Moodle Activity Modules

Activity modules for Moodle 1.
8
A short summary for the Bielefeld workshop in December 2007
Georg Hartl and Martin Kattmann Web- and Moodlemasters of PhD-ACT
Preposition
Bielefeld December 2007 Dear Partners With this handout we want to give you some help for deciding how to manage the Distance Learning element in the PhD ACT module. At first we will show you most of the activity modules included at MOODLE 1.8 and give you a short description of these modules facilities. Here is an image of included activity modules:
In a second part we will introduce the most interesting modules for PhD ACT more detailed. We think the most useful activity modules for graduate students are: o Assignment o Chat o Forum o Essay o Glossary o WIKI o Workshop You can find additional information at the official MOODLE website www.moodle.org under the keyword modules and plugins. The Url is: http://moodle.org/mod/data/view.php?id=6009 We hope that this little handout is helpful for your further work in this project. Georg Hartl Martin Kattmann 2
Index of contents
Part 1 Short overview
Assignments .............................................................................................................................. 5 Chat ........................................................................................................................................... 5 Choice ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Database .................................................................................................................................... 6 Forum ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Glossary..................................................................................................................................... 6 Hot potato quiz ......................................................................................................................... 7 Journal....................................................................................................................................... 7 Lesson ........................................................................................................................................ 7 Quiz............................................................................................................................................ 7 Scorm /Aicc ............................................................................................................................... 7 Survey ........................................................................................................................................ 7 Wiki ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Workshop.................................................................................................................................. 8
Part 2 Elaborated
Assignment module .................................................................................................................. 9 Assignment Types .................................................................................................................. 9 Iterative Assignments ............................................................................................................. 9 Upload a single file assignment ............................................................................................. 9 Advanced uploading of files assignment ............................................................................. 10 Online text assignment ......................................................................................................... 11 Offline activity assignment .................................................................................................. 12 Adding/editing an assignment .............................................................................................. 13 Viewing an assignment ........................................................................................................ 15 Assignment submissions ...................................................................................................... 15 Chat module............................................................................................................................ 16 Adding/editing a chat ........................................................................................................... 16 Next chat time ...................................................................................................................... 17 Viewing a chat...................................................................................................................... 19 Chat sessions ........................................................................................................................ 19 Chat reports .......................................................................................................................... 20 Forum module ........................................................................................................................ 20 Teaching and Learning Forums............................................................................................ 20 Student Centred Forums....................................................................................................... 21 Adding/editing a forum ........................................................................................................ 24 News forum .......................................................................................................................... 26 Forum permissions ............................................................................................................... 26 Viewing a forum................................................................................................................... 27 Viewing a discussion............................................................................................................ 28 Forum posting ...................................................................................................................... 28 Forum subscription............................................................................................................... 29 Forum moderator role........................................................................................................... 29 Essay module .......................................................................................................................... 29 3
Essay question type .............................................................................................................. 29 Glossary module ..................................................................................................................... 30 Collaborative glossaries ....................................................................................................... 30 Adding a glossary................................................................................................................. 31 General options .................................................................................................................... 31 Common module settings..................................................................................................... 33 Glossary permissions............................................................................................................ 34 Viewing a glossary ............................................................................................................... 34 Printing a glossary................................................................................................................ 34 Adding/editing a glossary entry ........................................................................................... 34 Glossary comments .............................................................................................................. 35 Editing glossary categories................................................................................................... 36 Import glossary entries ......................................................................................................... 36 Export glossary entries ......................................................................................................... 37 Wiki module............................................................................................................................ 37 Adding/editing a wiki........................................................................................................... 38 Adding and editing wiki pages............................................................................................. 38 Advanced options ................................................................................................................. 39 Common module settings..................................................................................................... 39 Wiki permissions.................................................................................................................. 39 Viewing a wiki ..................................................................................................................... 40 Overview .............................................................................................................................. 40 Adding a wiki page .............................................................................................................. 40 Editing a wiki page............................................................................................................... 41 Wiki administration.............................................................................................................. 41 Wiki standard index pages ................................................................................................... 42 Export pages ......................................................................................................................... 42 Workshop module ................................................................................................................... 43 How to Create a Workshop.................................................................................................. 43 Creating Scoring Guides ...................................................................................................... 45 Uploading Example Assignments........................................................................................ 49 Managing Workshops .......................................................................................................... 50 Effective Workshop Practices.............................................................................................. 54 Creative Workshop Practices............................................................................................... 55 Literature for Moodle teaching............................................................................................. 56
Assignments
The assignment module allows teachers to collect work from students, review it and provide feedback including grades. Students can submit any digital content (files), including, for example, word-processed documents, spreadsheets, images, audio and video clips. Assignments don't necessarily have to consist of file uploads. Alternatively, teachers can ask students to type directly into Moodle using an online text assignment. There is also an offline activity assignment which can be used to remind students of 'real-world' assignments they need to complete and to record grades in Moodle for activities that don't have an online component. Assignment types
Screenshot 1
There are 4 types of assignments: Upload a single file Advanced uploading of files - options include: multiple file submission, allowing students to type a message alongside their submission & returning a file as feedback. Online text - students type directly into Moodle, teachers can provide inline feedback. Offline Activity - teachers provide a description and due date for an assignment outside of Moodle. A grade & feedback can be recorded in Moodle. More you find beginning at page 8
Chat
The Chat module allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion via the web. This is a useful way to get a different understanding of each other and the topic being discussed the mode of using a chat room is quite different from the asynchronous forums. The Chat module contains a number of features for managing and reviewing chat discussions. More you find beginning at page 15
Choice
A choice is very simple the teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses. It can be useful as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent. Choice requires some preparation time for creating your activity and thinking about what results you would like to achieve, but your participation with activity itself is likely to be minimal.
Database
The Database module allows the teacher and/or students to build, display and search a bank of record entries about any conceivable topic. The format and structure of these entries can be almost unlimited, including images, files, URLs, numbers and text amongst other things. You may be familiar with similar technology from building Microsoft Access or Filemaker databases. Note: Please don't confuse this activity type with Moodle's underlying SQL database, which stores all of the information used in Moodle courses and is only of interest to Moodle Administrators.
Forum
Forums can contribute significantly to successful communication and community building in an online environment. You can use forums for many innovative purposes in educational settings, but teaching forums and student forums are arguably the two more significant distinctions. Teaching and Learning Forums When you decide to use a discussion forum as an activity in an e-learning environment it is important to be aware that your time will be needed in some sense in order to make the activity successful. If your goal is to encourage discussion, the forum will only work if: a.) participants feel there is a need/reason to participate and they will gain something from the experience. Incentives for learning, gathering support, etc. should be explored and encouraged early on in order to clearly convey the purpose of the forum to others. Anyone considering offering grades or marks for participation is advised to think very carefully about the difference between quantity and quality of discussions in forums. b.) a sense of community and purpose can be fostered amongst participants. This sense of community can be fostered through tutor/teacher initiative and scaffolding, or primarily through the students/participants themselves depending on the intentions of the activity. More you find beginning at page 19
Glossary
While a basic glossary is important, creatively applying the glossary can really make an impact on your class.

This activity allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary. The entries can be searched or browsed in many different formats. The glossary also allows teachers to export entries from one glossary to another (the main one) within the same course. If glossary autolinking is enabled by an administrator (see Filters for further details) then it is possible to automatically create links to these entries from throughout the course.
More you find beginning at page 28
Hot potato quiz

The Hotpot module allows teachers to administer Hot Potatoes and Tex Toys quizzes via Moodle. The quizzes are created on the teacher's computer and then uploaded to the Moodle course. After students have attempted the quizzes, a number of reports are available which show how individual questions were answered and some statistical trends in the scores.
Journal
The teacher asks the student to reflect on a particular topic, and the student can edit and refine their answer over time. This module has been replaced by two things: 1. The Online Assignment submodule (Moodle 1.5 onwards) 2. Blogs which allow ongoing journalling and publishing (Moodle 1.6 onwards)
Lesson
There are two basic types of Lesson pages: Choice and Navigation. Most pages offer the student choices, "question pages" (related to Quizzes) are the most common. Moodle calls another type of choice page "branch tables". Navigation pages create additional robust features that impact a student's choices. "End of Branch", "Start Cluster" and "End Cluster" are the Navigational pages seen by the teacher but they have no content seen by the student. More you find at page
Quiz
A quiz is an activity that presents students with questions and then processes their responses to give feedback and grades. Quizzes can be used both as a way to aid the learning process (formative assessment) and as a way of assessing student achievement (summative assessment). The quiz module allows teachers to assemble quizzes from the questions in the question bank and to set a variety of options determining how the student interacts with the quiz (time limit, repeated attempts, level of feedback, ...)
Scorm /Aicc
A module to load and play SCORM -compliant content packages. Currently supports SCORM 1.2 and AICC. The SCORM/AICC module is a course activity which allows you (the teacher) to upload any SCORM or AICC package to include in your course. SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) is a collection of specifications that enable interoperability, accessibility and reusability of web-based learning content.
Survey
The Survey module provides a number of verified survey instruments that have been found useful in assessing and stimulating learning in online environments. The Survey module is a course activity that provides a number of verified survey instruments, including COLLES (Constructivist On-Line Learning Environment Survey) and ATTLS (Attitudes to Thinking and Learning Survey), which have been found useful in assessing and stimulating learning in online environments. Teachers can use these to gather data from their students that will help them learn about their class and reflect on their own teaching
Wiki
"Wiki wiki" means "super fast" in the Hawaiian language, and it is the speed of creating and updating pages that is one of the defining aspects of wiki technology. Generally, there is no prior review before modifications are accepted, and most wikis are open to the general public or at least to all persons who also have access to the wiki server. The Moodle wiki module enables participants to work together on web pages to add, expand and change the content. Old versions are never deleted and can be restored. A wiki is a collection of collaboratively authored web documents. Basically, a wiki page is a web page everyone in your class can create together, right in the browser, without needing to know HTML. A wiki starts with one front page. Each author can add other pages to the wiki by simply creating a link to a page that doesn't exist yet. Wikis get their name from the Hawaiian term "wiki wiki," which means "very fast." A wiki is indeed a fast method for creating content as a group. It's a hugely popular format on the Web for creating documents as a group. There is usually no central editor of a wiki, no single person who has final editorial control. Instead, the community edits and develops its own content. Consensus views emerge from the work of many people on a document. Moodle's wiki is built atop an older wiki system called Erfurt wiki: http://erfurtwiki.sourceforge.net. More you find at page
Workshop
These are the settings for 1.6 but are similar for 1.8 onward. The settings have help buttons. The fields or options in settings in Moodle 1.6.include: Submission Title, Description, Grade for Assessments, Grade for Submission, Grading Strategy, 'Number of Comments, Assessment Elements, Grade Bands, Criterion Statements or Categories in a Rubric', Number of Attachments expected on Submissions, Allow Resubmissions, Number of Assessments of Examples from Teacher, Comparison of Assessments, Number of Assessments of Student Submissions, Weight for Teacher Assessments, Over Allocation, Self Assessment, Assessments must be agreed, Hide Grades before Agreement, League Table of Submitted Work, Hide Names from Students, Use Password, Password, Password Maximum Size Start of submissions, Start of assessments, End of submissions, End of assessments, Release Teacher Grades, Group mode, Visible to students. More you find at page
Assignment module
The assignment module allows teachers to collect work from students, review it and provide feedback including grades. Students can submit any digital content (files), including, for example, word-processed documents, spreadsheets, images, audio and video clips. Assignments don't necessarily have to consist of file uploads. Alternatively, teachers can ask students to type directly into Moodle using an online text assignment. There is also an offline activity assignment which can be used to remind students of 'real-world' assignments they need to complete and to record grades in Moodle for activities that don't have an online component.
Assignment Types
There are 4 types of assignments: 1. Upload a single file 2. Advanced uploading of files (1.7 onwards) - options include: multiple file submission, allowing students to type a message alongside their submission & returning a file as feedback. 3. Online text - students type directly into Moodle, teachers can provide inline feedback. 4. Offline Activity - teachers provide a description and due date for an assignment outside of Moodle. A grade & feedback can be recorded in Moodle. Iterative Assignments It is possible to create iterative assignments - where the piece of work is graded by the teacher, re-edited by the student, re-graded and so on using either the single file or the online text and setting 'Allow resubmitting' to 'Yes' in the assignment settings. Upload a single file assignment A student can upload a single file. This could be a Word document, spreadsheet or anything in digital format. Multiple files may be zipped and then submitted. After students upload their files, the teacher will be able to open the submission and use the Moodle interface to assign a grade and offer comments as feedback.
Settings
These settings are in addition to the general assignment settings outlined on editing an assignment.
Allow resubmitting
By default, students cannot resubmit assignments once the teacher has graded them. If you turn this option on, then students will be allowed to resubmit assignments after they have been graded (for you to re-grade). This may be useful if the teacher wants to encourage students to do better work in an iterative process. 9
Email alerts to teachers

