Month: July 2019

Mountain Moot

July 21, 2019 / Troy / 0 Comments

I was part of a team that attended the Moodle Mountain Moot. This is a practical Moot that has been running for 10 years.

All members of the team presented. All of us came away with powerful learning. Amy Gwizdz did a great job of presenting on the use of Moodle at the elementary level. She really focused on solving instructional problems, not just using Moodle. Robert Harrison provided a fantastic opportunity for users to experience the Workshop Module. Chris Kenniburg presented on the Fordson Theme.

Sometimes you really don’t recognize or appreciate the wonders of those that you work with. Chris Kenniburg is one of those folks. Though I do think that I recognize how valuable he is, it is still interesting to be able to see how others see him. He is rightly revered for the work that he has done on the Fordson Theme. It was fun to see Chris receive kudos and praise for his work on the theme. His theme is so popular that he was asked to do another session. (The conference has a block of ad-hoc sessions).

Chris was asked to participate in the additional ad-hoc session. It was interesting to me to remember and revisit why we made some of the decisions that go into the Fordson Theme. Lots of people make requests for the Fordson Theme. These are usually additional features that they want. For example, one person requested blocks that collapse and expand. This reminded me of why we wanted blocks limited in the first place. I sat down and discussed this with the requestor.

My tiny role in developing the Fordson Theme would be in the cognitive focus. Two columns allow the user to be focused on the content (which is on the left-hand side). The right-hand columns need to be limited and extra. Many users have pretty much trained their brain not to really look at that right-hand column as that is usually “ad” space.

So, the discussion with the requestor for blocks that collapse focused on why and how are blocks used. If you are using blocks for significant information, should that be some kind of change? That way, your brain knows that it is switching tasks and looking for something. His response was interesting. He hadn’t actually thought about the process, he was just used to having tons of information.

I was discussed how the theme is really focused on the student experience. Students need to know what to do next. The [Fordson Theme] tries to always keep that in consideration. Students shouldn’t have to work hard to know what to do.

The Mountain Moot had a wonderful cast of presenters. Emma Richardson had a couple of wonderful sessions that I attended. She has such great knowledge and a wonderful attitude. Emma co-presented with Amy Tessitore. Amy is another wonderful resource. Michelle Moore always provides great tips. She is a wonderful resource for Moodle, and for training.

I also presented at the conference. My presentation was Glossary Lollapolooza. I had a full house. The feedback was very positive. (Though, one of the biggest “take-a-ways” for folks seemed to be when I gave them the tip that you could double click on an activity to select it and open rather than clicking on it and then scrolling down to the “Add” button). At least one person was impressed with the effect of spotlighting something on a screen.

I asked a few people what they wanted to get out of the session as they were entering. I was able to touch on those in the presentation.

I am now considering how we could get more classroom teachers involved though. The conference was wonderful, lots of rich learning. The one thing that I think is missing though is classroom teachers. Specifically, K-12 classroom teachers. I shall continue to ponder that.

Moodle Permission Overrides

July 14, 2019 / Troy / 0 Comments

Moodle permissions allow users to control what different roles can do. This is usually set by the Moodle Administrator. However, teachers can override the defaults to create powerful learning opportunities.

There are a large number of permissions that can be adjusted here. You should be careful with many of these. However, in the right cases, these can free a teacher to empower students. For example, the permissions can allow a teacher to allow the students to rate the following activities:

Glossary entries
Forums
Database activities

Glossary.

Frequently, I like to allow students to rate Glossary entries. I use Glossary entries in a variety of ways (like having students find the best YouTube video that explains a specific learning objective). This way, the students are doing to vetting for me.

By default, only teachers, non-editing teachers and those with higher permissions can rate Glossary entries. However, each teacher can change this by Course level (if you are sure that you always want students to rate Glossary entries) or by activity level (if you just want students to rate entries on one Glossary.

Course Level Permission Change

Go to the Participants panel
Click on the Gear in the top right corner. Then select “Permissions”.
Search for “Glossary”
After the ratings section, click the + in the “Roles with Permission” column.
Select “Student” (or whatever term you use for “student”)

*There is no need to save the selection.

Activity Level Permission Change

Very similar to the process above. Make sure that you are in the activity that you want to change the permissions on. Then click on the Gear at the end of the name of the Activity.

Follow the same path as above (starting at “select “Permissions”.)

Moodle Links within Text boxes

July 12, 2019 / Troy / 0 Comments

I love Moodle. However, there are a couple of things that drive me crazy. One of those things is the way that links appear in text boxes. These text boxes can be the Feedback box in a rubric, a glossary context box, etc.

Frequently, text links in those boxes show no visual cue unless/until there is a mouse rollover. Let’s look at an example. I’ve highlighted “Step by Step instructions from Master Moodle”, then picked the link button and pasted the appropriate link. However, looking at it, nothing really looks different.

However, this can be easily fixed. Simply add the CSS code for color and underline in the href.

Huh? you might say. (Or, you might say “but of course, that’s how I always do that). With Moodle, you can edit the code. Simply click on the More button:

More button is the first button, downward arrow…

This will disclose the full toolbar. You are looking for the Code button, the last one on the second row of the toolbar:

Now you’ll be presented with the code behind the text:

<p></p>
<h3>Glossary</h3>
<p>This one is probably my favorite way for students to introduce themselves. Set up a Glossary, and then let the students add in information. Each student would enter their own name as the “term” and then whatever information that you want as the definition.</p>
<h4>Important Notes:</h4>
<ul>
    <li>Easy to set up</li>
    <li>Easy for students to enter their information</li>
    <li>Can be used with the&nbsp;<em>Random Glossary Block</em>&nbsp;to display a student name for other students in the “side bar”</li>
    <li>No automatic grading (but can be graded)</li>
    <li>All students can include pictures</li>
    <li>Entries can be approved by the teacher before the other students can see them</li>
</ul><a " href="https://mastermoodle.com/2018/10/20/comic-say-hi/" target="_blank">Step by Step instructions from Master Moodle.</a>&nbsp;
<br><br>

Find the link that you have already created. This should be fairly easy since it will have an “href=” in the text. After the <a , but before the href=, paste the following code:

style="color:#0000FF;text-decoration:underline;

Thus:

<a " href="https://mastermoodle.com/2018/10/20/comic-say-hi/" target="_blank">Step by Step instructions from Master Moodle.</a>

becomes:

<a style="color:#0000FF;text-decoration:underline; "href="https://mastermoodle.com/2018/10/20/comic-say-hi/" target="_blank">Step by Step instructions from Master Moodle.</a>

Here the color is blue and the text is underlined. Now it will look like this: