Moodle 2 Upgrade from 1.9

Update from 1.9

North Dakota Universi ty System

Advanced Learning Technologies

Moodle 2.2

NDUS Advanced Learning Technologies 2 | P a g e

Copyright Information

This is a document of Advanced Learning Technologies of the North Dakota University System. North

Dakota University System institutions and its users are allowed to create, develop, copy, and use this

document or derivatives thereof for internal training purposes, pursuant to any licensing or copyright

issues.

With this document, portions were taken verbatim from http://docs.moodle.org. Moodle

documentation is Copyright @2005 onwards by the individual authors as noted. It is provided to all

under the terms of the GNU Public License.

http://docs.moodle.org/


Table of Contents

About Moodle ............................................................................................................................................... 5

Training Goals ........................................................................................................................................... 5

Interface .................................................................................................................................................... 6

Themes .................................................................................................................................................. 6

Examples of New Themes ..................................................................................................................... 7

Docking Blocks .......................................................................................................................................... 8

Navigation Block ....................................................................................................................................... 9

Settings Block ............................................................................................................................................ 9

Course administration............................................................................................................................. 10

Settings ................................................................................................................................................ 10

Switch Role to… ................................................................................................................................... 10

My Profile Settings .............................................................................................................................. 10

Comments Block ................................................................................................................................. 10

Managing Content .................................................................................................................................. 11

Content Management Improvements ................................................................................................ 11

Workflow Example .............................................................................................................................. 12

Locating the File and Folder ................................................................................................................ 14

HTML Text Editor ................................................................................................................................ 14

Quiz Changes ....................................................................................................................................... 16

Conditional Activities .............................................................................................................................. 17

Grade Condition .................................................................................................................................. 18

Completion Tracking ............................................................................................................................... 19

Activity Completion ............................................................................................................................. 19

Course Completion status block ......................................................................................................... 20


Blogs ........................................................................................................................................................ 21

Adding a blog entry ............................................................................................................................. 21

Course Blogs ............................................................................................................................................ 21

External blogs ...................................................................................................................................... 22

Wikis ........................................................................................................................................................ 22

Forums .................................................................................................................................................... 23

Standard forum displayed in blog-like format .................................................................................... 23

Workshop ................................................................................................................................................ 24

Setup phase ......................................................................................................................................... 24

Submission phase ................................................................................................................................ 25

Assessment phase ............................................................................................................................... 25

Grading evaluation phase ................................................................................................................... 25

Closed .................................................................................................................................................. 26

Rubrics..................................................................................................................................................... 26

MyMobile ................................................................................................................................................ 28

Training Resources ...................................................................................................................................... 29

Book: Moodle 2.0 First Look ............................................................................................................... 29

Websites.............................................................................................................................................. 29


About Moodle

Moodle is an open source learning management system (LMS) used at institutions in the North Dakota

University System (NDUS) to support and manage learning for students, faculty and staff. Moodle

provides an opportunity for faculty to extend their teaching capabilities and service students, as well as

support learning communities.

Moodle’s structure is founded upon a specific learning-centered education philosophy called social

constructionism whereby people learn through engaging in the social process of constructing

knowledge. Activities like Moodle’s Workshop make learning central to the task. Moodle provides the

capability to discuss and share digitally created artifacts for learning. In contrast to other LMS’s, Moodle

focuses on sharing ideas and actively engaging students in the construction of knowledge; when used as

intended Moodle goes beyond simply delivering information.

The North Dakota University System first implemented Moodle in 2008. Moodle has always had the

capability to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies and now this latest version has evolved to incorporate

mobile computing, support stronger integration with third party add-on products, and to extend the

reach of learning communities.

Training Goals The goal of this course is to provide Moodle users with a comprehensive understanding of the changes

and new features in Moodle 2.2 including:

Moodle’s interface and existing activities Content management

Conditional activities Completion tracking

Updates to blogs and forums Rubrics

MyMobile

Prerequisite: This manual is intended for users with prior experience using Moodle 1.9 in an academic

or support environment. For an introductory overview of Moodle 2.2, see training resources located at

the end of this guide.


Interface The Moodle 2.2 interface is more versatile than earlier versions with updated themes and Blocks that

dock to the side. Your Moodle course may look somewhat different, depending on which theme you or

your institution has decided to use.

Themes

If your NDUS institution allows for selecting your own course theme, you will notice there a total of 20

new themes with updated looks. Some of the themes have a classic Moodle feel, while others allow for

more customization.

To change your course theme:

1. In your course, go to Settings > Course

administration and click on Edit Settings.

2. In the edit course settings page, scroll down and

find Force theme.

3. In the Force theme menu, pick your theme and click Save changes at the bottom of the page.

Changing Themes

If you don’t like the theme you have chosen, you

can always switch it back simply by repeating the

process and choosing your original theme again.

*View themes at:

http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6552

http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6552


Examples of New Themes

Binarius theme

Boxxie theme

Splash theme


Docking Blocks Need more space on your course page? Want to focus more on the content of the page? Moodle allows

you to dock course blocks to the left side and then return them back to their original position one at a

time or with a single click. Currently, the default NDUS theme does not support docking of blocks

however other themes do.

How to dock course blocks

1. Locate the block you would like to dock and click

on the right-most rectangular icon.

2. The dock disappears to the left and is

replaced with a tab.

3. To see the content of the block hover your

mouse over the tab.

4. To return the block to its original place, hover

your mouse over the tab and click on the blue shaded

dock icon.

5. If you have many blocks docked to the side,

you can return them all by clicking on the blue

shaded box at the bottom left of your main course

page.


Navigation Block The new Navigation block provides easy access to various sections of the Moodle site and includes:

Home - quick access to the NDUS homepage

My home - a personalized home page displaying links to the

courses a user is associated with and activity information

such as unread forum posts and upcoming assignments.

Site pages - links to site pages and resources from the front

page of Moodle.

My profile - quick links allowing a user to view their profile,

forums posts, blogs and messages as well as manage their

private files.

My courses - links to courses (by course short name) the user is associated with. Click the

course's short name to view the front page of the course or use the arrows to navigate quickly

to a specific section, resource or activity.

Settings Block The settings block is new to Moodle 2.2 and is

divided into 3 main sections:

1. Course administration

2. Switch role to…

3. My profile settings.

Using Navigation Links

You can avoid navigating to an expired page by using the Navigation links or “breadcrumbs” instead of the back and forward buttons in your browser. This ensures you always see the latest version of a page (example: a Forum with new posts). Be careful to update, save or post any changes you make before moving on to another page to avoid losing your work.


Course administration Settings

New Course administration settings in Moodle 2.2 include the addition of

completion tracking, filter settings, and access to your repositories.

Switch Role to…

Switch Role To allows instructors to see Moodle in different roles such as a

student, non-editing teacher or even a guest. The roles you are allowed

depends on your access to Moodle.

My Profile Settings

My Profile Settings allows you to work with your own personal profile.

You can also configure your messages and add/configure blogs.

Comments Block

It’s now much easier to “have your say” in Moodle. The Comments block

can be added to any page to allow users to add comments. Comments

placed in this block can be seen by all within the course.

Ideas for using the new Comments block:

Place the Comments block on the main course page so

students can give feedback to the tutor

Place the Comments block on an individual resource or

activity

Place the Comments block on a teacher-only page (the

assignment marking screen) so teachers can moderate work

together privately

Use for adding a blog post to a specific course commenting

on a blog entry

Use for importing an external blog into your Moodle blog

(Source: http://www.moodleblog.net/?p=227)


Managing Content The way Moodle 2.2 handles and stores files works a lot more like Web 2.0 systems, such as Facebook

and Google Docs in that each activity and each text has its own file area, and files are associated directly

with the place it is used. For example, a file attached to a forum post is stored "with" the forum post,

and becomes subject to exactly the same access restrictions.

The Files system is closely connected with the Repository system and a file picker which makes it easy to

browse external and internal repositories for files and then copy them into Moodle. Certain repositories

also allow you to link directly to their media files. Repositories in general are the way of the future for

content - most Web 2.0 systems are really repositories of data with various management interfaces. The

advantage with such systems is eliminating redundancy; it is no longer necessary to store the same file

in multiple locations.

A private files area is provided for each user to store a collection of files for their own use. This is useful

for students as well as teachers, and makes it easy to access files such as media. Only you can access

your own private files.

Content Management Improvements

Integrity

If a forum post with attached files (such as images) is imported into another course, then the files move

with it. Anyone in the new course will also see the files. This makes activities more portable and re-

usable. If two activities use the same file and one is deleted, then the other one is not affected.

Security

Access to files is governed the same way as the items that they attached to, which is what people

expect. All files are now controlled by the settings in the Moodle interface, including roles and

permissions.

Re-usability

It is now fast and easy to re-use files across Moodle. Using the file picker, a recently-used file may easily

be chosen, or a file from any course a user has access to.