If enabled, then teachers are alerted with a short email whenever students add or update an assignment submission. Only teachers who are able to grade the particular submission are notified. So, for example, if the course uses separate groups, then teachers restricted to particular groups won't receive any notices about students in other groups.
Maximum Size
This setting specifies the maximum size of the file which the students can upload as their submission. If your students are uploading word processing documents or spreadsheets, typically you only need to allow for a few megabytes. If your students are submitting multimedia projects or other files with many images or audio clips, then the space allowed will need to be larger.
Advanced uploading of files assignment

This type of assignment allows each student to upload one or more files in any format.
Features
This type also allows teachers to send files back to students in response to their submissions. A typical way to use this would be to edit the student's submitted file by adding comments and/or corrections, and then returning this file back to the student via the assignment. When a student clicks on the assignment, files sent to him or her appear as a list of Response files.
Response files can be also uploaded before submission which can be used to give each student a different file to work with.

Students may also enter notes describing the submitted files, progress status or any other text information. Submission of this type of assignment must be manually finalized by the student. Teachers can review the current status at any time, unfinished assignments are marked as Draft. Teachers can revert any ungraded assignment back to draft status.
Settings
Maximum size
This setting specifies the maximum size (in total) of the file which the students can upload as their submission. If your students are uploading word processing documents or spreadsheets, typically you only need to allow for a few megabytes. If your students are submitting multimedia projects or other files with many images or audio clips, then the space allowed will need to be larger.
10
Allow deleting
If enabled, students may delete uploaded files at any time before submitting for grading.
Maximum number of uploaded files

Maximum number of files each participant may upload, this number is not shown to students, please write the actual number of requested files in assignment description.
Allow notes
If enabled, students may enter notes into text area associated with the assignment. This text box can be used for communication with the grading person, assignment progress description or any other written activity.
Hide description before available date

If enabled, assignment description is hidden before the opening date.

Online text assignment

This assignment type asks students to submit text, using the normal Moodle editing tools. Teachers can grade them online, and even add inline comments or changes. Online text assignments, together with Blogs, have replaced the non-standard Journal module.
Settings
Allow resubmitting
By default, students cannot resubmit assignments once the teacher has graded them. If you turn this option on, then students will be allowed to resubmit assignments after they have been graded (for you to re-grade). This may be useful if the teacher wants to encourage students to do better work in an iterative process.
11

Comment Inline
If this option is selected, then the original submission will be copied into the feedback comment field during grading, making it easier to comment inline (using a different colour, perhaps) or to edit the original text. Of course even if the teacher makes inline comments and changes, the student's original submission is kept intact. If inline comments are not permitted, then the teacher will see the students submission and a separate area for making comments.
Educational Benefits
As reflective learning and formative assessment have a greater presence in education today, the online text assignment proves a useful way for students to record their thoughts and feelings about a particular topic or theme within the Moodle environment itself. Tutors can set up online text activities that ask students to reflect on both rhetorical or assigned questions depending on the learning outcome or goal. Online text assignments can also be free spaces set up by the course tutor for students to reflect at moments of their own choosing within a course. It is perfectly acceptable to make use of the online text assignment as a private space for personal learning and reflection in some instances (ie. no tutor feedback) and as a collaborative space between tutor and student in others (ie. tutor feedback, comments and/or short discussions). Pedagogically, both methods of using the activity are good learning models for the former allows students a reflective space of their own to develop their ideas, whilst the latter gives them a space of private support with you that provides them with reliable feedback. How you decide to monitor online text activities is, of course, up to you. The most significant element of monitoring is to provide students with clear guidance of when and how this will take place. For instance, if you do not plan to monitor the activity at all, be sure to inform the students that this is a private space for their own personal use (although tutors will be able to read entries) and be clear that no feedback will be provided. Alternatively, if you wish to make contributions in the form of feedback, be sure to inform the student that, for example, they can expect feedback and comments from you once a week or every two weeks. In terms of feedback and expectation levels, keeping communications between you and students very clear will ensure a level of trust necessary to build and maintain a community in your elearning environment.
Offline activity assignment

This is useful when the assignment is performed outside of Moodle. It could be something elsewhere on the web or face-to-face. Students can see a description of the assignment, but 12
can't upload files or anything. Grading works normally, and students will get notifications of their grades. There are no settings specific to offline assignments, just the general assignment settings outlined on editing an assignment.
Adding/editing an assignment
Assignment name
Give your assignment a name (e.g. Report on Topic Content). The name entered here will be the name that learners see in the course content area. Learners will click on this name to view the details of the assignment and, if applicable, submit their work.
Description
The description of the assignment, which should include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the assignment, the form, in which it should be submitted, the grading criteria etc. Use this area to describe the assignment and explain what learners are expected to do to complete this task. The assignment description can be as brief or as expansive as you feel is necessary to meet the needs of your learners. However, it is to your benefit to provide as much detail and information as possible, especially at the start of the course while you are still establishing procedures. Generally, the more information you are able to provide here the fewer questions and problems your learners will have completing the task. The assignment description field can also be used to provide information or resources related to the assignment. An instructor, for example, could provide some literature, a video clip, an image, or a link to a webpage, and then ask the learners to use these materials in completing the task. (Alternatively, the instructor could post these items using the Resource Module and refer students to them in the assignment details. See the section titled Resource Module for more information.) Finally, if you are adding rich content, tables, etc. to your description, it is best to expand the HTML editor into full screen mode so you can make your webpage document look nice when participants view it.
Grade
The grade for the assignment is specified here. Choosing a number will become the maximum grade for this assignment. Apart from the numbers, one of the descriptive grades which have been defined for this course can also be picked. If you will not be giving a grade for the assignment, choose No Grade.
Available from
Setting this date prevents students from submitting their assignments before this date. The Available from date setting allows an instructor to set a day and time at which learners can begin submitting the assignment. This setting does not, however, hide the activity from the learners. Instead, the learner will see the activity, be able to view the instructions and use any materials you have include in the description, but the learner will not be able to submit or 13
complete the assignment until the Available from date. To activate the Available from date, make sure that the check box is marked. Then, use the drop down menus to choose the day, month and year. You can also set a time with the last two fields on the line. Note: the time is based on a 24 hour clock or military time, so 14:00 refers to 2:00 p.m. If you do not wish to use the Available from option, just remove the check from the checkbox by clicking on it; the rest of the field will turn gray and the date will be ignored.
Due date
And this prevents students from submitting their assignments after this date. The Due date field works in much the same way as the Available from field with a few small differences. The checkbox activates the Due date option and you have the same ability to select a day, month, year, and time. If the checkbox is empty, then the due date will be not be applied. As with the Available from setting, the Due date defines when learners are able to submit their assignment. However, with the Due date settings, you also have the Prevent late submissions option (below the date and time fields). Setting Prevent late submissions to Yes will prevent learners from being able to submit this assignment after the Due date. If you set Prevent late submissions to No, then learners can submit the assignment as long as the assignment is visible or accessible to them. Both the Available from and Due dates are displayed for learners in the assignment details, but the Due date is also marked in the course Calendar as a visible reminder for participants. Furthermore, the indicator on the calendar will actually link learners directly to the activity! Your use of the Available from and Due date settings will probably be dependent on the overall structure of your course. If you are facilitating an open ended course or a course with rolling enrollment, then you might find it easier to not apply the Available from and Due date settings (uncheck the boxes). This arrangement will allow the learners to access the assignments according to their own schedule and progress within the course. Alternatively, if you are working within a more structured format or adhering to a timeline, the Available from and Due date settings are useful for keeping learners on schedule. Using the Available from setting will make it possible for learners to preview upcoming activities, while at the same time, prevent them from finishing the course in the first week and not returning for additional activities or information. Likewise, the Due dates help keep the learners from lagging too far behind and decrease the likelihood that the learner will become overwhelmed by having to complete several weeks worth of work at once.
Prevent late submissions

Set to "No", assignments submitted after the due date will be marked as late, but students will still be able to submit them. Set to "Yes", assignment submission will be blocked after the due date.
Settings for specific assignment types (1.7 onwards)

Each assignment type, except offline assignment, has further settings which are detailed on the relevant assignment type pages: 14
Upload a single file Online text Advanced uploading of files
Group mode
The group mode can be one of three levels: no groups, separate groups or visible groups.
Visible
Choose whether to Show or Hide the assignment
Tips and tricks
Copy an assignment by backing up the course and selecting just the assignment, with or without students and their data. Restore the backup. Move and or edit the assignment.
Viewing an assignment
Viewing/submitting an assignment you will see the assignment name and its description with the 'View x submitted assignments' link (where 'x' is the number of assignments submitted) and the opening/closing dates and hours ('Available from' and 'Due date') of a given assignment. What's (and if there is anything) below depends on the type of assignment.

In the Offline activity assignment there are no additional options. In the Online text assignment you will also see your assignment submission (if you have done so) with the Edit my submission option as well as the Feedback from the Teacher field. In the Upload a single file assignment, you can go for the Upload a file option, the execution of which demands using the Browse link allowing you to choose the file on your computer you wish to be uploaded.
Assignment submissions
he submissions page contains a table with headings: 1. First name and Surname (along with the photograph) 2. Grade (for the submitted assignment) 3. Comment (the feedback information you have written in the feedback field while grading the assignment) 4. Last modified (Student) (the date of the last modification of the assignment by the student) 5. Last modified (Teacher) (the date of the last modification of the assignment by the student) 6. Status (with which you can move to the page where you grade the submitted assignment or, in case it's been graded, update the grade and/or the comment)
15
Above the table there is an alphabetical index, which helps you narrow down the number of students shown on one page only to those whose surname (or name) starts with the same letter. That is particularly helpful in case of a large number of course participants. The list of submissions may be sorted by clicking on a particular heading. Clicking twice on the same heading sorts the list in the opposite order. If the table is too large then columns may be collapsed by clicking on the Hide icon next to a particular column heading. By default, 10 submissions are shown per page, though this may be changed at the bottom of the page. To grade a submission, click on the Grade link opposite a particular student's name. A new window will open containing a feedback area. Once you've reviewed the student's assignment, pick the grade for the assignment from the dropdown list. (You set the scale when you created the assignment.) Below the grade scale, you can type comments regarding their work. When you're done, click "Save changes" or "Save and show next". You may prefer to use "quick grading" by checking the box at the bottom of the submissions page. This enables you to quickly grade multiple assignments all on one page, rather than one by one in a new window. Simply add the grades and comments then when you're done, click "Save all my feedback" at the bottom of the page.
Chat module
The Chat module allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion via the web. This is a useful way to get a different understanding of each other and the topic being discussed the mode of using a chat room is quite different from the asynchronous forums. The Chat module contains a number of features for managing and reviewing chat discussions.
Adding/editing a chat
Name of this chat room
Begin by entering a name for your chat room. The name entered here will be the name that learners see in the course content area. Learners will click on this name to view the description of the purpose of the chat room and then to enter the chat. It is useful to name your chat room with a name that implies its purpose. For example, if you will be using your chat room for virtual office hours, then you might name your chat room Virtual Office. Alternatively, if the chat room is designed solely to give learners a place to socialize or discuss class activities, you might name the chat room Student Lounge.
16
Introduction text
Type the description of the chat here. Include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the chat. The introduction text is designed to welcome learners to the chat and to provide information regarding the purpose of the chat room. The introduction can be as simple or as complex as you would like. As an example, you could simply explain that the chat room is being made available for learners to collaborate on group projects. A chat could also be used for structured discussions of course content; in that case, the Introduction text might present a specific list of questions to be addressed or the protocols to be followed. It might also be beneficial to let the learners know in the Introduction text who will be able to see the transcripts of the chat sessions. The instructor will be able to see every part of any conversation that takes place in the chat room. However, you can choose to make these transcripts visible to all learners as well. When working with younger learners, experience has revealed that discussions in the chat rooms are more likely to be on-task and appropriate when the learners are aware that their discussions can be viewed by the instructor and/or other learners. The same may well be true with adult learners. Next chat time The day and hour of the next chat session. If you wish to schedule chat sessions for or with your learners, then you can use this setting to publish a time and date for the next chat. The date you select here will be displayed on the course calendar along with a link to the chat room. Realize that setting a date and time here will not restrict access to the room at other times, it is merely a tool to communicate with your learners; to let them know when they can expect to find you or other learners in the chat room. If you wish to make the chat room unavailable, you must hide it from the learners. To choose a chat time, use the drop down menus to choose the day, month and year. Then, set 17
a time with the last two fields on the line. Note: the time is based on a 24 hour clock or military time, so 14:00 refers to 2:00 p.m. For courses involving users across different time zones, it is useful to know that the time you set here will be adjusted to match the time zone of the user viewing it. If you do not wish to publish chat times, then you can disregard the date and time settings here and then choose not to publish them in the next step.
Repeat sessions
You can choose any out of four options allowing to schedule the future chat sessions: 1. Don't publish any chat times--If you prefer not to schedule chats for the chat room, select this setting. This option will cause Moodle to disregard the date and time set above for the Next chat time. Not publishing chat times could be used to indicate to learners that the chat room is available at all times for them to use. 2. No repeats - publish the specified time only--This setting will cause only the date and time selected for the Next chat time to be published. The date and time will be displayed on the course calendar as well as when the learners click on the title of the chat room in the course content area. Published chat times could be used to schedule special events or meetings or simply to help learners identify a common time in which they can expect to find other learners in the chat room. 3. At the same time every day--In some situations, you may need to schedule a chat session for the same time every day; this setting allows for this option. The scheduled chats will then be based on the time of day you selected above for the Next chat time. Scheduled daily chats are useful for scheduling daily office hours or work sessions with learners. 4. At the same time every week--To schedule a chat for the same day and time every week, select this option. When this option, the scheduled chats will be on the same day of the week at the same time you indicated in the Next chat time area above. If you regularly give assessments on the same day of the week, this setting could be useful for scheduling review sessions prior to each assessment. You could also schedule a weekly chat to meet and review key ideas and questions related to the weeks contentassessment or not.
Save past sessions

You can determine the number of days. When users (two or more) participate in a chat session, a record, or complete transcript of the session is created. As the instructor, you can choose how long these transcripts are saved and available for viewing. You may wish to never delete the messages from a special chat room used for discussions between learners and visiting authors, but you may choose to keep transcripts from an open, informal chat room for only 30 days. If you have any concerns about discussions that might take place in your chat room, you may want to keep transcripts for an extended period of time to allow the transcripts to be used for documentation. Likewise, you may find the documentation provided by the transcript to be useful for accreditation or evaluative purposes. Another consideration is how long you expect your learners to need access to the transcript. For instance, if learners are using the chat room to collaborate on a group project, you wont want to delete the messages until that project is completed and assessed.
18
Everyone can view past sessions

You can decide here whether or not allow everyone to view past chat sessions. Instructors in a course can always view transcripts from sessions in the chat rooms. However, you also have the option to make these chat transcripts available to all of the learners in the course. If you select Yes for this setting, learners can click on the title of the chat room and then view past sessions to see any interactions that have taken place in the chat room. If you select No here, then only the instructors in the course will have access to the transcripts. If learners need access to a specific transcript though, the instructor can always copy the transcript and share it with learners in the form of a document.
Visible to students
You can hide the activity from students by selecting "Hide" here. It is useful if you wouldn't like to make the activity available immediately. Changing the Visible to students setting is the equivalent of opening or closing the eye on the course page to hide or display an activity for learners. If you choose Show, then learners in the course will be able to see this assignment. If you choose Hide, then only the instructor will be able to see the assignment.
Viewing a chat
You will see the chat name and description as well as the 'Click here to enter the chat now' link. If the chat has next sessions scheduled, there will also be the information concerning the time of the next chat session. If you have set past chat sessions to be archived, you will be able to view them clicking 'View past chat sessions' on the top right-hand side of the page. You can also add any number of HTML blocks to the chat using the Add Block field on the left-hand side of the chat page.
Chat sessions
As you access the chat session page, clicking the 'Click here to enter the chat now' link, you will see it divided into two parts, the left one with the posts that appear during a given chat session and the right one listing the people in the chat room at the very moment. Underneath you will find the field, in which you can type the message you wish to appear on the chat session page. There are some guidelines you can think of considering while using the chat module. The chat module contains some features to make chatting a little nicer. Smilies Any smiley faces (emoticons) that you can type elsewhere in Moodle can also be typed in here and they will be displayed correctly. Links Internet addresses will be turned into links automatically. Emoting You can start a line with /me or : to emote. For example, if your name is Kim and you type :laughs! or /me laughs! then everyone will see "Kim laughs!" Beeps You can send a sound to other people by hitting the "beep" link next to their name. A useful shortcut to beep all the people in the chat at once is to type "beep all". HTML 19
If you know some HTML code, you can use it in your text to do things like insert images, play sounds or create different coloured and sized text.
Chat reports
To view previous chats with two or more participants, you need to click on the 'View past chat sessions' link in the upper right of the chat session page.
This will bring up a listing of each chat session under the current chat topic. The listings include the time the chat started and ended, which users participated, and how many messages each user sent. If you are the teacher or an administrator, you will also see a 'See this session' and a 'Delete this session' link underneath each of the individual listings.
In order to see the past chat sessions as a student, the teacher or an administrator must setup the chat to allow everyone to view past chat sessions. Please refer to the Everyone can view past sessions section of the Adding/editing a chat page.
Forum module
Forums can contribute significantly to successful communication and community building in an online environment. You can use forums for many innovative purposes in educational settings, but teaching forums and student forums are arguably the two more significant distinctions.
Teaching and Learning Forums

When you decide to use a discussion forum as an activity in an e-learning environment it is important to be aware that your time will be needed in some sense in order to make the activity successful. If your goal is to encourage discussion, the forum will only work if: a.) participants feel there is a need/reason to participate and they will gain something from the experience. Incentives for learning, gathering support, etc. should be explored and encouraged early on in order to clearly convey the purpose of the forum to others. Anyone considering offering grades or marks for participation is advised to think very carefully about the difference between quantity and quality of discussions in forums.
20
b.) a sense of community and purpose can be fostered amongst participants. This sense of community can be fostered through tutor/teacher initiative and scaffolding, or primarily through the students/participants themselves depending on the intentions of the activity.
Participation and Scaffolding

Whilst one of the great advantages of e-learning is the flexibility it affords participants, this does not mean that days or weeks should pass without response and discussion in a forum (unless it is appropriate for it to do so). This is perhaps most especially true at the beginning of a course or programme when students and tutors are new to each other and in need of welcome messages/encouragement. Whilst e-learning, and discussions in particular, can support learning that is not always tutor/teacher-centred, your role will be important, especially as an online community begins to develop. It is during these initial stages of introductory material that a group of students can become a community of participants who begin to grow in their understandings of course material and individual contributions to the knowledge construction process. As the discussions progress and learners become accustomed to the mechanics and the tone of the forums then there are key ways in which your input can be reduced, thereby helping to foster a community that is less dependent on the tutor/teacher. Even then, however, you will probably want to be a presence in the discussions although you may choose to be one of many contributors rather than the font of all wisdom.
Committment and Participation

Ask yourself if 1. you wish to have involvement in the forum or if you want the students to lead and own the space 2. you want the forum to add value to the face to face environment or have a life of its own in its own right outside the lecture theatre/classroom or seminar room 3. you are prepared to make appropriate contributions to the discussion in order to: 1. encourage discussion if students are quiet 2. help shape ideas if students begin to wander off-task 3. your role will be defined as discussions/a course progresses 4. you will explicitly but gradually relinquish control of the discussions 5. you will encourage and support learners to share control of discussions(for example you might ask a learner/group of learners to summarise contributions to a discussion thread/topic or you might ask learners to initiate discussion topics)
Student Centred Forums

With the growing popularity of social networking software like Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and the like, students are leaving schools and coming to Higher and Further Education with a new technological sophistication and with new expectations for communication. And as school, colleges and universities recognise that reflective and life long learning are significant goals in education, student centered learning and the creation of student centered spaces online are also gaining credence in educational settings. We know that effective learning requires access to social and academic networks for both study material and emotional
21
support; as such, online communities can offer a holistic knowledge construction and support mechanism and recognize that affective activity is effective. Social forums, often called Virtual Cafes or Common Rooms can be set up for courses or for programmes, depending on the student need. Such spaces provide a common area for students to come together and discuss unlimited topics, including social activities and educational ideas. They are supportive spaces for students, most successful with large first and second year courses where students would not otherwise have the opportunity to communicate with others outside their own tutorial group. It is arguable that students will experience a greater sense of community within and a sense of belonging to an educational institution or individual department having had the experience and convenience of the social forum on their course; this could arguably have implications for retention. These spaces are typically highly active, especially in first term. Depending on your institution, they are usually self monitored by students, who understand that the same rules and netiquette that apply to them within any computing space, also apply in Moodle.
The News Forum

Moodle courses automatically generate a News Forum which defaults to automatically subscribe all participants in a course. The name of the News Forum can be changed to something more appropriate, such as Important Announcements or the like. This is a useful feature and many use this forum in a Moodle course to announce exam dates, times or changes to exams, lectures or seminars, as well as important information about course work throughout a term or special announcements relating to events.
Teacher/Tutor forums
A teacher/tutor-only forum may be added to a course by creating a hidden forum. Teachers are able to view hidden course activities whereas students cannot.
How do I know which forum is right for my purpose?

Moodle has four kinds of forums: 1. 2. 3. 4. A single simple discussion Standard forum for general use Each person posts one discussion Q And A Forum
Which of the above will best suit your needs for a particular activity? In order to answer this question it is useful to think how you might lead such a discussion in a face-to-face environment. Would you throw the question out to the class and sit back to observe them in their answers? Or would you break them up into smaller groups first and ask them to have discussions with a partner before bringing them back to the main group? Or perhaps you would like to keep them focused on a particular aspect of a question and ensure that they do not wander away from the topic at hand? All of the above approaches are both valid and useful, depending on your learning outcomes, and you can replicate all of them in Moodle forums.
22
A standard forum for general use is probably most useful for large discussions that you intend to monitor/guide or for social forums that are student led. This does not mean that you need to make a new posting for each reply in each topic although, in order to ensure that discussion does not get 'out of control', you may need to be prepared to spend a significant amount of time finding the common threads amongst the various discussions and weaving them together. Providing overall remarks for particular topics can also be a key aspect of your responsibilities in the discussion. Alternatively, you could ask students to summarize discussion topics at agreed points, once a week or when a thread comes to an agreed conclusion. Such a learner-centred approach may be particularly useful once the online community has been established and, perhaps, when you have modeled the summarizing process. A single simple discussion is most useful for short/time-limited discussion on a single subject or topic. This kind of forum is very productive if you are interested in keeping students focused on a particular issue. Each person posts one discussion is most useful when you want to achieve a happy medium between a large discussion and a short and focused discussion. A single discussion topic per person allows students a little more freedom than a single discussion forum, but not as much as a standard forum where each student can create as many topics as they wish. Successful forums of this selection can be active, yet focused, as students are not limited in the number of times they can respond to others within threads. A Q and A forum is best used when you have a particular question that you wish to have answered. In a Q and A forum, tutors post the question and students respond with possible answers. By default a Q and A forum requires students to post once before viewing other students' postings. After the initial posting, students can view and respond to others' postings. This feature allows equal initial posting opportunity among all students, thus encouraging original and independent thinking.
Some forum suggestions to consider

1. If your course is at a distance, if your face to face time is limited, or if you just wish to foster a sense of community in your Moodle course which supplements your face to face course, it is good practice to begin with a welcome or introductory message or thread in one of your forums. This welcome or introduction from you invites participants, for example, to post some specific details to introduce themselves to you and their peers. This can be your icebreaker or you can have an icebreaker separately. 2. If you have two questions for participants to answer, starting the two strands or topics within the forum itself will both help learners to see where to put their responses, and remind them to answer all parts of your question. 3. Remember that you are communicating in an environment that does not have the benefit of verbal tone, eye contact, body language and the like. Careful consideration of your communication is, therefore, necessary. 4. Postings to a forum are always written but they can take different forms and you may wish to consider what form best suits the activity. For instance, you might choose to articulate a form of contribution in order to be explicit. Thus you might say, 'This is a think-aloud forum in which, together, we will try to tease out ideas and possibilities' or 'This is a formal forum in which you are invited to share your ideas on (topic)' and, where you select the latter, you might have already suggested learners plan those ideas offline or in another kind of activity within Moodle. 23
5. Create a forum where only the teacher can start discussions, but the students can only reply. Each thread you start contains an essay question (or several similar ones). The students make a bullet point plan for the essay and post it as a reply. This works well as a revision strategy as the students can see how others have approached the same task. Once everyone has posted their plan, you can start a discussion as to which plans seem better and why. Creating a scale to use for rating the posts can be useful so that the students can see how helpful other people think their effort were.
Grading forums
You can use the ratings to grade student activities by restricting ratings to instructors only, and then rating all student posts. But be aware that this reports an average of all ratings for a single student to the gradebook, and not a sum total of the ratings for all posts. So if you want your students to make several posts in one forum, then you may want to use an Assignment module to house the Forum grade for a particular block. That grade will then be reported to the gradebook. Be sure to make it clear to the students that they don't have to do any assignment in that assignment module, and that that's where their forum grade will be housed.
Adding/editing a forum
In your course, click "Turn Editing On", and go to the topic or week section in which you want to create the forum. From the drop-down list labelled "Add an activity", select "Forum". This will take you to the "Adding a new forum" page.
General

Forum name - A short name of the forum (e.g. "Favourite colour"), which will be displayed on the course homepage Forum type - There are four forum types to choose from: o A single simple discussion - a single topic discussion developed on one page, which is useful for short focussed discussions o Standard forum for general use - an open forum where anyone can start a new topic at any time; this is the best general-purpose forum o Each person posts one discussion - each person can post exactly one new discussion topic (everyone can reply to them though); this is useful when you want each student to start a discussion about, say, their reflections on the week's topic, and everyone else responds to these o Q and A Forum - Instead of initiating discussions Teachers (only) pose a question in the initial post of a discussion. Students may reply with an answer, but they will not see the replies of other Students to the question in that discussion until they have themselves replied to the same discussion. Forum introduction - Type the description of the forum here. Include precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the forum and, if necessary, the grading criteria.
Force everyone to be subscribed?

When a person is subscribed to a forum it means that they will be sent email copies of every post in that forum (posts are sent about 30 minutes after the post was first written). People can usually choose whether or not they want to be subscribed to each forum. 24
However, if you choose to force subscription on a particular forum then all course users will be subscribed automatically, even those that enrol at a later time. This is especially useful in the News forum and in forums towards the beginning of the course (before everyone has worked out that they can subscribe to these emails themselves). If you choose the option "Yes, initially" then all current and future course users will be subscribed initially but they can unsubscribe themselves at any time. If you choose "Yes, forever" then they will not be able to unsubscribe themselves. Note how the "Yes, initially" option behaves when you update an existing forum: Changing from "Yes, initially" to "No" will not unsubscribe existing users, it will only affect future course users. Similarly changing later to "Yes, initially" will not subscribe existing course users but only those enrolling later. From Moodle 1.6 onwards there is an "Subscriptions not allowed" setting which prevents Students from subscribing to a Forum. Teachers may choose to be subscribed if they wish.
Read tracking for this forum?

If 'read tracking' for forums is enabled, users can track read and unread messages in forums and discussions. The instructor can choose to force a tracking type on a forum using this setting. There are three choice for this setting: 1. Optional [default] - students can turn tracking on or off for the forum at their discretion 2. On - tracking is always on 3. Off - tracking is always off
Grade
By default, only admins and teachers can rate posts. If you wish students to be able to rate posts, then a role override may be used. There are several grading scales you can choose from. You can give a number of points to each post (from 1 to 100) or you can opt for two other scales: Scale: satisfactory (Outstanding, Satisfactory and Not satisfactory) or Separate and Connected ways of knowing (Mostly Connected Knowing, Separate and Connected, Mostly Separate Knowing). http://docs.moodle.org/en/Image:Tweak-student-role-in-forum.gif
Post threshold for blocking
Post threshold for warning - Students (only) will be blocked from posting after a specified number of posts in a given period - this option is for setting the number of posts a Student may make before receiving a warning. Set to 0 to disable warnings. Post threshold for blocking - This option is for setting the number of posts a Student may make in the period defined below. Set to 0 to disable blocking. If blocking is disabled, warnings will automatically be disabled. Time period for blocking - This option defines the period in which a student may make a the number of posts specified in "Post threshold for blocking".
Common module settings
Visible to students - You can hide the activity from students by selecting "Hide" here. It is useful if you wouldn't like to make the activity available immediately. 25
Pre-Moodle 1.7 settings

Note: From Moodle 1.7 onwards, forum permissions may be accessed via the Roles tab on the update/edit forum page and the override roles link.
Can a student post to this forum?

This option allows you to restrict students from posting new content in this forum. There are three options to choose from: 1. Discussions and replies are allowed - This option leaves students unrestricted, which is the case for most forums. Thus, you choose to allow them to start new discussion topics (threads), and also to post replies within those threads. 2. No discussions, but replies are allowed - This option should be chosen if only teachers are to be allowed to start new discussions. Students will still be allowed to reply within those threads (for example within the news forum on the site home page). 3. No discussions, no replies - Choosing this option bars students from starting new discussion topics and replying within those threads. This is useful for the News forum when you only want teachers to post new items that appear on the course main page.
Use ratings
If you decide to rate posts on the forum, you will have to define settings of the three following aspects:

Users - If you want everybody to rate posts, choose 'Everyone can rate posts'. Otherwise, pick 'Only teachers can rate posts'. View - If you want to keep the grades known only to the individual students graded, you should choose the option 'Students can only see their own ratings'. If there is no such a need, opt for 'Students can see everyone's ratings'.
News forum
The news forum is a special forum that is automatically created for each course and for the front page of the site, and is a place for general announcements. By default, only teachers and administrators may add news or reply to news. By default, everyone is forced to be subscribed to the news forum. The Latest News block displays recent discussions from the news forum. A course may only have one news forum.
Removing the news forum

The news forum may be removed from a course as follows: 1. Delete the news forum from the course homepage 2. In Course settings set "News items to show" to 0 3. Delete the Latest news block
Forum permissions
Roles and capabilities in Moodle 1.7 onwards enable possibilities such as students being given permission to moderate forums.
26
No discussions, but replies are allowed

A role override may be used to set up a forum in which only teachers are to be allowed to start new discussions. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Access the Assign roles page via the Roles tab in editing forum page Follow the "Override roles" link Select the Student role Set the capability mod/forum:start discussion to Prevent Click the "Save changes" button
No discussions, no replies
A role override may be used to close/archive a forum so that students may no longer start new discussions, nor add replies, but may still read all the discussions. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Access the Assign roles page via the Roles tab in editing forum page Follow the "Override roles" link Select the Student role Set the capabilities mod/forum :start discussion and mod/forum :replypost to Prevent Click the "Save changes" button
Enabling students to rate posts

By default, only admins and teachers can rate posts. A role override may be used to enable students to rate posts. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Access the Assign roles page via the Roles tab in editing forum page Follow the "Override roles" link Select the Student role Set the capability mod/forum :rate to Allow Click the "Save changes" button
Viewing a forum
What you can see under the introduction text to the forum depends on which of the three options you have chosen in the Forum type field while creating the forum. 1. If you have chosen A single simple discussion, you will see the text you have written at the 'Forum introduction' space while creating the forum as the first post of the discussion: there will be a heading, which is the forum name, the information about the author and its date. Below you will find the replies that have been posted (if there are any). 2. If you have chosen Standard forum for general use, you will see the introduction text in a separate space above the discussion field, in which you will see the information such as the title of the discussion (which means the forum's title), its author, the number of replies and the date of the last post. 3. Choosing Each person posts one discussion the view will be basically the same as in the previous case, the only difference being the 'Add a new discussion' option. Viewing a forum page, you will see the text you have written at the 'Forum introduction' space while creating the forum, and, if there are any, the discussions that have been started.
27
In all cases, above the introduction to the forum you will find options concerning subscription to the forum as well as the 'Update the forum' button and the 'Jump to' field, with which you can 'jump' to any part of the course.
Viewing a discussion
A discussion thread may be displayed in four ways. 1. Display replies flat, with oldest first - the discussion will be displayed in one line and the chronological order from the oldest to the newest 2. Display replies flat, with newest first - the discussion will be displayed in one line and the chronological order from the newest to the oldest 3. Display replies in threaded form - only the post starting the discussion will be displayed in its full form; replies will be reduced to the headlines (including information about its author and date of release) and organized chronologically; moreover, replies will be shifted towards the right so that only replies to the same post were in the same line 4. Display replies in nested form - all posts are displayed in their full forms; replies will be reduced to the headlines (including information about its author and date of release) and organized chronologically; moreover, replies will be shifted towards the right so that only replies to the same post were in the same line You may also move the whole discussion to any other forum in the course. To do that, use the 'Move this discussion to...' field positioned in the right-side corner above the discussion thread.
Forum posting
The default content of Subject is usually 'Re: <the name of the 'parent' post>'. You can change it though. There are several tips concerning careful reading, writing and asking you might consider worth following - you will find them on the left-hand side of the Message field. When writing text in Moodle there are several formats you can choose to produce your text, depending on your expertise and the type of browser you are using. Please refer to Formatting text for further information. If you check the "Mail now" box it results in an email being sent immediately to everyone subscribed to the forum, rather than after a certain time limit (usually 30 minutes).
Sharing images through forums

When an image is "attached" as a file to a forum message, it is immediately displayed full size after the message (i.e. no need to click on an attachment). This an excellent way of sharing images without having to go through the process of uploading them as files and linking them from within web pages.
Post length
Extra-long posts cause problems when doing a forum search and can be difficult to read on screen. Rather than creating a very long post, consider copying and pasting the text into a text file and add it as an attachment to your forum post.
28
Forum subscription
When a person is subscribed to a forum it means that they will be sent email copies of every subsequent post in that forum. Posters have 30 minutes by default to edit their post before it is sent though this time limit can be changed by an Administrator. People can usually choose whether or not they want to be subscribed to each forum. However, if a teacher forces subscription on a particular forum then this choice is taken away and everyone in the class will get email copies.This is especially useful in the News forum and in forums towards the beginning of the course (before everyone has worked out that they can subscribe to these emails themselves). Note that even if you force subscriptions every user can disable all email from Moodle by editing the settings in their profile, or elect to have all email sent once a day in a digest contain either all posts or simply the subject headings. Choosing Everyone can choose to be subscribed enables you to check (and modify) the number of subscribers ('Show/edit current subscribers') and to subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) the forum ('Subscribe to this forum' / 'Unsubscribe from this forum').
Forum moderator role

A forum moderator for a particular forum is able to edit or delete forum posts, split discussions and move discussions to other forums.
Role assignment
A user is assigned the role of Teacher in the module context as follows: 1. Access the Assign roles page via the Roles tab in editing forum page 2. Choose the Teacher role to assign 3. Select the user in the potential users list, and use the left-facing arrow button to add them to the existing users list
Essay module
In response to a question (that may include an image) the respondent writes an answer in essay format. For longer essays, Online text assignment or Upload a single file assignment are better choices.
Essay question type

The essay question type is intended for short answers of a paragraph or two, that one often finds on exams.
Question set-up
1. Choose a category 2. Give the question a descriptive name - this allows you to identify it in the question bank. 3. Enter the question in the 'question text' field 4. Select an image to display if you want to add a picture to the question. For the student, it appear immediately after the question text. 5. Set the 'default question grade' (i.e. the maximum number of marks for this question). 6. Moodle 1.7+: Add 'General Feedback' if required. This is text that appears to the student after he/she has answered the question. Note that this is effectively the same as the subsequent 'Feedback' field. The only difference is that General Feedback always 29
appears at the bottom of the question, even after the grade and teacher's comments have been added. 7. Add feedback if required. This is text that appears to the student after he/she has answered the question. See 'General Feedback' above if using Moodle 1.7 or higher. 8. Click Save changes to add the question to the category.
Question grading
The essay question will not be assigned a grade until it has been reviewed by a teacher and manually graded. Until that happens, the student's grade will be 0. To grade a student's answer in a quiz, use the manual grading tab on the Results section of the quiz. When manually grading an essay question, the grader is able to enter a custom comment in response to the essay and assign a score for the essay.
Essay questions in a Lesson

To grade lesson essay questions, first click on the name of the lesson in your course page. If there are essay questions to be graded, there will be a link saying "Grade essay questions". This link will open a screen showing how many ungraded essay questions there are. Ungraded essay questions will be in listed in red. Click the link for the essay you wish to grade. The essay grading screen shows the title of the question, the student's essay response, and a place you can write optional comments and give the essay a score. Click the Submit grade button to record your score and comments. Graded questions will be displayed in green. Repeat the process to finish grading. Click the "Email graded essays" link to email your responses to your students.
Glossary module

This activity allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary. The entries can be searched or browsed in many different formats. The glossary also allows teachers to export entries from one glossary to another (the main one) within the same course. If glossary autolinking is enabled by an administrator (see Filters for further details) then it is possible to automatically create links to these entries from throughout the course.
Creative glossary practices

While a basic glossary is important, creatively applying the glossary can really make an impact on your class.
Collaborative glossaries
Instead of creating a glossary on your own, why not have the students create them as they encounter unfamiliar terms? A collaborative glossary can serve as a focal point for collaboration in a course. Each member of the class could be assigned to contribute a term, a definition, or comments on submitted definitions. Multiple definitions can be rated by you and by the students, with the highest-rated definitions accepted for the final class glossary. When students are responsible for creating the definitions, they are much more likely to remember the word and the correct definition. Engaging in the process of learning, debating, and refining a glossary can go a long way toward helping students begin using new terms. You can also structure multiple glossaries over the course of a semester. Break them up by unit, chapter, week, or any other organizational structure. 30
If you have a large class, assign student teams to come up with definitions and answers. One strategy for managing large courses is to make each team responsible for one weeks worth of definitions, while all the other teams must rate and comment. Alternatively, each team could be responsible for one definition per chapter and then rate and comment on the other teams work.
Credit for word use

This is a combination strategy using the forum and the auto-linking feature of the glossary. After you and your students have defined the glossary terms, its important for students to begin practising using the words in realistic contexts. Students, however, are usually reluctant to experiment with new terms. With the auto-linking feature, its easy to spot when a glossary word has been used in a forum or in a posting on the web site. To encourage word use, assign a portion of the credit students receive for their forum postings for correct use of glossary terms. As you or other students rate posts, you can quickly scan for highlighted glossary words and award points for usage. You may even want to break the score down further. Perhaps award one point for using the word and two points for using it correctly.
Adding a glossary
To add a glossary: 1. 2. 3. 4. Click the "Turn editing on" button. Select Glossary from the "Add an activity" dropdown menu. On the Adding a new glossary page give your new glossary a descriptive name. Describe the purpose of the glossary, provide instructions or background information, links etc. in the Description area. 5. Select the general and grade options and the common module settings (see below). 6. Click the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the page.
General options
Entries shown per page
This sets the number of words and definitions that students will see when they view the glossary list. If you have a large number of automatically-linked entries you should set this number lower to prevent long loading times.
Is this glossary global?

Administrators can make a global glossary, with entries linking throughout the whole site. Any course may contain a global glossary, though usually they are only included on the site front page.
Glossary type
Here you can decide whether the glossary will be main or secondary. The glossary system allows you to export entries from any secondary glossary to the main one of the course. In order to do this, you should specify which glossary is the main one. You can only have one main glossary per course. Note: Prior to Moodle 1.7, only Teachers could edit the main glossary. From Moodle 1.7 onwards, a role override can be used to change glossary permissions.
31
Students can add entries

Prior to Moodle 1.7, you can specify whether a student may add, edit or delete their own entries. Entries exported to a main glossary can be updated or deleted by teachers only, so this setting only applies to secondary glossaries. (A teacher can edit or delete any entry at any time.) Note: From Moodle 1.7 onwards, this option has been replaced with a role override and preventing the capability mod/glossary:write.
Duplicated entries allowed

This allows the entry of more than one definition for a given word.
Allow comments on entries

Students and teachers can leave comments on glossary definitions. The comments are available through a link at the bottom of the definition.
Allow print view

This provides a printer-friendly version link for students. (Teachers are always provided with a printer-friendly version link.)
Automatically link glossary entries

If site-wide glossary auto-linking is enabled by an administrator (see Filters for further details), then turning this on allows individual entries in this glossary to be automatically linked whenever the concept words and phrases appear throughout the rest of the same course. This includes forum postings, internal resources, week summaries and so on. Note: Enabling linking for the glossary does not automatically turn on linking for each entry linking needs to be set for each entry individually. If you do not want particular text to be linked (in a forum posting, say) then you should add <nolink> and </nolink> tags around the text. Note that category names are also linked.
Approved by default
That allows the teacher to define what happens to new entries added by students. They can be automatically made available to everyone, otherwise the teacher will have to approve each one.
Display format
That specifies the way that each entry will be shown within the glossary. The default formats are:

Simple, dictionary style - This looks like a conventional dictionary with separate entries. No authors are displayed and attachments are shown as links. Continuous without author - That shows the entries one after other without any kind of separation but the editing icons. Full with author - A forum-like display format showing author's data. Attachments are shown as links. Full without author - A forum-like display format that does not show author's data. Attachments are shown as links. Encyclopedia - Like 'Full with author' but attached images are shown inline. Entry list - This lists the concepts as links.
32
FAQ - Useful for displaying lists of frequently asked questions. It automatically appends the words QUESTION and ANSWER in the concept and definition respectively.
The table below summarises the different display formats. Format Entry list Simple Dictionary Continuous FAQ Full without Author Full with Author Encyclopedia Entry Author x x x x x x x x x Date Definition Images Attachments x* x* link* x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x link link link link link x**
* Will be shown in a pop-up window. * * Attached images are shown inline.
Browsing options in alphabet display

You can customize the way a user can browse a glossary. Browsing and searching are always available, but you can define three more options:

Show "Special" link - Enable or disable browsing by special characters like @, #, etc. Show alphabet - Enable or disable browsing by alphabetic letters. Show "All" link - Enable or disable browsing of all entries at once.
Edit always
If you want entries to be always editable, set this to Yes.
Grade options Allow entries to be rated

You can grade entries yourself or allow students to grade entries as well. Select "Only teachers" or "Everyone" from the users menu. Then select a grading scale. You can also restrict when entries can be graded to a specific date range.

Group mode
Another location to set the group mode for the activity. If group mode is forced in the course settings then this setting will be ignored.
Visible to students
You can also decide on whether or not the glossary will be seen by the students. You can hide the activity from students by selecting 'Hide'. It is useful if you don't want to make the activity available immediately. 33
Glossary permissions
Roles and capabilities in Moodle 1.7 onwards enable possibilities such as students being given permission to approve glossary entries.
Viewing a glossary
Browse options
Viewing a glossary You can browse glossaries according to the following options:

Browse by alphabet Browse by category (if there are any categories added) Browse by date (you can sort entries by last update or by creation date) Browse by author
Search options
You can also search for a given word using the Search field. Checking the 'Search full text' option (on the right side of the Search box) allows searching for a given word in any position in the text. This can take longer and return more entries than you might wish, but it is thorough. If you do not check the "Search full text" box, the search only looks for the term names. The index below lets you browse the glossary according to a given letter.
Waiting approval
If entries require teacher approval before being publicly posted, this is where those entries are approved.
Printing a glossary
At the top right of the main glossary page, you'll see a little printer icon. If you click the icon, Moodle will open a new browser window and present all the words and definitions in a printer-friendly format. To print the glossary: 1. Click the printer icon at the top of the main glossary page. 2. From the newly opened window, choose Print from the File menu of your browser. 3. Once the word list has printed, close the printer-friendly format window. Note: Teachers are always provided with a printer-friendly format link. To enable students to print a glossary, set "Allow print view" to Yes on the edit glossary page.
Adding/editing a glossary entry

Adding a glossary entry
To add a glossary entry: 34
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
From the glossary page, click the "Add a new entry" button. Enter the word you want to define in the Concept text field. Add the definition of the word or concept. If you've defined categories in the "Browse by category" tab, you can categorize your entry here. If there are synonyms you want to include with the entry, add them to the Keyword(s) text area. Enter one word per line. If you want to add an attachment, such as a picture or an article, you can attach it below the Keyword(s) text area. Select the auto-linking options (see below). Click the "Save changes" button to add your word to the glossary.
Auto-linking options
An auto-linked word in a forum Note: To be able to turn on this feature, site-wide glossary auto-linking should be enabled by an administrator (see Filters for further details).
This entry should be automatically linked

Turning this feature on will allow the entry to be automatically linked, whenever the concept words and phrases appear throughout the rest of the same course. This includes forum postings, internal resources, week summaries and so on. When you click on the word, a new window with the glossary entry will pop-up. Note: If you do not want particular text to be linked (in a forum posting, say) then you should add <nolink> and </nolink> tags around the text.
This entry is case sensitive

This setting specifies whether matching exact upper and lower case is necessary when performing automatic linking to these entries. For example, if this is turned on, then a word like "html" in a forum posting will NOT be linked to a glossary entry called "HTML".
Match whole words only

If automatic linking is enabled, then turning this setting on will force only whole words to be linked. For example, a glossary entry named "construct" will not create a link inside the word "constructivism".
Deleting an attachment
The easiest way to delete an attachment is to delete the glossary entry and add a new one.
Glossary comments
If you enabled comments on the glossary entries, users can annotate the definitions in the word list. When you look at a word in the glossary list, you'll see a little cartoon speech balloon icon in the lower right-hand corner of the definition block. When you click on the balloon, you're taken to the comment entry page. Add your comment then click the "Save changes" button. 35
Once you've saved your comment, Moodle will display all of the comments for the entry. When you return to the main glossary page, you'll see a new message next to the speech balloon telling you how many comments there are for the entry.
Editing glossary categories

Categories may be created to help organize your glossary entries. If you've enabled autolinking, the category names can be linked along with individual entries. To create a glossary category: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Click the "Browse by category" tab in the main page of the glossary. Click the "Edit categories" button on the left side of the page. Click the "Add category" button on the resulting Categories page. Give the category a name. Choose whether you want the category name autolinked as well. Click the "Save changes" button.
If you autolink the category name, any occurrence of those words will be linked. When a student clicks on the link, they will be taken to the "Browse by category" page of the glossary.
Import glossary entries

Importing entries
To import glossary entries via an XML file: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Follow the "Import entries" link at the top right of the main glossary page. Browse for the exported entries XML file on your computer. Select the destination for the new entries, either the current glossary or a new one. If you want to import category information, click the checkbox. Click the "Save changes" button. You'll then see a report of the entries and categories added to the glossary. If you enabled duplicate entries when you created the glossary, the import process will add all of the new definitions. Otherwise, it will not allow you to import any duplicate entries.
Troubleshooting
Possible causes of problems importing entries:
o
If there are mistakes in the XML file such as the <entries> tag being missing or the <info> tag being in the wrong place. May happen if you have constructed the XML file manually or with some sort of tool like mailmerge in Word and your template is wrong. o If there are top bit set characters in the text of the entities like concepts, definitions or keywords. Replace things like & with & o If there are tabs or spaces between entries. Not sure if spaces cause problems but best to remove any between the end of one tag and start of the next. e.g. Search and replace > < with >< via a text editor. In most cases the import is halted if any of these errors occur. Duplicates in the entries which clash with entries already when merging a glossary is usually not a problem.
36
Warnings like Warning: exec() has been disabled for security reasons in /moodle/lib/uploadlib.php on line 603 may not be the problem when importing but may distract one from dealing with problems with the format of the XML file. HTML and XHTML tags written within CONCEPT or DEFINITION elements will fail on import, showing "Array" instead of the desired content. To remedy this, try writing the (X)HTML tags within <![CDATA[ ]]> markup.
Restoring a course backup

An alternative method of importing glossary entries is to restore a Moodle course backup file containing a glossary. This method includes categories, images and attachments within glossary entries and if you also select users then the authors of entries are also imported if they were originally included in the backup.
Export glossary entries

To export glossary entries: 1. Follow the "Export entries" link at the top right of the main glossary page. 2. Click the "Export entries to file" button. 3. Save the automatically generated XML file on your computer. A copy of a glossary may also be made by backing up the activity.
Wiki module
37
"Wiki wiki" means "super fast" in the Hawaiian language, and it is the speed of creating and updating pages that is one of the defining aspects of wiki technology. Generally, there is no prior review before modifications are accepted, and most wikis are open to the general public or at least to all persons who also have access to the wiki server. The Moodle wiki module enables participants to work together on web pages to add, expand and change the content. Old versions are never deleted and can be restored. A wiki is a collection of collaboratively authored web documents. Basically, a wiki page is a web page everyone in your class can create together, right in the browser, without needing to know HTML. A wiki starts with one front page. Each author can add other pages to the wiki by simply creating a link to a page that doesn't exist yet. Wikis get their name from the Hawaiian term "wiki wiki," which means "very fast." A wiki is indeed a fast method for creating content as a group. It's a hugely popular format on the Web for creating documents as a group. There is usually no central editor of a wiki, no single person who has final editorial control. Instead, the community edits and develops its own content. Consensus views emerge from the work of many people on a document. Moodle's wiki is built atop an older wiki system called Erfurt wiki: http://erfurtwiki.sourceforge.net. In Moodle, wikis can be a powerful tool for collaborative work. The entire class can edit a document together, creating a class product, or each student can have their own wiki and work on it with you and their classmates. It may be useful to think of a wiki's front page as a structured table of contents. Essentially, a wiki is organized by its links.
Adding/editing a wiki
To create a wiki: 1. Click the "Turn editing on" button. 2. Select Wiki from the "Add an activity" dropdown menu in the course section where you would like to add the wiki. 3. On the Adding a new wiki page, give the wiki a descriptive name. 4. In the summary field, describe the purpose of the wiki and what you expect students to contribute. 5. Select the wiki type - groups, student or teacher. The wiki type interacts with the groups setting for your course, resulting in 9 options, as shown in the type help popup. 6. Click the "Show Advanced" button (in Moodle 1.8 onwards) to display additional options (see below). 7. Select the common module settings (see below). 8. Click the "Save changes" button.
Adding and editing wiki pages

After you've created a wiki, it's available for editing. Viewing a wiki contains information on adding and editing wiki pages.
38
Advanced options
Print wiki name of every page
If you select this option, the top of each page will have the name of the wiki.
HTML mode
There are three options: No HTML, safe HTML or HTML only. No HTML will display all HTML tags as tags. Safe HTML will allow certain tags to be displayed. HTML only enables the HTML editor.
Allow binary files

Binary files are graphics, audio, video, and other non-text resources. If you want students to be able to add files as attachments, set this to Yes.
Wiki auto-linking options

A new page can be created in the wiki by typing a word using CamelCase i.e. with a capital letter at the beginning and a capital letter somewhere else in the word. It's called CamelCase because the two capital letters resemble a two-humped camel. CamelCase combines all the words for the link into one word. Each word in the link is capitalized. When a word is added in CamelCase, the wiki automatically creates a new page and makes the word a link. You can disable this feature if you wish, so that typing a word enclosed in square brackets is the only way of creating a new page. CamelCase is not always desirable, as some text is writen in it. For example a file name might be MyFile_2007_Feb.jpg.
Student admin options

When students can edit a page, you can allow them certain administrative privileges in the wiki (see Wiki administration).
Page name
You may wish to seed the wiki with a page name for the first page.
Choose an initial page

This can be the first wiki page that is created, or a way to switch to a different front page. Other files in the same directory as the first wiki page you select will also become part of the initial wiki - see: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=8501

Group mode
Another location to set the group mode for the activity. If group mode is forced in the course settings then this setting will be ignored.
Visible
This determines whether students may view the activity or not.
Wiki permissions
Roles and capabilities in Moodle 1.7 onwards enable possibilities such as students being given permission to manage wikis. 39
Viewing a wiki
This page is for documentation on how to use the wiki activity i.e. View, Edit, Links, History and is redirected from mod/wiki/view, a help page.
Overview
A wiki has 4 tabs, the most commonly used tabs are view and edit.
Adding a wiki page

There are several ways to add a new wiki page. In later versions of Moodle, the course participant's privileges can effect adding or editing wiki pages. First you will create a link to a page that does not exist, then the wiki will create the blank page which someone can edit.
From a Wiki page

This is the easiest way to add a page (or the first one that worked for me!). Participants in a Wiki can create a new page by editing an existing Wiki page and adding a Wiki link that points to the page they want to create. A Wiki link is simply any character string enclosed in square brackets. The string is converted to a link by the following process: 1. Click the Edit tab on the front page of the Wiki 2. In the edit box type the title of the new page that you want to create. Enclose the title text in square brackets. Like this:
3. Click Save. 4. The page you have just edited will now be displayed. The words "My First Added Page" will be displayed with a question mark link immediately after it and may look like:
5. Click on the "?" and you will be taken to an edit screen for a new page called:- "My First Added Page" 6. Edit this new page with text as you will, and then click Save. You just created a new wiki linkable page. 7. Want to check the link by going back to the original Wiki page? 1. Click on the page link under "referring links" at the bottom of the new page in view mode. 2. Another way is to click the - Choose Wiki Links - box, and then, from the drop down menu, select Site map. Click on the original page displayed on the screen. The words "My First Added Page" will have now become a link to your new page, a Wiki link. 8. Bingo!
40
Add by initial wiki creation

When the teacher selects Wiki from the Add an Activity pull down menus in a course, they will be asked to create the first page.
Add by using search

In some versions of Moodle (not in 1.8 standard), any participant (with correct privileges) of an existing wiki can enter the name of the page they would like to create in the Search box on a wiki page. For example they might enter the name "Roses". If the page already exists they will be taken to the page "Roses" If the page does not exist, they will see: There is no page titled "Roses" They can create this page by clicking on the "create this page" link and begin editing the new page called "Roses"
Editing a wiki page

Editing the standard Moodle wiki is simple

Click on the edit tag at the top of the wiki page Edit the text Then save the page, or preview the page before saving Remember that MoodleDocs is a different(more robust and complicated) kind of wiki than the standard Moodle wiki. Many MoodleDoc or WikiMedia wiki tags (See Help: Editing) ) may not work in the standard Moodle wiki in versions 1.8 and earlier.
The standard help file gives the basics of editing in ErfurtWiki. See Moodle Help Docs on How to wiki
Wiki search
Wiki search ignores hyperlinks so it is wise to add a "Keywords:" line which contains the words of the the page title separated by commas, and any other entries that you wish to be found by the search.
Wiki administration
The Administration drop-down menu gives you tools that keep your wiki running smoothly. As you and your class generate the wiki, pages may become orphaned or you may need to manage a student's contributions.
Set page flags

Page flags are properties you can set on a per-page basis. Every page can be set with different permissions.
Remove pages
The wiki engine automatically tracks pages that aren't linked from anywhere else (they were created and then the link was deleted) and empty pages. This tool allows you to remove these orphaned wiki pages, which can't be reached through the ordinary wiki interface.
41
Strip pages
While the wiki engine tracks changes, it stores old versions in the database. To declutter the data, you may occasionally want to delete all the old versions and just keep the new one.
Revert mass changes

Use this tool to roll back changes to all pages if a particular author makes a mess of many pages in the wiki.
Wiki standard index pages

Wiki has a set of standard pages which contain several indexes. These can be helpful to students and teachers. There is a dropdown menu which shows these different pages.
Sitemap
Shows list of nested pages links(like an outline)
Page index
An alphabetical list of page links
Export pages
There are 3 ways to export the wiki, with an option to maintain the wiki links for each. The exported material does not maintain a live link to the wiki, but is a snapshot which can be updated by repeating the operation.

Downloadable zip archive o creates a series of individual html files that can be saved on a local drive. Module Directory:MoodleGraphics-Lesson o Creates a directory and places current wiki HTML page files in it. This directory is part of the course files. Thus it can be linked to in the course. Module backupdata o places current wiki HTML page files in the course backup folder. This needs users to be included in the backup otherwise you get a blank wiki.
42
Workshop module
The workshop activity is the most complex tool currently available in Moodle. Workshops are designed so a students work can be submitted and offered for peer review within a structured framework. Workshops provide a process for both instructor and peer feedback on open-ended assignments, such as essays and research papers. There are easy-to-use interfaces for uploading assignments, performing self-assessments, and peer reviews of other students papers. The key to the workshop is the scoring guide, which is a set of specific criteria for making judgments about the quality of a given work. Open-ended assessments are difficult to score reliably, unless there are very specific performance dimensions the reviewers should follow, such as the presence of a thesis and strong evidence supporting each point. For example, if a grader receives 15 student essays, she may review each one in turn. She will probably spend more time on the first few papers, carefully marking the grammar and structure of the essay. As the grader becomes fatigued, she may move to a more holistic scoring heuristic, deciding if an essay is good or bad. The level of feedback given to each student can vary depending on where they are in the pile. Good scoring guides ask specific questions about the work being evaulated. Making a judgment about whether there is a clearly written thesis statement in an essay is a much easier task than deciding if an essay is well written. As you develop your workshop, you will create a set of scoring criteria that you and your students can follow when evaluating submitted assignments. Workshops also allow students to evaluate example assignments uploaded by an instructor. You can upload good and bad examples of an assignment so students can practice critiquing. This gives students a valuable opportunity to calibrate their judgments against your expert opinion. If they realize their evaluation of a work is significantly different from yours, they can work with you to figure out why. Setting up and managing workshops is a complex process. It can take a while to figure out how the system works. Once you get it up and running, however, it is a powerful learning tool.
How to Create a Workshop

Preparing a workshop so students can begin submitting their assignments is a three-step process. First, you need to add the workshop to your course. Second, you need to create the scoring guide you and your students will use to evaluate submissions. Third, if you want students to critique your example assignments, you need to upload those as well.
Adding a Workshop
To create a workshop for peer review of materials 1. Click Turn Editing Mode On. 2. Select Workshop from the Add Activity menu in the section where you want to place the link. 3. On the Workshop page, shown in Figure 6-1, add a title and description. 4. Select the maximum grade for the workshop assignment. 5. Choose a grading strategy from these following five options:
43
Figure 6-1. Add a workshop
No grading Students who review assignments dont give each other grades, just comments. You can then grade the comments, which will give the commenting student his final grade. Accumulative grading Later in the process, you can create a multidimensional scoring rubric for students to score each others work. Accumulative grading calculates the submitting students final grade based on the cumulative grades received from her peers within each of the dimensions. You assign a scale and weight to each dimension when you develop the scoring guide. Error Banded grading You can create a rubric with only Yes/No decisions for the peer reviewer. For example, you could ask if theres a clearly defined thesis statement in an essay. If you use only Yes/No scales, you can create a grade table that determines the final score based on the number of Yeses or Nos. Criterion grading In the criterion grading scheme, you create a set of statements used to rank the assessment. Each statement has an associated suggested grade. The criterion statements and grades should be in order so reviewers can select the appropriate grade for the statement. Rubrics Rubrics use performance examples that guide decisions about quality. Each element in a rubric is scored on a five-point scale, with each point illustrated by an example of the performance. Reviewers select the level of quality on each element by comparing the submission with the example.
44
6. 7.
8.
9. 10.
11.
12. 13. 14.
Pick the number of dimensions for the rubric. Each dimension is a different aspect of the performance. Decide if you will allow resubmissions. Unlike the assignment module, the workshop module allows multiple submissions to be available at the same time. When the submissions are distributed for peer review, Moodle will randomly pick one of the submissions each time someone reviews the students work. Choose a number of assessments of example assignments from the teacher. As I mentioned above, you can upload examples of the assignment for students to assess before they move on to their peers work. These training scores can be used to finetune a students critical eye. Determine the number of peer reviews a student must perform. Choose whether self-assessment is required. Self-assessment always adds one assessment to the number of reviews of exemplars and peer reviews a student must perform. Select whether assessments must be agreed on by peers. This feature requires the reviewer and the reviewee to agree on the reviewers assessment before it is calculated. The student who submitted the assignment may disagree with the reviewer and send it back for reevaluation. This can continue until the deadline. If there is no agreement before the deadline, the review isnt used. If youre using assessment agreement, you can hide the grades before agreement. Students will have to reach an agreement on the comments only. Once theyve agreed the comments are fair, the grade is revealed to the submitting student. Set a maximum upload size for an assessment. The upper limit for the system is set by the system administrator Set the deadline for submission and review of the assignment. Click Save Changes and you will be taken back to the courses main page. Obviously, theres a lot here to make sense of without having seen the rest of the process. Bear with me for a bit while we look at how to set up the rest of the workshop and this will become more obvious.
Creating Scoring Guides

Creating the workshop shell is only the first step. Once youve created the shell, youll need to set up your rubric, upload exemplars, and finish setting up the workshop for your students. To create a scoring guide for an accumulative grading scheme: 1. Click on the workshop you created in your main course page. You will then be taken to the Editing Assessment Elements page. 2. For each rubric dimension you created when you set up the workshop, you will see a description, scale, and weight entry, as shown in Figure 6-2. 3. Enter the first performance dimension you want students to assess when looking at their peers work. Each dimension should evaluate a critical aspect of the performance. 4. Select a scale for the element. Remember, the scale itself doesnt affect the weight given to that element. A 2-point Yes/No scale can be worth as much or more than a 100-point scale. 5. Set the weight of the element. The weight scale can be between 1 and 4 (the default is 1). 6. Repeat the process for each element you selected for your rubric. 7. Click Save Changes.
45
Figure 6-2. Accumulative grading scale
To create a scoring guide for the error-banded scoring guide: 1. Click on the workshop you created in your main course page. You will then be taken to the Editing Assessment Elements page. 2. Enter a description of each element as shown in Figure 6-3. These are the elements reviewers will make yes/no decisions about. 3. Click Save Changes.
Figure 6-3. Error banding grading scale
46
To create a criterion scoring guide: 1. Click on the workshop you created in your main course page. You will then be taken to the Editing Assessment Elements page. 2. Enter a set of criteria for grading the submission (see Figure 6-4). Criteria can be cumulative or self-contained and should be in order of either increasing or decreasing quality. 1. Enter a suggested grade for each criterion. The grades should also be in order. 2. Click Save Changes
Figure 6-4. Criterion scoring guide
To create a scoring guide for the rubric grading scheme: 1. Click on the workshop you created in your main course page. You will then be taken to the Editing Assessment Elements page. 2. Enter a description for the first element in the rubric form, as shown in Figure 6-5. 1. Select an element weight between -4 and 4. 2. For each of the four grade elements, write a description of what a performance at that level would look like. If possible, use examples from previous student work. 3. Click Save Changes.
47
Figure 6-5. Rubric scoring guide
Once youve clicked Save Changes, youll be taken to the Managing the Assessment Page. Below the assignment-description block, youll see six tabs displaying the steps of the workshop setup and delivery process, as shown in Figure 6-6. Each tab enables different capabilities for you and your students. Set Up Assignment This tab gives you the links to upload your example work for students to review. Allow Student Submissions When this tab is activated, students can score the instructors examples, upload their own submissions, and complete self-assessments. They will not see other students submissions for peer review, however. Allow Student Submissions and Assessments During this phase, students can perform the actions listed above as well as score other students work. Allow Student Assessments Once this phase is activated, students can only score instructor examples and perform selfassessments and peer reviews. Calculation of Final Grades Once all of the assessments are completed, you can set weights for each of the components. Display Final Grades After youve set the weighting for the final grades, the last phase displays the results.
Figure 6-6. Workshop process
After youve set up your scoring guide, youll need to upload example assignments for students to review before they can review their peers submissions. 48
Uploading Example Assignments

Below the six workshop process tabs, youll see four links. The one were interested in right now is the Submit Example Assignment link. Example assignments are graded by students before they move on to their peers submissions. You may want to use examples from previous semesters, or you can create your own exemplars. The idea behind using example assignments is to give students a chance to practice evaluating other assignments. Example assignments should contain both positive and negative examples of the scoring criteria so students can practice rating on both ends of the scale. For example, you may want to include one essay with a well-written thesis and a lot of good supporting material, but a number of spelling and grammatical errors as well. Alternatively, you can include an example with few errors and a good writing style, but a weak, poorly supported thesis. To upload an example for assessment: 1. Click Submit Example Assignment. 2. Give your example a title. You must give your example a title or Moodle will reject it (see Figure 6-7). 3. Click the Browse button to find the example file on your desktop. 4. Click Upload this file to upload the example. Once youve uploaded all your exemplars, you can assess them using the scoring guide. This will be important when comparing your judgment to the students evaluation of your examples.
Figure 6-7. Upload example file
To score the example assignments: 1. Click the Teacher Submissions for Assessment link below the Submit ExampleAssignment link. 2. For each element in your scoring guide, rate your submitted example. 3. Give feedback for each rating. 4. Add general comments about the example. 5. Click Save my Assessment. Tip: As you rate your example, give detailed feedback about why you are giving each rating. If students can see your reasoning, they will find it easier to apply the same reasoning to their own peer evaluations. Once youve uploaded and scored all your examples, you are ready to move the workshop to the next phase.
49
Managing Workshops
Once youve set up your workshop, you will need to manage student submissions and evaluation. Fortunately, the workshop makes it easy to track student activity as it happens. You can also choose how much feedback you give to students at any given time.
Workshop Phases
The six tabs on the workshop screen represent the six phases of a workshop. Weve just completed phase 1. Phases 2 through 4 allow students to interact with the workshop. Phase 2 allows students to upload their submissions and perform instructor and selfassessments but does not distribute submissions for peer review. Phase 3 allows students to do everything in phase 2, but also distributes submissions for peer review. Phase 4 allows only self- and peer-assessments. You may not want to use all three phases. There are two strategies for managing workshop phases. The easiest, but not necessarily the best, is to use only phase 3 after youve set up the workshop in phase 1. This gives students maximum flexibility. They can upload their assignments at any point before the due date. The problem occurs when students begin to peer-review each others work. If students are permitted to peer-review before all of the submissions are in, the submissions wont be distributed randomly. The students who submit and review early will see only other early submissions. Late submitters will see only late submissions. Students who submit too close to the deadline may not give their peers enough time to review their work. The alternative strategy uses only phases 2 and 4. You can set an interim deadline for student submissions and only accept student work before this due date. After the submission deadline, youll set the workshop to phase 4 and students will only be allowed to perform peer reviews. This strategy will help ensure an even distribution of student work for evaluation and ensure that everyone has sufficient time for review.
Student submissions
Once youve activated the Allow Student Submission tab, students can begin to interact with the workshop. If youve required students to assess instructor examples, they will need to complete that assessment before they can upload their own work. The student view of the workshop is very different from your own. Students see a gradual process in which they must first evaluate the instructor examples. Once theyve completed these, they will then see the interface to upload their own assignments. Only after theyve uploaded their assignments can they access the link to perform selfassessments (see Figure 6-8).
Warning:
Student submissions do not immediately appear in the instructors workshop interface. The workshop module depends on a process on the server that runs on a regular basis (called a cron job) and wont update the interface until the cron job is complete. Your system administrator can tell you how often the process runs and how often you can expect the workshop to be updated.
50
Figure 6-8. Student view of a workshop
Student assessments
Your view of student activity takes place on the main workshop page. Below the six workshop process tabs, youll see three links that will help you track the workshop shown in Figure 6-9:
Figure 6-9. Student ativity lnks
Ungraded Assessments of Teacher Submissions From here, can access student evaluations of your example submissions. You give each evaluation a grade and give the students feedback. Ungraded Assessments of Student Submissions Like the assessment of instructor examples, you can grade the students peer-review evaluations Student Submissions for Assessment Use this link to grade the students submissions directly. Later, you can use your rating to influence the final grade for the workshop. Each of these grading opportunities is optional. Which you choose depends on how you want to calculate the final grade for the workshop. Each of these grades can be used in calculating the final grade, which Ill discuss below. 51
When you assess a student assignment, youll see the same scoring guide you set up in the beginning of the workshop (see Figure 6-10). Youll use it to give the student a score for his work. Later, you can choose to include your assessment directly as part of the final grade or include it with the other peer reviews.
Administration
The administration area serves two important functions. First, below the tools, there is a complete record of all student submissions and evaluations. The system first lists your submissions and their assessments. Below your submissions is each students assessment. Its easy to see the ratings each student has completed and get a quick overview of their scores. Finally, youll see a list of each students submissions with corresponding assessments.
Figure 6-10. Assess student work
The administration area also holds two important tools shown in Figure 6-11. The first tool sets the over allocation level. Over-allocation is the amount any given student submission will be assigned for peer review over the level needed for an even distribution of assignments. If the over-allocation is set to 0, then each submission is assigned the same number of times. Over-allocation greater than 0 allows each assignment to be assigned one or two more times more than the even distribution level. If you allow submission and peer review at the same time, increasing the over-allocation level will increase the chances a student wont have to wait for all the submissions before she receives her full quota of peer-review submissions. The disadvantage is that some students will receive one more or one less review of their assignment than their peers. The other tool in the administration area creates a league table of student submissions. Like the standings in a sports league, a league table lists the highest-scoring papers. You can set the number of submissions listed and whether the students can see the names of the submitters.
52
Figure 6-11. Workshop administration tools
Calculation of final grades

Once the workshop is completed, you can configure the calculation of the final grades by moving to phase 5. There are a number of factors you can weigh when assigning the final grade for the workshop, as shown in Figure 6-12. Each item is assigned a relative weight on a scale from 0 to 50. If each of the items is assigned a weight of 1, they will all factor equally into the score. The same will hold true if all the items are set to the same nonzero number. An item set to a weight of 10 will have 10 times the impact on the students final grade than an item with a weight of 1, but 1/5 the impact of an item with a weight of 50.
Figure 6-12. Calculation of final grades
53
Weight for Teacher Assessments Teacher assessments are your grades for the students submissions. Set this weight to a nonzero number to include your score as a separate factor. Weight for Peer Assessments Assign a weighting factor for the scores from the peer-review process. Weight for Bias This factor measures the bias of the student receiving the grade. Bias is measured as the difference between the students rating of peer submissions and the peer averages for those assignments. So if a student consistently rates their peers higher or lower than the average, they will receive a lower bias score. The workshop developer recommends not giving the bias factor a high weight. Weight for Reliability Reliability is another measure of how well the students peer reviews compare to the average reviews. The reliability measure averages the difference between the students grade and her peers average grades after discounting for bias. So if a student closely follows the average score for all the assignments she assessed, she will get a good reliability rating. Weight for Grading of Assessments This factor calculates how much weight your grades for student assessments will carry in the final calculation. Option for Peer Grade: Include Teachers Grade You can choose to roll your own grade of the students submission into the peer assessments. If you feel the averages for peer assessments are too high or too low, you can add your own score for a students submission into the average. Once you save your final weights, youll see a grade sheet listing each student in the class, the scores of each factor, and a final grade. If youre not happy with the grade calculation, you can go back and change the weighting before you determine the final grades. Under the grade-weighting table, youll also have the opportunity to create a new league table that will be visible when you publish the final grades. After youve completed the grade weighting, you can display the final grades to the students by moving to the sixth and final phase, Display of Final Grades. After the final grades are displayed, students can view their grades and the detailed score for each factor by clicking on the workshop link again.
Effective Workshop Practices

The workshop is the most complex tool weve looked at so far. The extensive setup and management process can be daunting, which is why it is especially important to have a plan for how you will use the workshop before you start working. If you know in advance how you want the workshop to function, the important evaluation criteria, and how the students will interact with the submissions and with each other, youll save yourself a lot of potential confusion later. There are a few important decisions to make before you get started: How many instructor examples do you want students to practice on? How many peer reviews can you reasonably expect them to perform? How long will you give students to submit? How long to perform assessments? How will you control the quality of the student assessments, i.e., how will you prevent students from just giving each other As? Do you want the workshop to focus on peer assessment or instructor assessment? 54
Once youve made these decisions, you have the beginning of a plan for your workshop. The last decision is critical in determining the shape of your workshop. Ive been in classes where peer review was required but didnt influence the grade. Ive also been in classes where peer assessment counted for half of the grade I received on a paper. Its important to decide this ahead of time so students know how much their peer ratings will influence the final grades. If peer review is very important to the assignment, be sure to put measures in place to moderate student assessments. Plan on adding your assessment of a students submission to the peer-review pool. This will help pull the average toward a score you think is reasonable without completely overriding the consensus view.
Creative Workshop Practices

Once youve mastered the basics of creating and managing a workshop, you can begin to use them in creative ways. Ive detailed a few ideas below.
Intermediate steps
Writing, and many other creative processes, is an iterative endeavour. It takes multiple revisions of a work to make it the best it can be. Early in the process, it is useful to receive feedback from peers and experts about the structure and direction of the work. To facilitate a continuous feedback process, consider setting up workshops for the intermediate steps in projects during the semester. For example, if students are writing an essay, you could set up a workshop for the topic proposal. Students could evaluate each others proposals according to the dimensions you think are important. Later, they could submit outlines or early drafts for feedback as well. For early work, you may want to make a students grade more dependent on the feedback they give their peers than on the quality of the work itself. Later on, you could increase the value of the assessment of the work itself. Students wont have to submit perfect work right away and the early grading and feedback on their assessments will help them calibrate their responses.
Presentations and performances

Most instructors use the workshop module to assess written work, but a workshop is not limited to just written assignments. Just like the assignment module, the workshop module can accept any electronic document smaller than the maximum upload limit. You could also submit links to media stored on other servers if a video or audio file is too large. You can use the workshop module for peer feedback on presentations and performances. If students are required to give a presentation in class, you could set up a workshop for peer review and self-assessment. Students would submit their presentation slides or notes. The scoring guide could ask students to rate each other on both the live presentation and the submitted materials. Randomly assigning assessments can be a useful motivational tool in this context. If students dont know in advance which presentations they will be required to assess, they are more likely to pay attention to all of the presentations and take good notes so they can articulate an informed judgment later.
55
Literature for Moodle teaching

Using Moodle: Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System (Community Press) (Taschenbuch ) von Jason Cole (Autor) Moodle Teaching Techniques (Taschenbuch ) von William Rice (Autor)
56

Moodle Activity Modules

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Titolo originale

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Moodle Activity Modules

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Activity modules for Moodle 1.

Georg Hartl and Martin Kattmann Web- and Moodlemasters of PhD-ACT

More you find beginning at page 28

Hot potato quiz

Email alerts to teachers

Advanced uploading of files assignment

Maximum number of uploaded files

Hide description before available date

Email alerts to teachers

Online text assignment

Email alerts to teachers

Offline activity assignment

Prevent late submissions

Settings for specific assignment types (1.7 onwards)

Upload a single file Online text Advanced uploading of files

Tips and tricks

Save past sessions

Everyone can view past sessions

Teaching and Learning Forums

Participation and Scaffolding

Committment and Participation

Student Centred Forums

The News Forum

How do I know which forum is right for my purpose?

Some forum suggestions to consider

Force everyone to be subscribed?

Read tracking for this forum?

Post threshold for blocking

Common module settings

Pre-Moodle 1.7 settings

Can a student post to this forum?

Removing the news forum

No discussions, but replies are allowed

Enabling students to rate posts

Sharing images through forums

Forum moderator role

Essay question type

Essay questions in a Lesson

Creative glossary practices

Credit for word use

Is this glossary global?

Students can add entries

Duplicated entries allowed

Allow comments on entries

Allow print view

Automatically link glossary entries

* Will be shown in a pop-up window. * * Attached images are shown inline.

Browsing options in alphabet display

Grade options Allow entries to be rated

Common module settings

Adding/editing a glossary entry

This entry should be automatically linked

This entry is case sensitive

Match whole words only

Editing glossary categories

Import glossary entries

Restoring a course backup

Export glossary entries

Adding and editing wiki pages

Allow binary files

Wiki auto-linking options

Student admin options

Choose an initial page