Moodle E-Learning Course Development - Third Edition

Table of Contents

Moodle E-Learning Course Development Third Edition

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. A Guided Tour of Moodle

A plan to create your learning site

Step-by-step instructions to use Moodle

Step 1 – learn about the Moodle experience

Step 2 – install Moodle

Step 3 – configure your site

Step 4 – create the framework for your learning site

Step 5 – make decisions about common settings

Step 6 – add basic course material

Step 7 – make your courses interactive

Step 8 – evaluate your students

Step 9 – make your course social

Step 10 – add collaborative activities

Step 11 – manage and extend your courses

Step 12 – take the pulse of your course

The Moodle philosophy

The Moodle experience

The Moodle front page

Arriving at the site

Anonymous, guest, and registered access

The main menu

Blocks

The site description

Available courses

Inside a course

The navigation bar

Blocks

The navigation block

Sections

Joining a discussion

Completing a workshop

Editing mode

Normal mode versus editing mode

The edit icon

The delete icon

The hidden/shown icons

The group icons

Resources and activities

Adding resources and activities

The administration menu

The Moodle architecture

The Moodle application directory

The Moodle data directory

The Moodle database

Summary

2. Installing Moodle

Installation step 1 – the web server

How much hosting service do you need?

Disk space

Bandwidth

Memory

Ensuring minimum prerequisites

Installation step 2 – subdomain or subdirectory?

Installation step 3 – getting and unpacking Moodle

Choosing a Moodle version

The quick way – upload and unzip

Uploading and decompressing the zip file on the server

The long way – decompress the zip file locally and upload files

Installation step 4 – the Moodle data directory

Installation step 5 – creating the Moodle database and user

Creating the database

Creating the database user

Installation step 6 – the installer script

Configuration settings and config.php

Database tables

Step 6a – run install.php

Step 6b – specify the web address and directories

Step 6c - specify database settings

Step 6d - copyright

Step 6e - check server

Step 6f - database tables created by install.php

Installation step 7 – create the administrative user

Installation step 8 – front page settings

Installation step 9 – success

Summary

3. Configuring Your Site

Preparing to experiment

Creating test accounts

Installing several browsers

Exploring the site administration menu

Configuring authentication methods

Manual accounts and no login methods

Manually creating a new user

To suspend a user's account

Enabling e-mail-based self-registration

Authenticating against an external source

Connecting to an external database or server

What happens when users are deleted from the external database?

What happens when usernames are changed in the external database?

Granting access to courses with enrollment choices

Name

Instances/enrolments

Enable

Up/down

Settings

Manual enrollments

To manually enroll a student in a course:

Guest access

Enabling guest access for a course

Self enrolment

Cohort sync

Creating a cohort

Adding users to a cohort

Adding a user from the cohort page

Adding a student using the bulk action method

To enroll a cohort in a course

Category enrollments

The flat file

The file

Student ID number required

Course ID required

Role

Summary of flat files

IMS Enterprise File

LDAP

External database

External database connection

Local field mappings

Remote enrolment sync and creation of new courses

PayPal

Mnet remote enrolments (formerly Moodle networking)

Language

About language files

Installing and enabling additional languages

Installing additional languages

Configuring the language

Sitewide locale

Excel encoding

Offering courses in multiple languages

Security settings

The IP blocker: Limiting access to specific locations

Site policies

Protect usernames

Forcing users to log in

Force users to login for profiles

Open to Google

Maximum uploaded file size

Changing the limit on uploaded file size in PHP

Changing the limit on uploaded file size in Apache

Allowing Embed and Object tags

HTTP security

Using HTTPS for logins

Running Moodle entirely from HTTPS

Filters

Activity names and glossary auto-linking filters

Math filters

Email protection filter

Multimedia plugins

Multi-language content

Word censorship

HTML tidy

Configuring the front page

How to use this section

Front page settings page

Full site name

Front page summary

Front page items

Using a topic section on the front page

Show news items

Backup

Setting up the cron job

Summary

4. Creating Categories and Courses

Using course categories and the user experience

Displaying courses and categories on your front page

Displaying an uncategorized list of courses on your front page

Choosing the best option for your front page

Creating course categories

Rearranging course categories

Creating courses

Creating a new, blank course

Enrolling teachers and students

Assigning teachers

How to set enrolment methods

Handling course requests

Enabling course requests

Getting notified about course requests

How to request a new course (teachers and students)

How to respond to a request for a new course (managers, course creators, and administrators)