Backups

Backups of activities are small and accurate, because Moodle knows exactly what files to include.

Internationalization

There is no restriction on file names - even files with names in Japanese may be used.

Repositories

The world is turning towards better management of files and less "dumping" of files into disks. There are

many repository solutions out there (such as the one we will use called Alfresco) that focus on better

management of files, with versioning, workflow, metadata and other features.

Workflow Example

Goal: add a syllabus for an English 101 course.

1. In the course, turn editing on.

2. Select the Add a resource drop-down list and choose File.

3. In the Adding a new File page give the resource a name and a

description.

4. On the same page, under Content, choose Add… to add a file or Create a Folder for storing

multiple files.


Creating Folders for Storing Files

5. Give the folder a name and click OK. In this

example, a folder named “Syllabus Folder”

has been created.

Adding a File to the Folder

6. Click on the Syllabus Folder (notice the change in path/location).

7. Click Add…

8. New in Moodle 2, the File Picker window appears and you can now find and upload your file by

clicking on Upload a file on the left side of the screen.

9. Click Browse to find and open your file.

10. Optional: use the Save As field to assign a different file name.

11. Select Upload this file to finish and view uploaded files.


Locating the File and Folder

You can find the file on the server from within your course by:

1. Turn editing on

2. In the Add a resource dropdown list, choose to Add a file or folder

3. Locate the content section and choose Add… The File picker appears

4. Click on Server files (Note: In the picture below, the view is set to View as list)

5. In the list, you can now follow the path to your uploaded item

HTML Text Editor

Moodle 2 has a new text editor called TinyMCE. This new editor has a few more functions than the older

version including a new feature that allows you to cut and paste from a Microsoft Word file without

losing your format. Some of the usual places you will find the text editor include Editing Section

headings, description of an activity, writing an answer to a quiz question or editing the content of many

blocks. You will find that Moodle 2 offers the text editor in more places than it did in older versions.

The text editor divides functions into groups lightly shaded in the background. Here is a list of those

groups:


Row 1-

- Font, size and heading group

- Undo and Redo group

- Find and Replace group

- Full screen toggle

Row 2-

- Text effect group

- Line format group

- Formatting group (clean up messy code, remove formatting, paste as plain text,

paste form Word)

- Color group

- Paragraph group

Row 3-

- Number and Bullets and indents

- Link group

- Insert group (images, emoticons, media, non-breaking space characters,

custom characters, tables)

- HTML source toggle & spellchecker

The color picker now gives many more options than before for getting the exact color you need! Just

click on More colors at the bottom and select the best tab for your needs: Picker, Palette, or Named.

A quick pick 5x8 matrix

of colors

A rainbow color picker

tab

A Pallet tab with a 18x12

matrix of colors

A Named tab with custom

pallets

(Source: tinymce.com)

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_font_style.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_undo_redo.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_find_replace.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_fullscreen_1.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_text_effects.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_line_format.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_formatting.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_color.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_paragraph.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_lists.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_link.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_group_HTML_spell.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_color_selector_basic_1.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_color_selector_more_picker_1.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_color_selector_more_pallet_1.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:HTML_editor_color_selector_more_named_1.png


















































































































































































































































































Quiz Changes

The quiz activity in Moodle 2 has been given a fresh look and some added features. Here are some of

the biggest changes you will find.

Improved aesthetics of main quiz features

and layouts

Progress notification system available to

students as they work their way through the quiz.

A built in option for marking specific

questions for later, before or after a quiz is

finished. Students may want to mark a

question and come back to it before submitting

their quiz, or to let the teacher know they had a

question or concern that needed to be

addressed.

Clearer quiz submission options, including a quiz

attempt summary on the last page of a quiz that

shows students stats on their progress (and

shows any unanswered questions).

Reorganization of quiz configuration and setting

options with more options for html editing of

feedback and more review options.

The quiz building page has been reorganized,

including:

o faster building options

o clearer quiz organization and page breaks


Individual overrides for specific students or groups of students

Manually graded quiz questions.

Conditional Activities

Conditional Activities is one of the most anticipated features of Moodle 2. This new feature enables

teachers to restrict the availability of any activity according to certain conditions such as dates, grade

obtained, or activity completion. This gives flexibility in how your course appears, when items are

available, and even allows you to send students down different learning paths within the same course.

You will find the Conditional activities in the Restrict access area of the settings page for any activity in

Moodle. Restrict access settings options may change slightly depending on the activity.


Grade Condition

Grade Conditions can

be used to hide specific

activities until a certain

condition or set of

criteria has been met.

