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Manual
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Manual
Index
1. Entering a Moodle Course for the
First Time

1.1 What do I see that my students dont?
1.2 What do I see when editing is on?
1.2.1 Adding resources and add activities
1.2.2 Resource/activity icons
1.2.3 Block icons
1.2.4 Topic section icons
2. Making Resources Available to Students
2.1 Dividing up the information
2.1.1 The use of labels
2.1.2 Need more sections?
2.2 Keeping things concise
2.2.1 Use web pages
2.2.2 Link to web sites
2.3 Including les in your course
2.3.1 Uploading les
2.3.2 Link to a folder
2.3.3 Link to a single le
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3. Getting Interactive with Activities
3.1 Forums
3.2 Choices
3.3 Assignments
3.4 Quizzes
3.4.1 Step1: Making questions
3.4.2 Question types
3.4.3 Step 2: Making a quiz
3.5 Wikis
3.6 Glossary
3.7 Databases
3.8 SCORM
3.9 Hot Potatoes Quiz
3.10 Surveys
3.11 Lessons
3.12 Chat
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Manual
1 Entering a Moodle Course for the
First Time
1.1 What do I see that my students dont?
When you enter a Moodle course for the rst time you can see whether you
are a teacher on the course (i.e. whether you have editing permissions) by the
presence of 3 elements:
1. A Turn Editing On button
2. A Switch Role To... menu
3. A Course Administration block:
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Icons controlling blocks
Icons controlling resources or activities
Menus for adding resources or activities
Icons controlling topic sections
When editing is turned on, the course page changes. Icons and menus appear
in dierent positions on the screen.
In the middle of the page, the drop down menus Add a resource... and Add an
activity... enable you to add content to your course. Chapter 2 of this manual
deals with making resources available to students (Add a resource...). Chapter
3 is about getting interactive (Add an activity...).
In addition to the drop down menus, we see icons in dierent positions
around the page. As shown in the gure below, these icons are either related
to blocks, topic sections or content within a topic section i.e. a resource or
activity.
1.2 What do I see when editing is on?
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Manual
1.2.1 Adding resources and adding activity
Insert formatted text / images / links / anything you put on a web page
directly onto the course page
Link to a page of unformatted text
Link to a page of formatted text /images / links / anything you can put on
a web page
Link to a single le or web address
Link to a folder in your course les area
Ask your students to hand in some work
Set up a chat room for your students
Set up a vote for your students
Set up a database for your students to contribute to
Set up forums for your students to participate in discussion
Set up glossaries that your students can contribute to
Upload self-marking crosswords, ll in the gaps and other activities
prepared using Hot Potatoes software
Set up self-marking lessons
Set up self marking tests using questions that you create using the
moodle question bank
Upload self-contained content packages which can be self-marking
Provide students with pre-prepared surveys to assess their
e-learning experience
Set up wikis for your students and decide who sees what and who can
edit what
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1.2.2 Resource/activity icons
1.2.3 Block icons
With editing is turned on, the following icons appear to the right of every
resource and activity on the course page:
Move the resource or activity right / indents
Move the resource or activity elsewhere on the course page
Update / edit the resource or activity
Delete the resource or activity
Hide the resource or activity from your students
Change the group mode used by the activity (activities only)
Takes you to the role assignment page for the block
Hides the block from students
Deletes the block (when editing is on the block can be reinstated
using the block menu found in the bottom right)
Moves the block down one place
Moves the block to the right hand side of the course page. A left
pointing arrow is found on blocks which are on the right hand side
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1.2.4 Topic section icons
Takes you to an editor for editing the topic/section summary
Shows one topic/section (this icon is always present regardless of
whether editing is on or o)
Highlights the topic box to indicate to students that this is the current
topic
Hides the topic box and its content from students
Moves the topic box up or down in the course page. For example,
topic 2 can take the place of topic 1 or topic 3 etc.
2 Making Resources Available to
Students
2.1 Dividing up the information
2.1.1 The use of labels
Labels help you to divide up the information in the topic sections of your
course. When you add a label, whatever you type simply appears on the
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course page. You can use labels to insert headings, sub-headings, short
instructions or even images to make the course look more attractive and
interesting.
Instructions for adding a heading or sub-heading using a label
1. Turn Editing On
2. Choose Add a resource... (in the appropriate section/topic box)
3. Choose Insert a label...
4. Type your heading
5. Click Save changes
6. If your heading appears in the wrong place you can move it easily.
7. You should still have editing on. If you have, you will see some icons to the
right of your heading. When you hover over these icons they tell you what
theyre for. The icons indicated below in red allow the abel to be moved. The
icon on the right allows you to drag and drop the label to another position
on the page.
The icon on the left is clicked and positions on the page that the label could
be moved to are indicated by dotted boxes. If you want to be able to drag
and drop resources and activities, ask your administrator to
enable ajax course editing.
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Click to move Drag and drop This represents a position
the label can be moved to
Instructions for inserting images in a Moodle course
1. Open My Computer and locate the pictures you wish to insert in your
course
2. Hovering over the pictures for a few seconds tells you their le size and
dimensions. If the images are more than 200 pixels wide you should
consider resizing them (NB. Simply resizing images in Word or
on a web site - by selecting the handles and dragging - does not alter
the le size of the image. Thus your Word document becomes too big or
your web page loads slowly). To resize images use Microsoft
O ce Picture Manager (this comes with the Microsoft O ce suite
Word, Excel..etc). If you dont have Microsoft O ce, you can download
a free program called IrfanView (type it into Google). As a general rule
you will nd that photos youve taken are much larger than images
youve saved from the internet
3. (To save time you may decide to copy the images you need to a new
folder, zip the folder and upload the .zip le. See the Uploading les
instructions later in this Chapter for help)
4. You can insert an image anywhere you see the Moodle WYSIWYG editor
(What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get). We want to insert an image into the
main course page so we will use the label resource
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5. Enter your Moodle course and Turn Editing On
6. Go to the section of the page where you would like the image to be and
click Add a resource
7. Choose Insert a label from the drop down menu
8. On the WYSIWYG editor click the image button (when you hover over
the button it says Insert Image)
9. A box opens showing the les already uploaded to the course les area
i.e. We need to upload our image here before it can be inserted
10. Click Browse at the bottom of the page and nd the image you wish
to upload from your computer
11. When you have located the image click Open and then Upload
12. Now that the image is in your course les area simply click its link
13. Now you can see the image URL box has been lled with the web ad
dress of the image
14. Type some alternate text a description of the image for users with
visual disabilities
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15. Click OK and the image appears in the editor if its huge you prob
ably forgot to resize it
16. Click Save Changes and you will see the image in the main course
page
2.1.2 Need more sections?
1. Click on Settings in your Course Administration Block (usually on the
left hand side)
2. Below the Summary box you will see Number of weeks/topics
3. Change the number to the desired number of sections
4. Scroll down and click Save Changes
5. Note that above the Number of weeks/topics eld there is a eld allow
ing you to change the course format. It is possible to change the format
of the course from Topics to Weekly so that the sections are labeled
by date rather than by number. Topics format tends to be more popular
but if you wanted to tie yourself (and your students) to keeping up to a
course with a weekly rhythm, you can!
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2.2 Keeping things concise
2.1.2 Use web pages
Web pages are really useful. Rather than typing lots of information and
instructions directly onto the course page using labels, we can neatly le
information into web pages. For example, a web page could be made to
display instructions for a piece of homework. Getting to grips with the
WYSIWYG editor in Moodle will enable you to do the following in your web
pages:
It is signicant to get to grips with the editor because it will enable you to do
all these things in Moodle. For example, you may want to link to a web site
when taking part in a discussion forum with your class.
Instructions for making a web page
1. Turn Editing On
2. Go to the appropriate section/topic box
3. Click Add a resource...
4. Choose Compose a web page from the drop down list
If you want to embed
audio and video by
hyper-linking, check
that your moodle
administrator has
switched on the
Multimedia Plugins
lter
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5. Give the web page a short name (your students will click on this to
reach the web page)
6. Enter a short summary 1-2 sentences (users only see this summary
when on the resources page a page that lists all the resources in the
whole course, therefore, do not begin your web page in the summary
box)
7. Whatever you insert in the Compose a web page box will be displayed
on your web page. Use the editor to format text etc.
8. Choose whether you want the web page to open in the same window
(with or without the course blocks) or in a new window (like a pop up)
9. Click Save and Return to Course at the bottom of the page
10. Test the link to your web page
11. If you want to change something, you can update the web page at any
time. On the main course page (with editing on) you will see an icon
(hand holding a pencil) which says Update when you hover over it.
Simply click this icon to edit the web page
2.2.2 Link to web sites
Alongside uploading your own resources you will almost certainly want to
direct students to other websites which could help them. You can do this
easily using the Link to a le or website resource.
Instructions
1. Turn Editing On
2. Go to the section where you would like to link to the web site and use
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the Add a resource.. drop down menu
3. Choose Link to a le or website
4. Give the link a name (thats what students will click on)
5. Give a summary of the website you are linking to (as with the web page
in the previous section, the summary will be stored on the resources
page and will not be seen when students click the link)
6. If you dont know the web address of the page you want to link to, click
Search for a web page..
7. A new window opens and you are taken to Google. Search for the web
site you want to link to from there
8. Once you are on the page you want to link to, copy the web address
9. Go back to Moodle and paste the web address into the Location eld.
Make sure you dont get http://twice (the location eld has http:// al
ready)
10. You are linking to an external web site so it is sensible to choose New
window in the window options
11. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and Return to Course
12. Test your link
13. Remember you can edit your link (resource) at any time by clicking the
update icon (hand holding pencil) when editing is turned on
This is the icon for
the link to a web site
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2.3 Including les in your course
2.3.1 Uploading les
You will most certainly have les that you would like to include in your
course. There are dierent ways of linking to les so that your students can
download them. Here are some options:
1. If you wish to simply make a folder (containing les/sub folders) available
to students, use the display a directory resource
2. If you wish to make a single le available, use the link to a le or web
site resource
3. If you wish to link to a le from a web page or from an activity you set
up, use the link button on the WYSIWYG editor (when setting up the
web page or activity)
In order to make les available to students in the ways outlined above
we must rst upload the les to the course les area. Every image,
Word document, PDF, PowerPoint presentation, etc is stored in the
course les area which is only accessible to teachers. Once les are
uploaded, teachers link to the les and make them available to students.
Instructions
1. Open My Computer and browse to a folder which contains the les (and
sub folders) you wish to upload
2. Right click on the folder and choose Send to then Compressed
(zipped) folder
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3. A .zip le is created with the same name as the folder that was zipped
(this le contains all the les and sub folders. We will upload this le to
moodle and then unzip it!)
4. Log in to Moodle and go to your course
5. If you have editing rights on the course you will see an administration
block (usually on the left hand side). Click the Files link found within this
block (this is the course les area, accessible only to teachers on the
course)
6. Click Upload a le and browse for the .zip le created previously. Click
Open when the le is selected, then click Upload this le
7. The .zip le is uploaded and appears in the course les area. (NB. the
le will not upload if it exceeds the max upload limit. If that is the case
you should contact your administrator)
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8. To the right, under actions, click Unzip
9. The zip le is unpacked and you will see the unpacked folder alongside
the .zip le
10. The .zip le is no longer any use. To delete it tick the adjacent box and
choose to Delete completely from the drop down menu
11. Remember your students cannot access the course les area. There
are lots of ways of making les available to students. Instructions are
given in the next section
2.3.2 Link to a folder
When you have uploaded some les into the course les area, you can make
those les available (or make specic folders available) using the
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display a directory resource. If you havent yet uploaded any les, see the
section on uploading les.
Instructions for linking to a folder (entire course les folder or a single folder)
1. In your course Turn editing on
2. Go to the section where you would like the folder to be linked from and
click Add a resource..
3. Choose Display a directory from the drop down menu
4. Give a name indicating what the folder you are linking to contains (this
becomes the link that students
click on)
5. Give a summary - your students will see this summary along with the les
from the folder you choose
to link to
6. Use the Display a directory drop down menu to choose whether you want
students to have access to
all course les (main les directory) or a particular folder (folders will display
in the drop down menu if
there are any)
7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and Return to Course
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2.3.3 Link to a single le
There are 2 ways of linking to a single le:
1. You can link to a single le in a web page (or anywhere you see the
moodle WYSIWYG editor). This is done using the link button and then
browsing the course les for the le you want to link to
2. You can use the Link to a le or web site resource
Instructions for the Link to a le or web site resource
1. Enter your course and Turn Editing On
2. Go to the section where you would like to link to the le and use the
Add a resource.. drop down menu
3. Choose Link to a le or web site
4. Enter the link name (thats what students will click on)
5. Give a summary of what the link is linking to (this is not seen by stu
dents unless they go to the resources page which lists all the resources
in the course along with their summaries)
6. Click Choose or upload a le
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7. You are taken to the course les area (also accessible to teachers from
the administration block > Files)
8. Two possible scenarios:

If you have previously uploaded the le you want to link to, click
Choose (under Actions). Note: a common mistake is to click the
les link this will download the le to your computer If you havent
yet uploaded the le, click Upload a le, browse your computer for it
and upload it. Once uploaded, click Choose under Actions
9. Having chosen the le you wish to link to, now you need to decide how
you want it to open. Ticking Force download is probably the best option
when linking to a le (the other options would be used when linking to a
web site)
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10. If you want the link to be hidden from students, change the Visible
drop down to Hide
11. Click Save and return to course at the bottom of the page and test
your link
3 Getting Interactive with Activities
3.1 Forums
When you add a forum to your Moodle course, you are making an online
message board for your students to talk to one another or with you.
Forums are very easy to set up and there are 4 dierent types. Which
forum you choose depends on how you want discussion to take place.
If youre not sure which to choose, choose the simple discussion forum this
will keep the discussion on track. The dierent kind of forums
are:
- Standard forum for general use - students can start thelr own
discussions and reply to discussions started by others. This is the
default forum type and is good for out of hours homework help.
Chapter 2 was all about how you can make resources available to your
students. The dierence between resources and activities lies in what students
do with them. When you upload a resource into Moodle your students look at
it. In contrast with this, when you add an activity to your course your students
participate or interact with it.
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- A single simple discussion you start a discussion and your students
reply to you and to one another. This is good if you want to keep people
on topic. You could set a controversial subject to discuss for homework.
- Lach person posts one dlscusslon - does what lt says on the tln. ou
should prompt students to the fact that they can start their own dis
cussion and that others can reply. This type of forum could be used to
brainstorm something (with the limitation of being able to add one idea
per person). Students could then reply to one another to argue why one
idea might be better than another.
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- Q and A forum - anybody can ask a questlon and replles are only seen
once you have replied yourself! This type of forum could be used to set
homework using the motivational reward of seeing your friends
answers once you have replied yourself. The only pitfall is that you would
probably want to prevent students from adding their own questions (its
probably best that they stick to answering yours). To do this you would
need to edit the forum and click the override permissions tab. Next
click the student role and set start new discussions to prevent and save
changes. This will stop your students from adding their own questions
on this forum. When using this type of question make sure you dont put
your question in the introduction. Set up the forum and then add a
question.
Instructions for setting up a forum
1. With editing on in your course go to the topic/section where you would
like the forum to display and click Add an activity... then Forum
2. Give the forum a name (this becomes the link that your students click on
to enter the forum
3. Choose the type of forum you wish to use from the drop down menu
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4. Give the forum an introduction. Be careful what you need to type in the
introduction varies with the forum type chosen. Heres a summary:
5. When youve lled out the introduction you must choose from the
following settings. Feel free to leave the settings to default:
- Porce everyone to be subscrlbed:
- es forever members of the course get an emall every tlme somebody
posts on the forum and cannot stop this
- es lnltlally members of the course get an emall every tlme somebody
posts on the forum and can stop this - unsubscribe
- No people choose whether they want to be subscrlbed (recelve an
email each time someone posts)
- Subscrlptlons not allowed the forum cannot send emalls
- Pead tracklng for thls forum (for read tracklng to work the user needs to
switch it on in their prole edit prole > show advanced)
Forum Type
A single simple discussion
Each person posts one discussion
Q and A forum
Standard forum for general use
What do I put in the introduction?
Fox hunting is wrong discuss!
Start a discussion about your favourite pass time and
invite others to discuss it with you
Answer my question and see other peoples
answers once you have replied yourself!
Use this forum to help each other/discuss
homework
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Manual
- Optlonal the user can swltch read tracklng on or on (llnk ls ln the top
right when in the forum)
- On always on
- On always on
- Attachment slze - your students can attach les to thelr posts and you
determine how big that le can be here
- Grades - lt ls posslble to grade forum posts but you should conslder the
consequences before using it e.g. will it aect participation in the forum if
you grade in a public way?
- Post threshold for blocklng - allows you to llmlt how many tlmes users
can post over a period of time. This can be useful when students get
carried away and use the forum like a chat room
- Set a tlme perlod
- The number chosen ln 'post threshold for blocklng' ls the number of
posts allowed during the time period
- 'Post threshold for warnlng' ls the number of posts after whlch a warnlng
is given - stating the number of posts left before the user is prevented
from posting again that day/week..etc
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- Group mode - only choose a group mode lf you are uslng groups ln the
course. Separate groups will prevent groups from seeing one anothers
discussions. Visible groups will let all discussions be seen but will
stop group A from participating in group Bs discussions.
6. Clickon Save and return to course or save and display to create the
forum
3.2 Choices
Set up a choice activity if you want your students to vote on something. You
can present them with as many
items to choose from as you wish but, as with all voting, they can only choose
one. Depending on what the vote is about, you may wish to give the students
visibility of who voted for what. This is possible but the
default settings will keep the votes anonymous.
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Instructions for setting up a choice
1. With editing on in your course go to the relevant topic/section (where
you would like the forum to display) and click Add an activity... >
Choice
2. Give the choice a name (this becomes the link that your students
click on)
3. In the choice text box you need to type the instructions, e.g. Who
should be the next class prefect? or Which of the following topics
would you like to work on next term?
4. Decide whether you want to limit the number of votes for a given item or
not. Limiting the number of people who could make a choice is not
usually necessary but could work well for a rst come, rst served type
of choice. For example: We have 4 tennis rackets, 4 badminton and 4
table tennis. Everyone will have a chance to try all 3 sports over 3 terms.
Which sport would you like to try rst; tennis, badminto
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5. In the choice elds enter the choices/items you want the students to
vote for.
6. You can click add 3 elds to form if you want to give more choices.
7. It is possible to restrict when users can vote.
8. In the miscellaneous settings...
- when chooslng the dlsplay mode, lt ls very lmportant to conslder how
many choices you have given. If there are lots of choices, dont dis
play them horizontally because the web page will become too wide
- Por 'publlsh results' you slmply declde whether and when students
are going to be able to see the choices made by others. If you choose
to show results to students you also have the opportunity to decide
the level of privacy i.e. do you want students to see how many people
voted for a given choice without revealing the identity of voters?
- 'Allow cholce to be updated' means do you want people to be able to
change their mind?
- Plnally, do you want to show a column for those who dld not vote (or
have not yet voted)?
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3.3 Assignments
Use assignments if you want your students to hand in some work
through Moodle (except the o ine activity assignment type). When
the work has been submitted you can mark it and give feedback in
Moodle. Marks are stored in the course gradebook. Just as when a
student hands in paper-based work, the mark and feedback is only
visible to the individual student and the course teachers.
There are four types of assignment at your disposal. Your choice of
assignment type depends on what you want your students to do.
Online text
Students type into a box in Moodle they have the Moodle WYSIWYG editor
and can therefore use the tools included; linking to websites,
displaying images, etc.
Students actually see a button that says edit my submission though the
wording on this button can be changed by your Moodle administrator in the
language editing.
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Upload a single le
Students have to upload a le by browsing their computer and then clicking
Upload a le. The teacher determines the maximum le upload size when
setting the assignment.
Advanced uploading of les
Students see buttons to browse their computers les and upload them. The
teacher can allow more than one le to be uploaded.
With this assignment type students can delete work already uploaded and
resubmit work. There is an option that teachers can switch on which
enables the student to send their work to be marked.
Therefore this assignment type is particularly useful if you want your students
to submit a draft copy which you can feed back on before it is improved by
the student and re-submitted. Once the nal version has
been uploaded, students click send for marking
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O ine activity
Students do not hand in this work online through Moodle. Work is handed in
on paper or the students do some other kind of activity that doesnt need to
be handed in but does need to be graded like a role play.
This type of assignment is still useful because:
1. students can log on to the course to see what the task is if they forget
2. the mark and feedback can be recorded in Moodle alongside all the
other marks
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Instructions for setting up an assignment
Setting up an assignment is the same for all 4 assignment types except that
there is a dedicated section with settings specic to the assignment type
chosen whether thats online text, advanced uploading of les,
upload a single le or o ine activity.
General Settings (common to all assignment types)
- wlth edltlng turned on ln your course, go to the sectlon where you would
like the assignment to appear and click add an activity...
- Choose the deslred actlvlty type: 'onllne text', 'advanced uploadlng of
les, upload a single le or o ine activity
- Glve the asslgnment a name (thls becomes a llnk that your students wlll
click on)
- |n the descrlptlon box glve your students the lnstructlons they need to
complete the task. For example, for an online text assignment:
Write 100 words describing yourself in French
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- Determlne how you want to mark the task uslng the 'grade' drop down
menu. Please note that your Moodle administrator can create scales for
you so that you can mark the task with a level or letter for example.
- Declde whether you want to llmlt when your students can start
submitting their work to you. You can also set when its due to be
handed in or disable this functionality altogether (using the tick boxes).
- Declde whether you are golng to let students submlt work late or not us
ing the prevent late submissions setting (if you chose to use a due date
in the rst place).
The next section of settings is specic to the assignment type you chose:
Choose yes if you dont your students might submit by accident and
theres no way back.
If Moodle knows your email address and you choose yes you will receive
an email each time a student submits work to you.
If you choose yes you will be able to type in amongst the text that your
student submits. Choose no and your feedback is kept
separate.
Online text
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Online text
Advanced uploading of les
Choose the maximum le size for any single le uploaded by the
students.
Can the student delete a submitted le or not?
Decide how many les should be submitted for the task.
Do you want to provide your students with a place to write some notes,
e.g. to explain which le is which.
If you choose to do this, the task instructions will be hidden and replaced
by: Sorry, this assignment is not yet available. Assignment instructions
will be displayed here on the date given below. Exactly the same as with
the online text assignment. If Moodle knows your email address and you
choose yes you will receive an email each time a student submits work
to you.
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If you choose yes the student clicks a button which says Send for
marking when they are happy that they have uploaded the correct les.
If no, the work appears as submitted as soon as a le has been uploaded
by the student.
It is recommended to say yes here. If you dont your students may
submit by accident. In that case they dont get a second chance.
This is the same as in the other assignment types above. If Moodle
knows your email address and you choose yes you will receive an email
each time a student submits work to you.
Same as in advanced uploading of les. Choose the maximum le size
for the le students upload.
!"#$%&'%'()*+#,'-#,
- Choose a group mode, lf you have groups set up ln your course.
- vlslble groups wlll allow students to see whlch other groups are taklng
the course (they get a drop down menu showing the group names).
- |f you use separate groups, thls drop down menu wlll dlsappear. |n lts
place, students see the name of their group at the top of the page.
37
Marking Assignments
When students submit work you can access it by clicking on the assignment
and following the link in the top right hand corner which says View
submitted assignments or No attempts have been made on this
assignment. Clicking this link takes you to a list of students enrolled on the
course. If you have groups set up in the course and the assignment was set up
to use separate or visible groups, you will be able to lter to view a particular
group of students (using a drop down menu top left).
When you are ready to start grading there are two options. The procedure is
the same for both:
1. Give a grade and some feedback,
2. Decide whether you want the student to receive an email telling them
youve marked their work
3. Move to the next student.
38
Manual
Which of the grading options you use is up to you. Depending on what you
are marking, you may prefer
one over the other:
Default grading:
1. Click Grade in the status column for the rst student, this brings up a new
window
2. give a grade and ll in the feedback
3. click save and show next to see the next student
39
Quick grading is
switched on and
o using this tick
box
Quick grading:
Input the grade and a comment directly onto the page where you can see a
list of all the students
2. Quick grading will not allow you to provide feedback within the text of
an online text assignment. However, quick grading is probably prefer
able when inputting grades and feedback for uploaded les or o ine
activities.
3. To switch quick grading on you tick the box Allow quick grading
(bot tom right) and then click Save preferences.
Use quizzes if you want to set up a self-marking test for your students, using a
mixture of question types (multiple choice, true and false, short answer...etc).
With the quiz module it is very important to realise that
you need to build up a bank of questions before you make the quiz.
3.4 Quizzes
40
Manual
Indeed, if you have questions to choose from you can create a quiz in under a
minute. The following instructions are split into 2 steps:
3.4.1 Step 1: Making questions
The best strategy for making quiz questions is to use the save as new
question option i.e. edit a question that already exists
(changing the question and answers) and then click the save as new question
button. Below you will nd instructions on:
1. storing questions in an organised way
2. creating each question type
Questions are created in the question bank How do you
get there?
In your course administration block click the link for questions (this takes you
to the question bank that works with the Moodle quiz)
Where should you create the questions in the question bank?
It is important to think about where you want to save your questions and also
to organise them into folders (categories) so that you can nd them easily.
1. When you enter the question bank you have four tabs at the top of the
page: Questions, Categories, Import and Export
41
2. Click on Categories
3. Depending on your role within Moodle, you may see that you have
access to some global areas where questions can be saved (these are
known as contexts). If you can only see the course area, ne, but
if you want to use your questions in other courses you should talk to
your administrator about getting access to the course category area or
system area. Also, there are ways in which your Moodle administrator
can move questions from one context area to another
Area where questions can be
stored (context)
System
Category (course category)
Course
Why would I store my questions here?
You can access your questions anywhere on the
Moodle site
You can access your questions from other courses
in the same category useful if your Moodle is
structured by department
If the questions are only relevant for this course and
wont be needed in other courses this option is ne
42
Manual
Categorise your questions
Store your questions in an organised fashion by creating folders (categories)
for them. Just like when you create folders on your computer, it is up to you to
decide what categories to make to store your questions.
If you are one of many teachers on a course perhaps you may decide to create
a category with your name and then make sub-categories within that.
Instructions for adding question categories/folders
1. Under the category tab in the question bank (course administration
block > Questions) you will see a section that says Add category
2. Decide which folder you want to make your category in, using the
Parent drop down menu
3. Give your category a name
4. Enter some category information (if you want some notes reminding you
of what this folder is for/has in it)
5. Click Add category
43
Making the questions settings common to all question types
1. In the question bank click the questions tab
2. Decide which category/folder you want to put questions in (assuming
youve already made some. If not, see above)
3. Choose the type of question you wish to make using the create new
question drop down menu
There are some tick
boxes that control
which questions
you see in a given
category (folder)
4. Give the question a descriptive name. If you name the question
Question 1 you will make life di cult for yourself because youll end up
with lots of questions called Question 1 and youll have problems
identifying questions quickly.
5. Type the question into the Question text box. What you type here will
vary with the question type chosen (true/false, matching..etc)
44
Manual
6. Image to display lists all the images that have been uploaded to the
course les area. This is a shortcut to inserting an image into the
question. If you are not certain that your image is the correct size, you
can insert the image in the question text box using the editor.
7. Default question grade is the mark that will be awarded for a correct
answer. For example, if you set up a di cult multiple choice question
this may be worth 3 marks where a true/false is worth 1.
8. The penalty factor is the mark that would be subtracted if the question
was answered incorrectly and then reattempted. When you set up a quiz
you have an option to turn adaptive mode on or o. Adaptive mode
means students get a button to submit each answer individually (rather
than answering all the questions and then submitting at the end). There
fore, if adaptive mode is o the penalty factor will be ignored. If you like
the idea of students being able to check their answer and then try again,
you can decide on how much credit is taken away for an incorrect
answer.
9. General feedback is not normally lled in. It allows you to give the same
feedback to all students regardless of what answer they give.
For example, you might give them a link to a website as reference
material for the subject the question was testing.
45
The rest of the settings are dierent for each question type. See instructions
for the relevant question types in the next section.
3.4.2 Question types
There are 10 dierent types of question that can be used in the Moodle quiz
module. The table below summarises when you might use them:
46
Manual
Calculated question
Description
Essay
Matching
Embedded Answers (Cloze)
Short answer
Multiple choice
Question Type Use when...
...you want to create lots of versions of a mathematical
question with dierent values i.e. Moodle generates the
values based on criteria that you decide
...you want to provide some information that might be
useful for the next questions that the student will attempt.
This is not a question its like a label in the question
bank. It would not work well if you chose to shu e
questions randomly
...you want to ask questions that require an answer that is
a couple of paragraphs. This type of question requires you
to mark it manually (unlike others which are self-marking).
Students will have 0 until you mark their answer
...you have a list if statements that can be matched with
...you have a list of statements that can be matched with
another list of statements. Students use a drop down
menu to do this
...you want students to ll in the gaps in a paragraph of
text. Students have to type into a box, choose from a drop
down menu...etc
...you want to create a mathematical question where the
students enter the answer into a text box
...you want students to answer questions where there is
a list of answers to choose from. There could be a single
correct answer or several correct answers
47
Numerical
Random Short-Answer Matching
True/False
...you want to create a question where the answer is a
word or phrase that your students should know by heart
(with the correct spelling)
...you have some short answer questions in your Moodle
question bank and you want to transform these into a
matching question
...you want students to decide whether a statement is true
or false
Calculated Question Set Up
Remember why you chose this question type: you wanted to create lots
of versions of a mathematical question using dierent values i.e. Moodle
generates the values based on criteria that you decide. For example, you
want to create lots of multiplication questions so that your students can
rehearse their times tables.
Before you start you may want to check with your Moodle administrator that
the Tex and Algebra Notation lters are switched on. This means that when
you want mathematical sums or equations to display exactly as you would
write them on paper - you can! The Tex lter will transform code
into symbols. You can get lists of the code from various websites eg.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Formula#Functions.2C_symbols.2C_
special_characters)
Heres an example, if the lter is on and you type:
$$ 2 \times 2 $$ this becomes 2 x 2
48
Manual
Whatever code (eg \times) you type inside double dollar signs is changed to
a symbol by the lter.
Instructions:
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category you
would like to create the question in and then select the calculated
quetion from the Create new question drop down menu
2. Give the question a descriptive name so that you can easily nd it later
3. In the question text enter your question. Variable values must be in curly
brackets like this {a}
Random
numbers
multiplied by 2
49
4. See settings common to all question types above for explanations of:
- |mage to dlsplay
- Default questlon grade
- Penalty factor
5. Then, in the answer settings...Image to display
- Glve the correct answer formula: }a} ` 2
- Set the grade for the correct answer to l00%
- Tolerance how much error you wlll accept - thls could be zero for
times tables
- Tolerance Type leave as relatlve
- The drop down menus for 'correct answer shows' and 'format' work
together. For example, if we want students to be tested on whole
numbers multiplied by 2, decimal places in the answer are not needed.
Thus we change correct answer shows to 0 with format set to
decimals. The other format that can be used is signicant gures.
- ou can put feedback for a correct answer e.g. well done!
6. In units you can put units such as m, kg...and so on. If you do this,
Moodle recognises that the answer is correct if units are given or not.
7. Click Next Page if you want to:
- create new values for }a} for thls questlon, choose: 'wlll use the same
existing private dataset as before
- be able to share the
50
Manual
If you are creating lots
of the same question
its best to choose the
second option.
- Thls page ls for creatlng the dataset - values to replace }a}.
- |n 'Param }a}' enter a posslble value for }a}.
- Change the range of values that should replace }a}.
- we are [ust dolng tlmes tables so we change the declmal places to
zero. This is important because we dont want to have 2.3 x 2 for
example.
- Unlform dlstrlbutlon wlll glve us values randomly wlthln the range we
chose. Loguniform will give us lower values within the range.
8. To generate the values that will replace {a}, select force regeneration.
Then, go down to the add button, choose a large number and click
add. In doing this it is less likely that a student will get the same
51
question twice in a quiz. For example, if we choose 100 the question
will use 1 out of 100 random values for {a}. A dierent value will be used
every time someone starts the quiz.
9. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes and youre
done! Well done this is by far the most complex question type in the
Moodle quiz.
This page is for creating the dataset - values to replace {a}.
In order to have several questions like this (so that you add say, 10 questions
to a doubling quiz) follow this
procedure:
1. Edit the question you just made by clicking the hand holding pencil.
2. Scroll to the bottom and click Next Page (new question).
3. Choose to use the same dataset as before, click next.
4. Scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes.
You now have a carbon copy of the previous question in seconds!
Description Set Up (This is not a question!)
Remember why you chose this question type you want to provide some info
that might be useful for the next questions that the student will
attempt. This is not a question its like a label in the question bank.
52
Manual
It would not work well if you chose to shu e questions randomly.
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category
you would like to create the description in
2. choose description from the Create new question drop down menu
3. Give the description a descriptive name so that you can easily nd it
later
4. In the question text enter the information you want to give to students
that will help them with subsequent questions
Essay Question Set Up
Remember why you chose this question type you want to ask questions that
require an answer that is no more than a couple of paragraphs.
This type of question requires manual marking (unlike the others which
are self-marking). Students grades will be 0 until you mark their answers.
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category
you would like to create the question in
2. Choose the essay question from the drop down menu entitled Create
new question
3. Give the question a descriptive name so that you can easily nd it later
4. In the question text enter your question
5. Change the default grade to the number of marks the question is worth
6. If you want to give information regardless of the answer given, put that
in the general feedback eld. Note that this will appear once you have
marked the question manually. Whatever you type in the feedback eld
will appear automatically when the question is submitted.
7. When you come to mark the question you also have a eld for writing
comments.
53
Matching Question Set Up
Remember why you chose this question type you have a list of statements
that can be matched with another list of statements. Students use a drop
down menu to do this.
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category
you would like to create the question in and choose matching from the
Create new question drop down menu.
2. Give the question a descriptive name so that you can easily nd it later.
3. In the question text give instructions for the matching question.
4. See settings common to all question types above for explanations of:
- |mage to dlsplay
- Default questlon grade
- Penalty factor
- General feedback
5. Ticking the shu e box means that the statements/questions on the
right hand side (drop down menus) will appear in a random order each
time the question is attempted. Untick it and the order will always
be the same.
6. Write statements/questions in the question eld and the corresponding
answer. The answers appear to students in a drop down menu. For this
54
Manual
reason it is best to keep the answer short. For example,
Q: The chemical symbol for water
A: H2O
rather than...
Q: H2O
A: The chemical symbol for water
If you need more questions, click blanks for 3 more choices Save
changes when nished
Embedded Answers (Cloze) Question Set Up
Remember why you chose this question type you want students to ll in the
gaps in a paragraph of text. Students have to type into a box, choose from a
drop down menu, etc. If you nd this question di cult to set up you should
use Hot Potatoes software to create these sorts of questions.
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category
you would like to create the question in
2. Choose embedded answers (cloze) from the Create new question
drop down menu
3. Give the question a descriptive name so that you can easily nd it later
4. In the question text write your paragraph and then adapt it using Moo
dle code to produce dierent kinds of gaps. You can access reference
information on this by clicking the question mark at the top of the page
(alongside Embedded answers).
55
Heres an example:
The }l:MC:Dutch#no they speak Dutch~8rltlsh#correct~Germans#no
they speak German} refer to the sea between England and France as the
English channel. The }l:SA:Prench#well done} however refer to this sea as la
manche.
.producing the following question:
Lets interpret the code for the rst gap
}l:MC:Dutch#no they speak Dutch~8rltlsh#correct~Germans#no they speak
German}
- anythlng between curly brackets becomes the gap
- number l labels the gap as the rst of thls klnd of gap l.e. the rst mul
tiple choice gap in this paragraph
- MC multlple cholce
- the label, gap type and answers are separated by colons eg. l:MC:answers
- posslble answers are separated by ~
- the correct answer ls preceded by
- feedback ls separated from the answer by #
In short, a multiple choice gap is coded like this:
}l:MC:wrong Answer#wrong!~|ncorrect Answer#|ncorrect!~Correct
Answer#Well Done!}
Other types of gaps include:
MC Multlple cholce drop down menu
SA Short answer, case unlmportant
56
Manual
SAC Short answer, case must match
NM numerlcal
See settings common to all question types above for explanations of:
- |mage to dlsplay
- Default questlon grade
- Penalty factor
- General feedback
5. Scroll down and click save changes
Multiple Choice Question Set Up
Remember why you chose this question type you want students to answer
questions where there is a list of answers to choose from. There could be a
single correct answer or several correct answers.
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category
you would like to create the question in and choose multiple choice
from the Create new question drop down menu.
2. Give the question a descriptive name so that you can easily nd it later.
3. In the question text ask your question. For example:
Which of the following is not a capital city?
4. You may decide to change the default question grade especially if you
choose to give more than one correct answer.
- See 'settlngs common to all questlon types' above for explanatlons of:
- |mage to dlsplay
- Default questlon grade
- Penalty factor
- General feedback
5. Decide how many correct answers will be present in the list of answers.
57
6. Shu ing the choices is switched on by default so that the list of an
swers does not always appear in the same order. This is worth leaving
ticked.
7. You can change the way that choices are labeled by using the Number
the choices drop down menu i.e. a,b,c; 1,2,3...etc
8. For each of the multiple choice answers (choices) you need to ll in the
answer with the corresponding grade and feedback. For example, if
there is only one correct answer, the correct answer grade would be
l00%. The feedback could be 'well Done! Parls ls the capltal of
France. If an answer is incorrect leave the grade as none. If you set up
the question with 2 correct answers/choices, be sure that the grade is
set to 50% for each. |f there are 3 correct, put 33.333%...etc#
- |t ls posslble to add more answers/cholces by cllcklng '8lanks for 3
More Choices
9. The overall feedback section is useful because you can put feedback
messages that the students see when they answer a given question
correctly, partially correct or incorrectly. For example if they chose 1 out
of 2 correct answers you could give the feedback Good work but are
you sure there isnt another correct answer?.
Numerical Question Set Up
Remember why you chose this question type you want to create a
mathematical question where the students enter the answer into a text
box. This question is similar to the short answer question except it is
mathematical.
58
Manual
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category you
would like to create the question in and choose numerical from the Create
new question drop down menu.
2. Give the question a descriptive name so that you can nd it easily later.
3. In the question text enter your question. Here is an example question:
- $$ l000 \tlmes 2 $$ (lf the Tex and Algebra notatlon lters are
switched on this will show as 1000 x 2 when the question is saved)
- See 'settlngs common to all questlon types' above for explanatlons of:
- |mage to dlsplay
- Default questlon grade
- Penalty factor
- General feedback
4. In the answers section put the correct answer, its corresponding grade
(l00%), accepted error and feedback (optlonal). Taklng another example
question: 100 divided by 3. We might put the following:
5. Finally, scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes
This will cater for
answers such as
33.3333
59
Random Short-Answer Matching Question Set Up
Remember why you chose this question type you have some short answer
questions in your Moodle question bank and you want to transform these
into a single matching question.
NB. the short answer used questions must be in the same category within the
Moodle question bank.
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category
you would like to create the question in and choose Random
Short-Answer Matching from the Create new question drop down
menu.
2. Give the question a descriptive name so that you can easily nd it later
3. The question text is pre-populated with the following instructions that
you can edit if your wish: For each of the following questions, select the
matching answer from the menu.
- See 'settlngs common to all questlon types' above for explanatlons of:
- |mage to dlsplay
- Default questlon grade
- Penalty factor
- General feedback
4. Use the Number of questions to select drop down menu to decide how
many short answer questions should be imported into this question. If
there arent enough short answer questions in the category you will be
told
5. Click Save Changes to create the question.
60
Manual
True/False Question Set Up
Remember why you chose this question type you want students to decide
whether a statement is true or false.
1. In the question bank, under the questions tab, choose the category
you would like to create the question in and choose short answer from
the Create new question drop down menu.
2. Give the question a descriptive name so that you can easily nd it later.
3. In the question text make a statement that is true or false. For example:
Hertfordshire is South of London.