Summary

5. Resources, Activities, and Conditional Access

Settings that are common to all resources and activities

Adding a resource or activity

Entering the name and description

Showing and hiding a resource or an activity

Setting the availability of a resource or an activity

Using the visibility setting to show or hide a resource

Using the ID number to include a resource in the gradebook

Restricting access

Summary of the process to use completion conditions

Creating the activities and resources that need to be completed

Creating the activity completion settings

Creating the activities or resources that will be restricted

Setting the activity completion conditions

Allowing students to see the activity or resource before they can access it

Rearrange/move items on the course home page

Summary

6. Adding Resources

Adding different kinds of resources

Adding URLs

Display options – Embed, Open, and In pop-up

Embed

Open

In pop-up

Adding pages

Adding a page to your course

Adding images

Inserting an image file

Inserting a hot-linked picture into a Moodle page

Pasting text

Stripping out the formatting: pasting plain text

Pasting text from Microsoft Word

Composing in an HTML editor and uploading to Moodle

Learn more about HTML

Adding files for your students to download

When a student selects a file from the course

File repositories

Types of repositories

Using file sharing services to collaborate

Using repositories to overcome Moodle's limit on file sizes

Enabling the file system repository

Creating the directory for the file system repository

Uploading files to the file system repository

Creating the file system repository in your course

Adding Media – Video and audio

Adding video or audio to a page

Organize your course

Name your topics

Rearrange/move items on the course home page

Giving directions and organization with labels

Summary

7. Adding Assignments, Lessons, Feedback, and Choices

Definitions

Understanding assignments

What you can do with an assignment

Types of work students can submit

Submitting a digital file

Requiring Students to Submit Online Text

Submitting work done in the real world

Submitting an assignment from the student's perspective

Grading an assignment

Receiving a grade for an assignment

Allowing a student to resubmit an assignment

Adding an assignment

Availability

Submission types

Feedback types

Submission settings

Group submission settings

Notifications

Printer-friendly directions

Indicating that assignments are mandatory

Lesson

Definition of a lesson

Example of a simple lesson with remedial page jump

Types of lesson pages

Content pages

Cluster with questions

End of branch

Plan, create pages, and add content

Configuring lesson settings

General settings

Appearance

File popup

Display ongoing score

Display left menu and minimum grade to display menu

Maximum number of answers

Use default feedback

Link to next activity

Prerequisite lesson

The flow control

Allow student review

Provide option to try a question again

Maximum number of attempts

Number of pages to show

Grade

The practice lesson

Custom scoring

Handling of retakes

Minimum number of questions

Adding the first lesson page

Importing questions

Adding a content page

Adding a cluster

Adding a question page

Creating a question page

Page Title

Page Contents

Answers

Responses

Jumps

This Page

Next or Previous Page

Specific Pages

Unseen question within a cluster

Random question within a content page

Creating pages and assigning jumps

The flow of pages

Editing the lesson

Collapsed and expanded

Rearranging pages

Editing pages

Adding pages

Feedback

Feedback isn't just for students

Creating a feedback activity

Question types

Adding a page break

Avoiding bots with captcha

Inserting information

Adding a label

Creating a textbox for longer text answer

Displaying multiple choice questions

Creating multiple choice questions

The numeric answer

The short text answer

Viewing feedback

See individual responses

Analyzing responses with the analysis tab

Choices

The student's point of view

The teacher's point of view

Limit

Display mode

Publish results

Privacy of results

Allowing students to change their minds

Summary

8. Evaluating Students with Quizzes

Question banks

Configuring quiz settings

General

Timing

Grade

Layout

The question behavior

Adaptive mode

Interactive with multiple tries

Immediate feedback

Deferred feedback

Each attempt builds on the last

Review options

Appearance

Extra restrictions on attempts

Techniques for greater security

The overall feedback

Common module settings

Adding questions to a quiz

Adding questions to the question bank

Moving questions between categories

Managing the proliferation of questions and categories

Creating and editing question categories

Creating a question

Question types

Adding feedback to a question

Types of feedback for a question

Feedback for individual responses

Feedback for a numeric question

Adding existing questions from the question bank

Adding random questions to a quiz

Maximum grade

Grade for each question

Changing the order of questions

Preventing glossary auto-linking in quiz questions

Preventing an open book quiz

Summary

9. Getting Social with Chats and Forums

The chat module

The chat settings page

The name of this chat room

Description

The next chat time and repeat/publish sessions

Save past sessions and everyone can view past sessions

Preventing students from seeing other's chats

Creating and running forums

Using the news forum to send notifications

Multiple forums

Forum settings

General settings

The forum name

The forum description

The forum type

The maximum attachment size

The maximum number of attachments

The display word count

The subscription mode

Read tracking

Post threshold to block settings

Ratings

Summary

10. Collaborating with Wikis and Glossaries

Glossary

Enabling glossaries and auto-linking

Enabling glossaries for your site

Enabling auto-linking

Enabling auto-linking for the site

Enabling auto-linking for the course

Enabling auto-linking for the activity or resource

Adding and configuring a glossary

The global glossary versus local glossary

The main glossary versus secondary glossary

Entries approved by default

Always allow editing and Duplicate entries allowed

Allowing comments

Automatically linking glossary entries

Appearance settings

Enabling ratings

Adding glossary entries

Importing and exporting entries

Wiki

Using the wiki type and groups mode to determine who can edit a wiki

The first page name

The default format

Summary

11. Running a Workshop

Workshop strategies

Peer assessment of submissions

The timing of submissions and assessments

The four questions

The four phases

The setup phase – the edit settings page

Name and description

Grading settings

The grading strategy

The submission settings

Assessment settings

Feedback settings

Example submissions settings

Availability settings

The edit assessment form page

Adding an example to the workshop

The submission phase – students submit their work

Allocating submissions

The assessment phase

The grading evaluation phase

The closed phase