You can specify that a condition be met on one or more of the following: any graded activity in the

course, the full course grade, the grade for any activity, or a custom grade that you create manually.

When adding more than one condition, all the conditions must be met in order for the activity to

appear.

Creating a Grade Condition

1. Under Grade condition, find the activity for which the specific condition must be met.

2. Enter a minimum value (at least percentage), a

maximum value (less than percentage), both, or

neither. The activity will only appear if the student has a value for the specified grade, and if it

falls within any specified number range. The range numbers can be fractional (up to five decimal

places) if necessary.

Maximum values: if the maximum is set to 7.5, only scores up to 7.49999 will be included.

Setting multiple activities for different learning paths: When creating multiple activities

that appear according to grade ranges, use the same number for the maximum of one

activity, and the minimum of the next. For example, you could set a new learning path for

students depending on

a module quiz. In the

settings of activity #1,

you could set the

module quiz score to a

minimum of 7.5 before

activity #1 is available

to students. Then, in

the settings of activity

#2, set the module quiz to at least 7.5. Students scoring up to and including 7.49999 will


have activity #1 available; students scoring 7.5 or better, will have activity #2 available. This

will send students down a different learning path.

3. The last setting allows the instructor to either hide or gray out the activity before conditions are

met.

4. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Completion Tracking Moodle 2 allows you to track the completion of an activity, a course, or both.

Activity Completion

Activity completion allows the teacher to set completion criteria in the settings for a specific activity. A

check (tick) appears against the activity when the student meets the criteria. The criterion might be

viewing, receiving a certain score, or a student marking it as complete.

You can turn the activity completion on or

off in the Settings block > Course

administration > Edit Settings. > Student

progress section.

In the Navigation block, instructors can find

detailed activity completion reports.


You can set the activity completion requirements in the settings page of each activity under the section

called Activity completion. If you require your student to achieve a specific grade before an activity is

complete, then you must set a grade for the activity through the Gradebook.

Setting a Completion Activity Using the Gradebook

1. In the Settings block select Grades.

2. In the Gradebook, click on the Categories and items tab.

3. Under the Actions column for the grade item click the edit icon.

4. Select the Show advanced button.

5. Fill in the Grade to pass field.

6. Save changes at the bottom of the page.

Course Completion status block

Course Completion is a block that you enable and add to the

course. The student and teacher will both see this block. It

displays what has been done towards completing the course. The

More details link will lead to a more detailed report.

This report can have some interactive elements in the form of

check boxes for the student and teacher including the ability to

download to a spreadsheet.

Course completion can

also be set to allow for

self-completion by students or teachers. In this case, another

block, the Self completion block, must also be added.


Blogs Blogs in Moodle 2 are user based rather than course-based. Each user has their own blog. Users can also

register their external blogs, such as Blogger or Wordpress, so that entries are automatically included in

their Moodle blog.

Adding a blog entry

1. From the Navigation block, click on Blogs > Add a new

entry.

a. Alternatively, if the Blog menu block is enabled in

the course, click Add a new entry.

2. Write your entry and give it a title.

3. If you want to attach a file, click the Add button to access

the File picker to locate a file. Be sure your document is

smaller than the maximum attachment

size.

4. Choose who you wish to publish the

entry to. There are three options:

a. Yourself (your blog entry is a

draft)

b. Anyone on your Moodle site

5. Select appropriate official tags for your

entry. Multiple tags should be separated

by a comma.

6. Click on the Save changes button.

Course Blogs If you click Add an entry about this

course in the Blog menu block then you will have the option to associate your blog entry with

your current course.

o Note: your blogs can still be seen elsewhere in

Moodle, but this is a way outside of using tags to

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:Blogmenublock.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:Courseblogs.png

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:Blogentry.png











Creating Wiki Pages

When creating a new page with the Navigation block’s new option under

your Wiki, you will still need to copy and paste the name of the new page onto

the immediate parent page and surround it with double brackets. This

creates a link to your new page and makes it accessible from the main Wiki page. Otherwise nobody will find the so

called lost new page.

filter entries about a particular course within the course.

Permalink, located at the bottom of the blog, gives you a direct link to that particular blog

posting. This is so you can send a link to this specific post to someone else.

External blogs

If enabled by an administrator, you can register external blogs, such as Blogger or Wordpress so

that entries are automatically included in your Moodle blog. Go to Settings > My profile settings

> Blogs > Register an external blog.

