enhance your learning experience The Moodle screen is divided into columns. Generally, the left column contains blocks that allow you to access Moodle functions, course participants, your profile, and grades, etc. The main column contains course-related information such as content and interactive features like course assignments, quizzes, and discussion forums. In general, courses will have a list of topics that correspond to units of study, although some courses may be divided by weeks in the course.
2. Your User Profile The Profile page is where you tell Moodle about yourself. Some of this information may be displayed to other students, so it is important to think about what you want to include in the Profile page. To access your Profile page, click on Participants in the People block then click on your user name in the list of all participants. Click on the Edit profile tab as shown below.
When you click the Edit profile link, a number of fields are displayed, some of which are required and some of which are optional.
Required Information Your profile should currently show your First name, Surname, Email address. You should now add a short description of yourself in the Description box as shown below and make choices using the drop-down menus:
What happens when I choose from the drop-down menus?
For Email display, you can choose to hide your email address (if you want someone in the same course to email you, you have to provide the address to him or her). allow everyone (make it public窶馬ot a good idea). allow only those in the same course to see it, which is the best if you want other students to be able to send you messages.
For Email activated, you want your email enabled to get email notification of discussion forum and news posts. If you choose This email address is disabled, you will not be notified of forum activity.
Email format is completely up to you!
For Email digest type, the default setting is No digest, which means if you are subscribed to discussion forums, you get the full text of all messages posted, within 30 minutes. Choosing Complete means you get the full text to subscribed forums only once a day. Choosing Subjects means you get only a list of subject lines from subscribed forums once a day.
Being auto-subscribed to a forum means that you will automatically get an email notification when anything new is posted. You may want to say No and subscribe manually to any forum you choose later.
You may want to turn on Forum tracking to help you remember which posts you have looked at already.
If you choose Use HTML editor for When editing text, Moodle does not put in automatic links to website addresses or line breaks—you can do this using standard HTML coding. The Use standard web forms selection gives you more automatic options such as the automated linking and line breaks.
Once you have provided the required information and chosen your settings, you can click on the Update profile button to finish, or you can add some optional information to augment your communication methods.
A Note on Sharing Personal Information It’s up to you how much you want to open yourself to communication with other learners in your course. You can add any information that you desire here. Keep in mind that information that appears on the Internet can be downloaded and live somewhere in cyberspace or on someone’s hard drive indefinitely. Note that your ID number, telephone numbers, and address can be viewed only by your teacher. To upload a new picture in place of the smiley: To add a self-chosen picture, you will be navigating to upload a file from your own computer. First, make sure the file for the image you want to use is less than 8 MB in size. You can do this by looking at the detailed list of your files, which includes size. The smaller the file, the better.
3. Moodle Navigation Getting around in Moodle is very straightforward, and there are a number of different features to help you navigate. Try them out and see what happens.
The Basics
Scroll up and down the page. Click on links. Use the Back button on the browser.
Bread Crumbs Just below the banner with the course title, you should see a line with various links such as
These “bread crumb” links allow you to navigate backwards from where you are. The last word in the list tells you the current page, in this example an assignment. If you clicked on
Assignments, you would see a list of all the course assignments. If you clicked on SIMoodle, you would return to the course home page.
Jump to . . . Inside Moodle activities, you will see a drop-down menu on the upper or lower right that allows you to jump to various parts of the course. Try this out a few times when you see it to get a feel for how you can navigate the course.
New Windows Sometimes when you click on a link, a new window will open. You may feel that you have lost the old window when, in fact, it is hidden behind the new window. You can either minimize the window or close it completely to see the window behind it. In the top right-hand corner of your browser window, you will see controls similar to these:
To minimize your window, click on the left option ( _ ). To close the window, click on the right option ( X ). If there is a hidden window, it should now be visible. The middle icon opens up a window to the full size of the screen.
Blocks in the Left Column You will see a variety of blocks in the page columns. Try clicking on the links within the blocks to see where they take you. Remember, you can always use the course name link on the bread crumbs to return to the home page.
[-] and [+] Clicking on these symbols will allow you to hide or expand the content on the blocks. When you click on the [-], either in the corner of a block, that element will contract to save space on the screen. In the example below, all of the [-] signs in all the blocks were clicked. All the blocks are now contracted to just a title bar, and the [-] has changed to a [+] to show they can be expanded.
Logging Out There are two easy ways to log out of the course site. Near the top and bottom of the screen you will see this:
In both cases, clicking on (Logout) will log you out of Moodle.
4. Participants Depending on course settings, the People block allows you to see who is in your course and when participants last accessed the course. Clicking on Participants brings up a list of names with a link to each person’s profile and a link to their email address, if it is available. This is also where you can edit your own profile (see User Profile) If instant messaging is enabled in your course, you can also see if someone has been trying to reach you by instant message in the Messages block. When you click on Messages . . ., you are given the opportunity to create contacts for instant messaging.
5. Using Discussion Forums in Moodle A discussion forum is an online asynchronous bulletin board where you, your teacher, and your peers will post your conversations on topics related to the course content. Many online courses require you to post to a discussion forum as part of your assessment.
The link(s) to your course discussion forum(s) will be easy to find, look for the icon
Composing, Formatting, and Editing a Post When you click on a Discussion Forum link, you’ll see a welcome note. When you click on a discussion topic link, every message will show a link on the lower righthand corner that you can click on to reply to that message. Be sure you reply to the right topic! Once you click on the Reply button, you may have to scroll down to see the reply box where you can type your answer.
When you have finished, click on the button. You will have 30 minutes afte that to change or delete what you have posted. Once the 30 minutes is up, only your teacher or other Moodle administrator can delete the message. IMPORTANT! Refresh your browser. Moodle will keep track of your read/unread posts, but you need to set your browser to refresh on each visit to keep your post lists current and accurate. Consult your browser’s help function for directions on accessing and adjusting refresh settings.
Threaded and Unthreaded Discussion Displays When you have clicked on a discussion posting, you’ll see a drop-down menu at the top centre of the message area. It will probably be set like this:
That means all replies to the original posts are displayed in an indented list. You can change the display by clicking on the drop-down menu:
You can choose to display replies in an unindented list starting with either the oldest or the newest messages. The biggest change in display is from unthreaded, where you can see all the messages, to threaded, where you will have to click on the reply link to see it:
Subscribing to and Tracking Forums Moodle gives you the option to subscribe or not subscribe to forums unless your teacher has made a forum mandatory. When you subscribe to a forum, you can choose to receive an email to notify you whenever someone posts to it. You can subscribe and choose to receive email notification at the bottom of the reply box when it is open:
You can click on the blue ball at the right for more information. You can also subscribe/unsubscribe when you first click on the forum link. In the upper righthand corner, you are invited to search the forums or subscribe/unsubscribe to/from the forum; blue balls to click on for more information are provided:
6. How do I access my grades in Moodle? Click on Grades in the Administration block on the left side of the Moodle screen.
This will take you to the Grades module.
The table on this screen will list all the assignments and quizzes included in the course, the maximum score for each assignment, and the mark you have achieved for each assignment. Clicking on an assignment title will take you to that assignment.