Tag: Moodle

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Moodle: Managing your Course Dashboard

Your Moodle Dashboard is the page you go to when you log into Moodle from https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk –  it contains, supposedly, Recently Accessed Courses, and a full list of all the courses you are enrolled on under Course Overview. However, you may have noticed that Recently Accessed Courses sometimes lies, and that it can be quite complicated to locate a particular course, and, indeed, since the Moodle Rollover, to locate this year’s instance of the course.

I offer the following tips:

  1. “Star” the modules you most use (e.g. those you’re teaching/marking on this term). To Star a module, locate it in the list in your Course Overview section (if you are on a great many courses, select View All, and try searching on the page for the module). Look to the right hand side of the module (you may need to scroll across a little, depending on the size of your screen) and click the three dots. Select Star this Course. This will bring the module to the top of your Course Overview list.

  2. “Remove from view” courses you are no longer teaching on / need to view. This option is just beneath the Star this Course option, as above. This does not remove the course from anyone else’s view, only your own dashboard, and you can easily access these courses again by changing the Course Overview view to Removed from View. This will also not unenrol you from those courses.

  3.  Use specific searches to find the precise instance of a module. From your Home page, the Course Search block on the right hand side allows you to enter the module code and year (e.g. ELCS0044 22/23 – in that format) to find the precise instance of a module you’re looking for (as long as nobody changed the defaults!). Note: This search will not work in the Global Search (the magnifying glass at the top of the page) – that search space is for content and resources within modules.

 

 

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CMD: How to Link to your Mentimeter in Moodle

To share your presentation in Moodle, you’ll need the direct URL from Mentimeter. You’ll find this via the “Share” button in the top right corner of your presentation. Copy the voting link. In Moodle, go to Add an Activity or Resource, and select URL. The name you give the URL will be the text the student needs to click on.

When linking, ensure that your Mentimeter has been changed to Audience Pace, from the default, Presenter Pace. Presenter Pace: useful in-room when students are responding “live”. Audience Pace: students move through the questions in their own time as they answer them (useful in-room or asynchronously).

To change pace, from your Mentimeter, go to Settings, and select the pace you want. Give the page a second to automatically save (visible just above).

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Digital Accessibility: A&H Module Lead & Teaching Admin Session #2

1. UCL Head of Digital Accessibility Ben Watson’s presentation on Digital Accessibility, what it is and why it’s important, the concept of microkindnesses, minimum actions we can take to create accessible digital content first time, and the Accessibility Report in Moodle.

[Zoom recording, captioned, 38 minutes]

 

2. UCL Accessibility Policy, PDFs, Transcripts: a brief roundup [5 min].

 

UCL Digital Accessibility Training, Support and Resources

Courses provided by ISD Digital Skills Development on how to create accessible content and courses on assistive technology.

UCL Guides to Creating Accessible Content – from email, to live sessions, documents and more.

UCL Short Course on Digital Accessibility – 3-hour, Moodle-based, self-paced course.

Further Resources

InYerFace – a gamification of the most appalling aspects of the inaccessible web. (mentioned in webinar)

Simplifying Content Accessibility – Kent University webinar by Huw Alexander (mentioned in roundup video)

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative – extensive open access collection of standards, guidelines and resources.

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In need of fresh IDEAs?

Last year I and colleagues from Digital Education and Arena collaborated on this resource which looks at ideas for digital engagement – a broad variety of activities, scaffolds, academic and assessment literacy exercises and suchlike.

If you’re curious for strategies for group work, outlines of the workload involved in trying new tools and activities in Moodle, or simply wanted to remind yourself how many different strategies and tools you already use in your teaching, follow the link below…

Inspirations for Digital Engagement Activities

An academic reflection on the use of IDEAs for PGTAs/early career academics by Leo Havemann and Silvia Colaiacomo (Arena).

 

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A&H Module Lead & Teaching Admin Session #1: Student Moodle Experience; Moodle Rollover & Recommendations.

  1.  How do A&H Students Experience the VLE?

This UCL ChangeMakers student-led research project was presented at the 2022 RAISE Conference. The recording below is of a slightly abbreviated version, presented as part of the Moodle support and orientation workshop for A&H Module Leads and Teaching Admin, held on 13th September 2022.

How students experience the VLE (presentation slides).

Recording of the presentation, featuring Jesper Hansen (Arena for A&H), Nadia Golotchoglou (SSEES) and Marta Ramió Comalat (English).

2. Moodle Rollover, Preparing for the Start of Term: Recommendations Arising from this Research

The rollover process creates annualised instances of taught modules. In most A&H departments, the rollover process has been centrally organised, but in some, this is the responsibility of module leads. If you have been tasked with rolling over your module and need further guidance on it, it can be found here: Link to Moodle Rollover Guide 2022/23  If you are unsure as to whether you need to rollover your module yourself, please check with your departmental administrators.

Recommendations arising from our research: a list in the briefest possible form. To hear me talk through this list in depth, please listen below:

    • Moodle Recommendations:

      • Everything on a module page should be intentional, and of use to the current student cohort. Leave anything that is not relevant to the current cohort that you may wish to bring in in the future in last year’s instance of the module.

     

      • Use consistent naming conventions for all documents. Avoid default strings of numbers.

     

      • If organising Moodle by week, include calendar dates in titles along with Week 1, Reading Week, etc.

     

      • Ensure assessment details and inboxes are clearly signposted, and are not hidden in weekly content.

     

      • Use Conditional Release (“Restrict Access” feature) to release content by week, or to cascade activities. State that this is in place. Link to Conditional Release How-To.

     

      • Make the module handbook clearly available in Moodle, and ensure it is up to date.

  • Resource and Library Recommendations

      • Use Reading List to ensure students access the correct versions of resources, and to keep the Library informed of current module requirements and use statistics. UCL Reading List Home and Guidance.

     

      • Use links to university databases, rather than downloading papers and uploading the PDFs.

     

      • Work with a Subject Librarian to check the accessibility of essential PDFs and documents in your course, and ensure the most appropriate versions are used. Who is my Subject Librarian?

     

      • Mark reading and resources as Core/Essential and Optional/Further as appropriate. Use the UCL Guide to Reading List Best Practice to ensure you and your students are getting the most out of the platform.