Category: Moodle (Page 7 of 8)

Completion tracking is a terrific feature in Moodle. This allows the teachers, and I would argue even more importantly, and the students to keep track of what they have accomplished (completed) and how much is left to go. Of course, since this is Moodle, the teacher has the option to control both of those settings. Sometimes it is important to just let students know what they’ve done. The course may be a work in progress and not have everything completely entered. In that case, the completion total would not be turned on.

There are actually two parts to completion tracking: Activity completion and Course completion.

Completion tracking works really well in conjunction with badges.

Activity completion is a great way to provide students with visual evidence that they have done something. Activity completion comes in two main flavors, students can mark something as complete, or students have to do something in order for the activity to be complete. What the students have to do varies by the type of activity. Generally, students have to view, submit or receive a grade for something to be automatically marked as complete.

This can be very powerful for students. It can help teach them responsibility and provide the with useful information.

The second portion, Course Completion, works in conjunction with Activity completion. (Though there are also other parameters that can be used). Completion tracking must first be enabled by the site administrator. Once the site administrator has flipped the switch to make it available, Course Completion tracking can be turned on in any course. Just visit the Course administration settings. (Click on “Edit settings” under Course Administration. You will see a section called (surprise) “Completion Tracking”. Set the “Enable completion tracking” to Yes.)

Once all the activities are set up, the teacher can select them as part of the Course completion requirements. Visit the Course Completion link under Course administration.

I also suggest that the teacher add the Course Completion Status block to the site. This gives the students a quick view of what they have completed.

I’m a big believer in Moodle. Moodle has the power and flexibility to provide an excellent, full featured learning experience for teachers and students.

The biggest roadblocks for Moodle are the learning curve and the “look and feel”. The learning curve is what it is. Moodle is powerful software and there is some learning to do. (Boy, if only someone would write some examples to learn Moodle effectively). So, there really isn’t too much to do about the learning curve. Teachers will put in the effort to learn once they really realize the value.

The other issue then, is the look and feel. Moodle can look a little dated. Yes, there are lots of themes that can change the look and feel. (Moodle seems to have acknowledged this in large part. There are only a couple of simple themes included in the core release now.) However, there really isn’t a super easy way to change the size or fonts of the Topic sections. There are icons which correspond to different activities. While these are informative, they also look dated.

What to do? Well, I also get to work with the very talented Mr. Chris Kenniburg. We’ve been talking for a couple of years about making Moodle more user friendly. One of the topics of discussions was to make Moodle more “Facebook” like. Teachers are very familiar with Facebook and would find that easy to use. Unfortunately, the work was beyond the budget that I could creatively find. However, Chris is resourceful. He worked with Bryan Smith of Ingham County ISD to garner funding through a grant to implement.

And they did. They have now unveiled the first run of the Moodle Social Wall (originally named the e-Community – seems naming can be more tricky than one thinks). This can be downloaded and installed (note though that there is still some tweaking to do) by REMC members (the plan is to provide an open source edition later on).

So why bother with all the trouble and work of writing a grant, pitching the idea, working up the schemas, etc? The whole idea is to more readily get teachers involved in using Moodle. I’ve seen many teachers spend lots of time chasing “bright shiny” things (web sites, web apps, etc) and become frustrated. I sat down with one teacher and we talked through the time that she had spent learning different “bright, shiny” things. (This was after a student had creatively placed lots of text in a Padlet that she had created. She wanted to know who it was. There was no way to know.) We very quickly ran up a tab of over 20 hours that she had spent learning things that she was no longer using due to inadequacies, frustrations, limitations, etc. I calmly pointed out that those 20 hours would’ve gotten her pretty far in Moodle. (For some odd reason, that didn’t make her feel any better or happier 😉 ).

So, with the Social Wall format, the idea is to allow educators a very comfortable environment with the full power of Moodle behind it. The Social Wall looks and acts very much like popular social networking tools. Educators can use the Social Wall and work just fine. They will have the extra advantages of being able to create Quizzes, add resources and more. They will also absolutely have the power over their own data. However, if the educator ever decides to transform their site into a more structured course, the power and structure of Moodle will be right there.

Seriously, this is good stuff. Take a look.

Moodle is extremely powerful. However, it could be prettier. Well, at least some of us think so. One of the issues that some teachers face is that they are accustomed to using Social media (like Facebook) and have that as a reference point. Well, what if you could combine the power of Moodle with the familiar interface of Facebook?

Some really bright and influential people have teamed up to answer just that question. REMC has funded an effort to bring a much more social format to Moodle. This involves a degree of programming to make everything work. Moodle is built for this type of customization. The goal is to officially launch the project in January of 2015. The launch is projected for the Michigan Moodle Moot.

This is really about more than making Moodle pretty. It is about lowering the cognitive load for teachers and students. It is about providing a pathway to use Moodle. It is about lowering the barriers of entry. The hope is that this will give teachers and students an easy way to get involved with Moodle. Then, as teachers are ready, they can expand to advantage of the wide variety of tools that are available within Moodle.

Want to know more? Check out the video below.

What do you think? Would this be of interest to you?

This is a first implementation. So improvements will be made. We will be combining this with the evolve-D theme as well.