- See 'settlngs common to all questlon types' above for explanatlons of:
- |mage to dlsplay
- Default questlon grade
- Penalty factor
- General feedback
4. Tell Moodle whether the statement you wrote is true or false using the
correct answer drop down menu.
5. Give feedback corresponding to when students chose True or False.
- Peedback for True No, Hertfordshlre ls north of London
- Peedback for Palse Correct answer!
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes
61
3.4.3 Step 2: Making a quiz
Making a quiz is quick and easy. Indeed, if you already have questions in your
question bank you can set up a quiz in under a minute! Heres how:
1. With editing on in your course go to the topic/section where you would
like the quiz to display and click add an activity... and choose Quiz
2. Give the quiz a name (this becomes the link that your students click on
to enter the quiz)
3. Give an introduction, this could be a few words of encouragement
4. In the timing section you can:
- choose to make the exerclse avallable/unavallable from a speclc date
and time
- choose whether you want a count down tlmer (tlck enable and enter
the number of mlnutes) - stop your students from re-attemptlng the
exercise for a given amount of time i.e. if you want them to go back
and study rst (time delay between rst and second attempts). Time
delay between later attempts does the same thing except it controls
the amount of time between the second attempt and attempts after
that.
62
Manual
5. In the attempts section you can:
- set the number of tlmes your students can try the test (number of at
tempts allowed).
- allow your students to concentrate on questlons that were answered
incorrectly on the previous attempt by selecting yes for each attempt
builds on the last (provided more than one attempt is allowed).
- provlde your students wlth a 'submlt' button after every slngle questlon
(adaptlve mode yes) or take away these buttons, forclng students to
submit their answers when they have attempted them all
(adaptlve mode no). |f adaptlve mode ls on the penalty factor
(decided in the question set up) is subtracted from the score when the
student gets a question wrong.
6. In the grades section you can: calculate the nal grade awarded to a
student when they have had more than one attempt by changing the
grading method to:
- Hlghest grade - the nal grade ls the hlghest (best) grade ln any at
tempt
- Average grade - the nal grade ls the average (slmple mean) grade of
all attempts
- Plrst grade - the nal grade ls the grade earned on the rst attempt
(other attempts are ignored)
- Last grade - the nal grade ls the grade earned on the most recent
attempt only
63
You can also
- stop questlons from subtractlng penaltles from the mark when
adaptive mode is on (see above)
- declde whether declmal places are shown ln the students' scores. Thls
makes sense if you are using adaptive mode and subtracting 0.1 for
each incorrect attempt on a question
7. In review options you can decide what students see when reviewing
their attempt:
- '|mmedlately after the attempt' means wlthln two mlnutes of the user
clicking Submit all and nish
- 'Later, whlle the qulz ls stlll open' means after thls, and before the qulz
close date
- 'After the qulz ls closed' means after the qulz close date has passed. |f
the quiz does not have a close date, this state is never reached
8. In the security options you can:
- reduce the amount of cheatlng on a qulz by preventlng students from
doing things like copy/paste in their web browser. To do this set yes for
show quiz in a secure window.
- password protect a qulz, for example, to restrlct who can take the test.
- ensure that your students attempt the exerclse from school by enterlng
the schools IP address.
9. In the common module settings you may want to apply a group mode if
you have groups set up in your course.
64
Manual
10. In overall feedback you can give specic feedback within grade
boundarles. Por example lf you put 80% ln the rst empty grade
boundary and You Passed in the feedback eld above it. The quiz will
come back wlth that message for marks of 80% and above.
11. Click Save and Display were not nished yet. We still need to pick
the questions.
65
12. You will see the question bank on the right hand side and the quiz on
the left hand side.
13. On the right hand side select the category from which you wish to take
questions.
14. Tick the boxes beside questions you wish to include and then scroll
down and click add to quiz.
15. On the left hand side, check that the maximum grade is set to an ap
propriate number based on the total of all the questions added
together. Of course you can leave it to give a mark out of 10 or even
100 if you want.
16. Click Save Changes and you are done! Use the preview tab to look at
the nished product.
3.5 Wikis
You could use wikis for a variety of reasons. A wiki is a network of web pages.
The best way to decide whether a wiki could be of use in your course is to
look at the set up options. For this reason well go
straight to the instructions.
1. With editing turned on in your course, go to the topic/section where you
would like to add the wiki and choose wiki from the add an activity...
drop down menu
2. Ignore the wiki name and introduction to start with. Click the question
mark next to the eld where you choose the wiki type. The combination
of wiki type and group mode that you choose is the key to your
success with wikis!
66
Manual
No Groups Separate Groups Visible Groups
GROUP MODE decides who sees the wikis
TYPE OF WIKI
decides who the wikis
belong to i.e. who can
edit and therefore
how many wikis will to
make
Teacher
There are no groups so the
teacher needs 1 wiki (teacher
edits only)
Everyone can see because no
groups is like 1 big group
There are groups so the
teacher needs 1 wiki per
group (teacher edits only)
Students the wiki for their
group only
There are groups so the teacher
needs 1 wiki per group (teacher
edits only)
Students can see other groups
wikis
Groups
There are no groups so the group
needs 1 wiki to edit together
Of course students can of course
see the wiki
There are groups so each
group needs a wiki to edit
Students see their groups
wiki only
There are groups so each group
needs a wiki to edit
Students can see other groups
wikis
Student
One wiki per student
Students see their wiki only
One wiki per student
Students can see wikis be-
longing to members of their
group only
One wiki per student
Students can see all wikis
As you can see, there are lots of possibilities around what can be done with
wikis. For example, you could set up a wiki where students compiled revision
notes accessible to one another by creating a student wiki using visible
groups
3. Taking this example we could now give the wiki a name Revision Notes
and proceed to give some instructions in the summary box:
4. Use this wiki to create pages of revision notes. To create a new page
simply put some text in square brackets [like this]. When you click save
you will see: like this? Click the question mark and start editing your
new page.
67
3.6 Glossary
By creating a glossary in your course you are providing an area for words and
terms used in the course to be dened.
So why is a glossary an activity? How do your students participate?
By default the glossary allows your students to contribute their own
denitions (you can stop this if you wish) so teachers can ask students to
dene new terms that they come across. In turn, denitions could be rated
and the best could be exported to a main glossary that students cant edit.
Glossaries are capable of auto-linking. This means that if a word, present
in the glossary, is typed somewhere in the course, that word will be
automatically linked to its denition in the glossary. This is what
a glossary looks like:
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How to set up a glossary
1. With editing on in your course go to the topic/section where you would
like the glossary to display and click add an activity... > Glossary.
2. Give the glossary a name (this becomes the link that your students click
on to enter the glossary). For example, new terms and denitions.
3. In the description box give your students some instructions.
For example:
- |n thls course you wlll encounter new words. whenever you come
across a new word please add it here, along with its denition. Dont
worry if someone has already entered a word perhaps you have
another way of explaining it?
4. Decide how many entries you would like to be shown on 1 page.
5. If you are the Moodle site administrator you will have the option of mak
ing the glossary global. This means you have the ability to make the
glossary available for auto-linking from anywhere on the Moodle site.
6. Choose the type of glossary you want to create. Most of the time you
will choose secondary glossary because you can only have one main
glossary per course.
7. Next you need to decide whether you will allow:
- Dupllcate entrles - ln the example we lndlcated that we would.
- Comments - do you want students to comment on denltlons that
their fellow students have submitted?
- Prlnt vlew - lf you do, your students are able to cllck an lcon to see a
printer friendly version of the glossary.
8. If you want words (present in the course) to automatically link to their
corresponding denitions in the glossary, choose yes for Automatically
link glossary entries.
9. Approval by default means you dont need to check denitions that
your students add before they become visible to everyone else. If you
choose no for this setting you will be required to approve an entry
before the other students can see it.
10. Display format deals with how the glossary looks. You can:
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- choose from: Slmple, dlctlonary style, Lncyclopedla, PAQ, etc. Cllck on
the question mark for a description of each style.
- show a 'speclal' llnk - when cllcked thls lters the denltlons for speclal
characters like @,#, etc.
- show the alphabet llnks so that when users cllck 'A' the llst ls ltered
for denitions beginning with A.
- show an 'ALL' llnk whlch shows all denltlons when cllcked.