In the URL box, add the RSS feed of the blog you wish to register

Blog widgets or “Blidgets” can be embedded in your course. For example, if you have an

external blog in WordPress you can place the widget on your main course page so students can

click on a link to your latest blog post. The

widget is automatically updated through an

RSS feed.

(Source: http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/Using_Blogs)

Wikis A new Wiki module in Moodle 2 makes it easier to

create and delete pages. Pages can also be added

through a link in the Navigation block. New links in the

Navigation block allow immediate access to view, edit,

comment, history, map, and Wiki files.

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/Using_Blogs


Updated Wiki Interface

Forums The Moodle Forum module now offers a new choice called:

Standard forum displayed in blog-like format.

Standard forum displayed in blog-like format

This forum behaves in the same way as the default standard forum for general use, allowing users to

start their own discussions. However, it displays differently in that the first post of each discussion is

displayed (as in a blog) so that users can read it and then choose to respond by clicking the "Discuss this

topic" button bottom right from the post.


(Source Moodle.org)

Workshop The Workshop Activity allows for peer assessment of assignments. Students submit their work via an on

line text tool and attachments. There are two grades for a student: their own work and their peer

assessments of other students' work. There are five phases of workflow in a typical workshop:

Setup phase

In this initial phase, Workshop participants cannot do

anything (neither modify their submissions nor their

assessments). Course facilitators use this phase to

change workshop settings, modify the grading

strategy or tweak assessment forms. You can switch

to this phase any time you need to change the

Workshop setting and prevent users from modifying

their work.

http://docs.moodle.org/21/en/File:Bloglikeforum.png




Submission phase

In the submission phase, Workshop participants

submit their work. Access control dates can be set

so that even if the Workshop is in this phase,

submitting can be allowed in the given time frame

only. Submission start date (and time), submission

end date (and time) or both can be specified.

Assessment phase

Workshop participants assess the submissions

allocated to them by their peers for review. As in

the submission phase, access can be controlled by

specified date and time since when or until when

the assessment is allowed.

Grading evaluation phase

The major task during this phase is to

calculate the final grades for submissions and

for assessments and provide feedback for

authors and reviewers. Workshop participants

cannot modify their submissions or their

assessments in this phase any further. Course

facilitators can manually override the

calculated grades. Also, selected submissions

can be set as published so they become

available to all Workshop participants in the

next phase.


Closed

Whenever the Workshop is being switched into this phase, the final grades calculated in the previous

phase are pushed into the course Gradebook. This will result in the Workshop grades appearing in the

Gradebook. Participants may view their submissions, their submission assessments and eventually other

published submissions in this phase.

Rubrics Rubrics have been a long-requested feature in Moodle and is now available in Moodle 2.2. The Rubrics

feature is the first of new advanced grading methods. Currently, Rubrics is only supported for the

Assignment activity, but Moodle is working to extend the Rubrics feature across all modules.

By default, numerical grades in Moodle are selected by the teacher from a range like 0-100. When

advanced grading methods are enabled, the grade selection element is replaced with a more complex

assessment form provided by the Rubric plugin. The plugin contains the logic how to calculate the grade.

Such a calculated grade is then passed back to the activity module as if the teacher used the standard

grade value selector.

How to Assign Rubric as a Grading Method

1. Using Add an activity create an assignment in your

course.

2. Assign a grade for the activity. By default the grade is

set to 100.

3. Within the Grade section change the grading method to Rubric.


Rubric Advanced Grading Method Video Tutorial

For a video tutorial on using Rubric advanced grading method, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KXavtUhDINA#

4. Finish with the settings for your activity and click Save and display

at the bottom.

How to Create a Rubric

1. In the Settings block located on either the left or right side of your

screen, click on Advanced grading.

2. A new page appears allowing you to create a new rubric grading

form from scratch, or you can select a template that has been pre-

made, saved and shared.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KXavtUhDINA


MyMobile In Moodle 2.2 there is a standard theme custom-designed for

smartphone browser screens. This means that when users visit

any NDUS Moodle site on a small screen they'll see a completely

different layout that is suitable for small touchscreens.


Training Resources

Book: Moodle 2.0 First Look

http://issuu.com/livcoll/docs/packtpub.moodle.2.0.first.look.sep.2010

Websites

Moodle: http://www.moodle.org

Moodle Editor: http://www.tinymce.com/

http://issuu.com/livcoll/docs/packtpub.moodle.2.0.first.look.sep.2010

http://www.moodle.org/

http://www.tinymce.com/

Documents

Moodle 2 Upgrade from 1.9