Moodle 2.8 is expected to ship in mid-November. The next release will focus on improving the Gradebook (one area where Moodle can use some consistency). The Gradebook has seen some improvements but with 2.8 should become a fully functioning feature. 2.8 will focus on bringing many improvements. Let’s take a look at a few.

New Grader Report.

The new Grader report will utilize the whole window for presentation. This will increase the amount of information available. This follows the improvement of being able to always view columns (student names). The new Grader will also provide smooth scrolling in all directions (Yea!). Additionally, all platforms will be supported, including tablets and phones. Since the world is really going mobile, this is a welcome focus. “Single view” mode will allow editing of any row or column on its own. A big, Hallelujah on this one. This will be very handy for actually entering grades.

New Natural weighting aggregation method

This will allow for grades to be combined simply. It also will provide a “clearer interface for using weights”. I’m a bit less excited about this one. Weighting of grades is something that seems to be confusing for many teachers. This is one of the areas that could truly use improvement for some teachers. Many teachers understand weights and use them well. However, in my experience, far too many don’t really, truly understand how weighting works.

Improved Grader setup page

There will be a new design with easier terminology and clearer layout. Making things clear and easy to understand is always a good thing. Too many times there is circular logic in the explanation or definitions in Moodle.

Improved Grade import/export

This falls into the nice, but not an earth shaker for me. I’ve exported the grades as .CSV files. That is a pretty robust and useful format.

Other improvements

Several other improvements are on the way. Forum module will have a reply by email feature. Assignment module will have an option to add additional files. Choice module will allow for more than one choice to be made. Database will add fields that can be marked as required. Quiz will get additional completion options. (Completion is a powerful tool within Moodle that is frequently overlooked.) Lesson module will allow for introductions.

My thoughts

Moodle keeps getting better and better. It is the most powerful of the LMS’s that I’ve used. The modularity of Moodle is a real strength. However, it is not always the prettiest belle at the ball. Indeed, sometimes it can be downright ugly. One of the groups that I worked with was ready to get rid of Moodle because it looked so “dated”. The teachers were sure that the students wouldn’t use it because of the look. I quickly tweaked a few things (theme change, reorganize to 2 columns over the standard 3 column, and some color changes) and the teachers were ecstatic. They now love the “look and feel” of the site.

This leads me to believe that Moodle really should address the overall design philosophy of the program. Well, that experience and working with many, many other teachers. Creating an exciting, easy to use experience could help propel Moodle even further. Yes, I’m am aware that there are many themes out there. However, the default look and feel is still a very powerful undercurrent for the program.

Overall, I’m excited about using Moodle and where it is going. It is a truly powerful tool that is on a great track for educators.

One of the topics at the professional development session that I recently delivered that was a real hit was Moodle Badges. (I’ve provided a link to a popular Moodle Badge provider – where you can get a bunch of ready made badges, but, in truth, I created my own for the project).

I set up the training so that each teacher earned a badge before we really started talking about them. They were thrilled to realize that they had earned a badge. When we circled back around to talk about the various blocks that were being displayed, badges was one of the blocks, they had all earned a badge. A couple of them were positively giddy. They saw the advantages of badges right away. (This is a group that is employing game play simulations into their project).

Badges are pretty simple to create. I use GIMP to make badges. GIMP is free and open source – though it has a pretty big learning curve, once you have a basic badge, creating variations can be pretty simple.

Although Moodle makes it easy to award badges for students viewing badges, the process of conditionally awarding a badge needs improvement. For example, right away the teachers wanted to award a badge based upon a certain score on a quiz. This involves a trip to the grade book and setting a passing grade. It should be much easier than that. When you are setting up the criteria for the badge, there should be a field to enter the percentage that awards the badge. This would allow a teacher to award a variety of “levels” of badges.

No matter what, check out badges and get your kids involved.

Recently I’ve been invited to work on a project which involves theming Moodle, developing a self-paced course and delivering some professional development. This is an exciting project. The courses that are being developed are STEM related and very high quality. There are several features that I love about this project.

1. Excellent teachers are writing the course material.
2. These same excellent teachers are using the course material with students.
3. The material is being vetted by additional teachers.
4. Moodle.
5. The opportunity to work with some really great people.

I’ve written a rough draft of the self-paced course that will be used with new teachers coming into the project. I had the opportunity to work collaboratively with another member of the team. This was a terrific experience. It is such a pleasure to work with a variety of people that truly care about student learning.

I’ve delivered the professional development to a small group of teachers. They were very enthusiastic about what Moodle can do. They learned some of the benefits of using Moodle. (I’m certain that there are some students who will be earning badges soon).

I’ve received some terrific feedback on the self-paced course and will be incorporating suggestions back into the course.

I will say that it feels terrific to get plenty of positive feedback on a presentation and work.

In chatting with a teacher who uses Moodle really well in class, I’ve learned a neat trick (which will be making it into an upcoming book). He uses the Assignment Module to quickly and easily grade presentations. He does this by utilizing Rubrics. The students don’t turn anything in. However, as they are giving the presentation, he has the Rubric open within Moodle. He simply clicks on the appropriate level for each criterion within the rubric. He also adds comments (a text box associated with each criterion) so that the students understand why he selected the level of each criterion. This way, he is done grading when the presentations are done. Brilliant. Absolutely Brilliant.