11. Decide whether students should be allowed to come back and edit
their denitions.
12. In the grade settings your rst decision is whether or not you want it to
be possible to rate denitions. Secondly, you need to decide who can
rate just teachers or everyone?
- |t ls posslble to restrlct ratlngs for a day, hour or whatever you declde.
13. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and display. Were
not nished though there are a couple more important points:
- Cllck on the 'browse by category' tab and you have a button to 'edlt
categories on the left. Students will be able to add their words to
categories, if you create some.
- Notlce that ln the top rlght you have the optlon to export entrles. Thls
creates an xml le which you can import into another glossary.
3.7 Databases
Databases can be set up for all kinds of purposes. As with the glossary
module the main way that your students participate in a database activity is
by adding entries to the database. Unlike a glossary which allows
students to enter a concept and its denition you choose what type of data
students can contribute to a database! For example, you can create elds so
that your students can tick boxes, enter dates, upload
les, select from a menu, type into a box, etc.
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Manual
Instructions for setting up a database A photo competition
1. With editing on in your course go to the topic/section where you would
like the database to display and click add an activity... > Database
2. Give the database a name (this becomes the link that your students
click on to enter it). For example, Autumn Term Photo Competition
3. In the introduction box give your students some instructions.
For example: Upload three of the best photos you have taken this au
tumn and rate the photos uploaded by others.
4. For this example I would choose to make the database available (for
contribution) for the whole of the autumn term but I would leave the
viewable options disabled so that people can always look back.
5. Decide how many entries students have to submit. You can encourage
participation by preventing students from viewing the entries until they
have submitted something themselves (entries required before viewing).
- ou can llmlt the number of entrles a glven student can submlt and
decide whether or not you want people to be able to comment on
other entries.
6. If Require approval? is set to Yes, your students entries will not be
visible until you approve them.
7. You also need to decide whether students should be allowed to rate
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entries. In the example, I would allow this and let users mark each entry
out of 20.
8. If you have groups set up in the course you may wish to apply a group
mode so that you can run a competition per year group for example.
9. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click save and display to continue
setting up the database.
10. On the next page you will nd yourself looking at the elds tab. We
need to decide what elds students need to ll in. For our photo com
petition we will add the following elds:
- Plcture - for students to upload a photo
- Text Area - for students to glve some background lnformatlon about
where the photo was taken
11. If someone proceeds to add entries to your database nobody will be
able to see them because the view list and view single templates
have not yet been dened. Assuming that you do not want to get
involved with template design, here is the bare minimum to get the
database up and working:
- Cllck on the templates tab...
- ...a horlzontal llst appears below...
- ...cllck the 'llst template' llnk, scroll down and cllck on 'save
template...
- ...cllck the 'slngle template' llnk, scroll down and save that one too...
- ...now when you cllck the 'vlew llst' or 'vlew slngle' tabs you wlll be
able to see entries.
3.8 SCORM
SCORM is a standard for packaging content and the Moodle SCORM activity
unpacks this SCORM content. Exercises uploaded with the SCORM activity
sometimes allow tracking and self-marking in Moodle.
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So how would you make use of the SCORM activity?
1. You may decide to purchase some SCORM content from a content
provider (SchoolAnywhere can help you with this !)
2. You may have some software that allows you to package content as
SCORM In both cases you will have a .zip le to upload and unpack
using the SCORM activity
There is a very popular website called Content Generator (www.
contentgenerator.net) that provides software for creating games which can
be saved as SCORM and uploaded into Moodle. These games work perfectly
with the Moodle gradebook, just like the quiz module. One of the free game
producing programs available on Content Generator is called Fling the
Teacher. Lets take this game as example of how to
upload SCORM content to Moodle:
1. Download Fling the Teacher from http://www.contentgenerator.net and
install it
2. Open the Fling the Teacher software and make your questions (mini
mum of 15 multiple choice, 1 correct answer questions).
3. At the end, when you have made all your questions, click game set up.
You must make sure you change the SCORM options so that a \
SCORM compliant .zip le is produced.
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4. Click Generate Game to save the .zip le on your computer.
5. In your Moodle course turn editing on and go to the section you wish to
add the game to.
6. Choose SCORM/AICC from the Add an activity... drop down menu.
7. Give the game a name. As always, this becomes the link that your stu
dents click on.
8. Give a summary (this will be visible from the activities page - it is not
seen when students open the game).
9. Next we need to provide the location of the .zip SCORM le (created
earlier)
- cllck 'Choose or upload a le'.
- cllck 'Upload a le' > '8rowse' for the le on your computer > 'Open' lt
and click Upload this le.
- Once the le has been uploaded cllck the 'Choose' llnk (under
ations).
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10. Now that we have located the le we can deal with the other settings:
- Choose the deslred 'gradlng method', 'maxlmum grade' and
number of attempts allowed.
- Por a Pllng the Teacher game, the stage slze helght can be changed
to 800 so that users can see the whole game.
11. In this case our SCORM package is a single game. If we were
uploading a purchased SCORM package it is likely there would be
many parts or chapters. For this reason it is important to click show
advanced and change a few of the default options. For a single Fling
the Teacher game you could consider changing the following:
- 'Student sklp content structure page' could be set to 'Always' -
theres no point showing a contents page if theres just one item in
the list.
- Llkewlse, 'Course structure page (Table of Contents)' could be set to
hidden (this setting controls where/how the content structure is
displayed).
12. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and return to course.
3.9 Hot Potatoes Quiz
The Hot potatoes quiz activity allows you to import exercises created with Hot
Potatoes quiz making software into your Moodle courses. If you cannot see
the Hot Potatoes Quiz in the Add an activity... drop
down menu, ask your Moodle administrator to enable it (Modules >activities,
from the site administration block). This activity is installed in your Moodle
but not necessarily switched on.
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About Hot Potatoes software:
The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create
interactive multiple-choice, short-answer,
jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-ll exercises for
the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is
freeware, and you may use it for any purpose or project you like. It is not
open-source.
ref: Hot Potatoes home page: http://hotpot.uvic.ca
You can learn about how to create each type of exercise, known as a potato
here: http://hotpot.uvic.ca/wintutor6/tutorial.htm
The process of importing a hot potatoes exercise is much the same as
importing SCORM content. In both
cases the content is created outside Moodle and imported into Moodle using
the relevant activity. The main
dierence is that in the case of hot potatoes the le produced is not a .zip.
There is a dierent le extension
for each hot potato:
Hot Potato What does it do? File extensions
JCloze Gap ll .jlc
JCross Crossword .jcw
JQuiz Multiple choice or short answer quiz .jqz
JMatch Matching exercise .jmt
JMix Jumbled sentence .jmx
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Manual
1. In your Moodle course turn editing on and go to the section where you
wish to add the exercise.
2. Choose Hot Potatoes Quiz from the Add an activity... drop down
menu.
3. Go straight to Choose or upload a le...
- ...cllck 'Upload a le' > '8rowse' for the le on your computer > 'Open'
it and click Upload this le.
- ...once the le has been uploaded cllck the 'Choose' llnk (under
actions).
4. If the le uploaded has a sensible name, you may decide to get the
name from the le. Otherwise choose Specic text from the drop down
menu and type the name manually.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save and display to see the
imported exercise.
3.10 Surveys
The survey module may not do what you were expecting. It allows you to
add pre-written questionnaires about e-learning. These questionnaires were
designed to assess and stimulate online learning
environments. There are 2 main survey types:
ATTLS collects data about how students learn.
COLLES collects data about how students interact within the online
learning environment. Here are the steps to adding one of these
surveys so that you can preview it:
1. click Add an activity.. and choose Survey from the drop down menu.
2. Give the survey a name and choose the type of survey you want to add.
3. Leave the Custom intro box blank, in doing so the introduction will be
generated based on the survey type chosen.
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4. In the Common module settings make the survey invisible to students
so that you can preview it without them seeing. If you decide youre
going to use the survey you can always come back and make it visible.
3.11 Lessons
The lesson module allows you to create pages which are linked together
by the answers your students give or the choices they make. A lesson is
constructed using a ow chart-like interface. You can ask your students
to choose what they want to do next by using branch tables. To ask your
students a question, use question pages. The answer given on a question
page determines which page your students are taken to next.
Clearly there are lots of things you could do with the lesson module so heres
an example lesson, using the story of the Three Little Pigs:
In the lesson students get to read two versions of the story of the Three Little
Pigs.
In this rst part of the lesson, students answer questions which are not
marked and are there simply to emphasise dierences between
the two versions of the story. Once both versions of the story have been read,
the students are asked to make a list of the dierences and to write their own
third version of the story. The second part of the lesson is marked.
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Manual
Heres how to get started setting up a lesson like this:
1. Lesson is chosen from the Add an activity... drop down menu.
2. The lesson is given a name and all other settings can be left to default.
(These settings can be revisited once the lesson contents have been
created. Lets get straight on with creating lesson pages).
3. Clicking on Save and display takes us to a page asking what we would
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like to do rst. For our example were just interested in adding branch
tables and question pages. Note that you can also import questions
(from the quiz question bank) or import PowerPoint presentations.
4. At the start of our lesson we are giving students the choice to read one
of two versions of a story so we will add a branch table.
5. We give the page a title and type our introduction into the page
contents box, asking students to make their choice.
6. The description boxes will change into clickable buttons when the
branch table is saved. For our example we could put Story 1
(description 1) and Story 2 (description 2).
7. Ignore the Jump drop down menus. Jumps are important because
they decide which page the buttons take the student to. However, we
havent made any pages to take them to yet so we cant do this. In any
case it is much easier to make pages and then come back to set the
jumps.
8. Click Add a Branch Table at the bottom of the page to continue.
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Manual
Click the
magnifying glass to
preview the page
9. Next we need to add some question pages. To do this, choose
Question from the Add a page... menu as shown above.
10. The rst thing to notice is that there is a tab for each possible question
type. Multiple choice is the default tab so make sure you select the
desired tab before lling in all the elds.
11. Give the page a title and type something into the page contents box,
ending with your question. In our example we might begin with a
multiple choice question:
- Leave 'multlanswer' untlcked because there wlll be one correct
answer only
- Page tltle: Once upon a tlme
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- Page contents: Once open a tlme there were three llttle plgs. The plgs
left home to make a house. What did the rst pig use to make his
house?
- Answer l: Straw
- Pesponse l: That's rlght, let's contlnue the story...
- Notlce that 'Score l' ls always set to l by default. we don't want to
mark this part of the lesson so well change it to zero.
- 1ump l wlll determlne where students are taken when they choose
Answer 1. Next page makes sense, even if we dont have a next page
yet. As a general rule Jump elds can be ignored for now we can
come back and sort these out when we have more pages
- Answer 2: "Stlcks, Pesponse 2: "No, not stlcks - try agaln.
- Answer 3: "8rlcks, Pesponse 3: "No, not brlcks -try agaln.
- Scroll to the bottom and cllck 'Save page'
12. Continue adding question pages until you reach the end of the story.
13. After the last question page for Story 1 create another branch table
with 2 options:
- "Pead the other story
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Manual
- "| have already read the other story (thls takes the students to the
second part of the lesson - the marked essay questions)
14. Create question pages to guide your students through version two of
the story i.e. Story 2 and after the last question page make another
branch table giving the students the option to read the other story
or continue to part two.
15. Create the essay questions.
16. Edit all your pages and change the Jumps so that they link to the
correct pages.
You should end up with something like this:
17. Finally, use the preview tab to check out how your lesson is working.
Doing this will enable you to test your lesson and make appropriate
changes.
Lesson settings
1. Give the lesson a name. As always, this becomes the link that your
students click to enter the lesson.
2. If you wish to enable a time limit, you can. If you do, you should
probably test your lesson to make sure
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you have allocated enough time.
1. It is important not to give a low number for Maximum number of
answers/branches. For example, if you were to change this setting to 2,
you would only be able to give 2 possible answers in multiple
choice questions within your lesson. Branches (choices you ask the
students to make about where to go next) would also be limited to 2.
2. In Grading Options:
- Change 'Practlce lesson' to 'es' lf you do not want the lesson to
show in the gradebook.
- 'Custom scorlng' ls set to yes by default. Thls means you are allowed
to change the score allocated to a given answer.
- 'Students can re-take' means what lt says.
- 'Handllng of re-takes' deals wlth the grades shown when the students
are allowed to re-take the lesson. Grades are either shown as the
average over the re-takes (use mean) or their best grade for the lesson
re-takes (use maximum).
- |f 'Dlsplay Ongolng Score' ls set to 'es' each page wlll dlsplay the
students current points earned out of the total possible thus far.
3. In Flow control options:
- 'Allow student revlew' allows students to move backwards ln the
lesson to change answers.
- 'Dlsplay revlew button' wlll dlsplay a button after an lncorrectly
answered question, allowing a student to re-attempt it. It does not
work with essay questions (they are marked manually by the teacher),
so leave this out if you are using essay questions in your lesson.
- 'Maxlmum number of attempts' |MPOPTANT - thls controls how
many times a student can attempt a question before a penalty is
applied for getting the question wrong.
- 'Actlon after a correct answer' allows you to declde what happens
globally after a correct answer is given for example take students to
a page they havent seen yet.
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Manual
- |f 'Dlsplay default feedback' ls set to 'es', and you have forgotten to
ll out feedback for a given answer the default feedback is given
instead i.e. Thats the correct answer or Thats the wrong answer
will be used.
- |f you set a 'Mlnlmum number of questlons', lt means you need an
introduction to the lesson which says something like this: In this lesson
you are expected to attempt at least n questions. You can attempt
more if you wish. However, if you attempt less than n questions your
grade will be calculated as though you attempted n. This setting only
comes into play if you have set up branches and students can avoid
going down some of the branches.
- 'Number of pages (cards) to show' deals wlth lessons set up to show
ashcards i.e. you use branch tables only and set page jumps to
show unseen pages, each page is a ashcard. The default value is
zero which means that all the pages (cards) are shown in a lesson. If
this is set to 5, the end of the lesson is reached after 5 of the pages
(cards) have been shown, and the student is shown their grade.
4. In Lesson Formatting options:
- |f 'slldeshow' mode ls swltched on, thls wlll anect branch pages only
(not question pages). Change the colour (and width and height) of
the slideshow and preview your lesson to see how this works.
- |f 'Left dlsplay menu' ls set to 'es' all the branch pages wlll dlsplay
as links on the left hand side. Once again, question pages are not
included.
- Showlng a 'Progress bar' wlll allow students to see how much of the
lesson they have completed.
5. The Access Control settings allow you to control when students can
access the lesson and give you the option to password protect the
lesson.
6. The Dependent On settings allow you to link access to this lesson to
the students performance in another lesson in this course. You can give
conditional access to the lesson based on time spent on the
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other lesson, grade achieved or whether the other lesson was
completed by the individual student.
7. The Pop up to a web page settings deal with the creation of a pop-up
window at the beginning of a lesson to a le or a web page. Also, a link
will be displayed on every lesson page allowing the pop-up to be
re-opened if necessary.
8. The Link to activity drop down lists all the other activities in the course.
If you use this there will be a link to the chosen activity at the end of the
course.
9. Use this lessons settings as default will save you time if you intend to
make lots of similar lessons in your course.
3.12 Chat
The chat module is self evident in that it allows you to create an online chat
room where your students take part in live discussions by sending and
receiving instant messages. This is comparable to MSN or Google Chat except
that only students enrolled on your course can participate. As a teacher you
can consult transcripts for past chat sessions, you can even set up the chat
room so that students can view past chats. Creating a chat room:
1. In your Moodle course turn editing on and go to the section you wish
to add the chat room to.
2. Choose Chat from the Add an activity... drop down menu.
3. Give the chat room a name. As always, this becomes the link that your
students click on.
4. In the introduction box write instructions for your students e.g. details of
what they should discuss.
5. The date and time for the next chat will be set to the current date and
time.
6. Choose whether youd like the chat room to show in the course
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Manual
calendar or upcoming events every week, every day, as a one o or not
at all (see Repeat sessions eld below).
7. Decide how long youd like transcripts of past chat sessions to be
saved.
8. Decide whether you want to give your students access to the past chat
transcripts.
9. Apply a group mode if you have groups set up in the course and want
to restrict who can chat with who.