Dublin June/July 2012

Special thanks to Stephen McMahon from the IES Abroad Dublin Center for submitting these photos!

Moodle Faculty Incentive Award Winners!

The Moodle Faculty Incentive Awards are given to faculty who demonstrated growth and creativity in their use of educational technology in the past year. Thank you to all of the Centers that submitted nominations. The Greatest Growth in Educational Technology at an IES Abroad Center award will be announced in September. Congratulations to the following winners in other categories and notably to Buenos Aires for six nominations and three wins:

Faculty Leadership Travel Awards

IES welcomed nominations for ve awards to be given to faculty leaders who have demonstrated consistent creativity in using educational technology to ful ll the learning outcomes in their course. Each of the ve awardees will make a three-day visit to another IES Abroad center to give a talk on his/her area of academic expertise, and to conduct seminars and/or trainings on the use of educational technology in the classroom. The award also includes a $1,000 grant to each awardee in addition to expenses for the awardees Center visit.

Trc Long V Trn, Paris & Paris BIA Thomas Staub, European Union Costanza Asnaghi, Milan

Valentina Follo, Rome Diego Alonso, Buenos Aires

Most Creative Interactive Moodle Activities

The most important feature of Moodle is the ability for students to interact with each other and with the instructor. Applications were received from Centers with instructors who demonstrated the most creative use of Moodle to foster interactivity. Examples included SCORM, blogs, wikis and other interactive features available in Moodle. The award is a $500 USD professional development grant to be used for software, books, materials, or registration at a professional seminar. Each of the awardees will also conduct a webinar for other Centers.

Ann Foerster, Freiburg Natacha Llorente, Buenos Aires Birgit Glock, Berlin

Michel Berthet, Paris Mara Mejas, Barcelona

Best Use of Video

Three awardees were selected from submissions of Moodle-based activities that used video such as a video log and a student-designed video. Each of the videos selected ful lled one or more learning outcomes for the course and used an example of student work. Each awardee can select one of the following awards: a netbook computer, a tablet computer, or a Flip camera.

Maria Cangiano, Buenos Aires Gemma Draper, Barcelona

Paola Yaconis, Buenos Aires

Dublin June/July 2012

Moodle Semester Preparation - Course Import

Each term, the Center Moodle Admin must import courses, students, and events into Moodle. Courses are originally created in Atlas, and it is in Atlas that instructors and students are assigned to sections. Courses are pulled into Moodle from Atlas and appear on the Moodle Course Import page. From this page, the Center Moodle Admin can import courses into Moodle. Note that courses do not appear in Moodle immediately after being imported. Moodle synchronizes with Atlas 15 minutes after each hour; courses appear in Moodle after the hourly sync process.

When a course is imported into Moodle, its default settings make it not enrollable and not available (i.e. hidden to students). In order to import students into Moodle the course must be made enrollable and available for students. To do this, the Center Moodle Admin should go to the Administration block, click on Settings, change these course settings, and nally click Save changes. If these course settings are not changed, the student import process will not work and students will not be enrolled in their courses in Moodle.

Moodle Course Settings

Set Course enrollable to Yes Select This course is available to students.

Moodle Tip of the Month...

The Lesson Activity can be used for ash cards, quizzes and drills, for example when teaching vocabulary. A step-through guide on the Lesson Module can be found on the MoodleLearn website under Faculty Resources. Guides and tutorials for the Moodle modules and blocks featured in the monthly newsletter can be found on the MoodleLearn website: https://moodlelearn.elearning.iesabroad.org Use the following generic log-in: User ID - iesstudent Password - Student1

Moodle Semester Preparation - Student Import

Students can be imported into Moodle when they are in Arrived status in Atlas. The student status in Atlas is changed from Con rmed to Arrived when the Enrollment Management Department in Chicago receives the signatures of the arrived students from the Center. Please note that the Education Technology Team cannot change the status of a student. Also note that students cannot be imported into Moodle before the program arrival date. When students are ready to be imported into Moodle, they appear on the Moodle Student Import page. The Center Moodle Admin can then import the students into Moodle. Note that students do not appear in Moodle immediately after being imported. Moodle synchronizes with Atlas 15 minutes after each hour; students appear in Moodle after the hourly sync process. To verify that students have been imported, the Center Moodle Admin can click on the Participants link on the course page. Moodle Import Page - Center Admin View Only students who are enrolled in courses in Atlas can be imported into Moodle from the Moodle Student Import page. Moodle depends on Atlas for all sync information, including student enrollment in classes. Any student who is added manually to a course in Moodle but who is not registered for that course in Atlas will be removed from the course in Moodle during the hourly sync process. After students have been imported into Moodle, the Center must explain to students how they can access the Centers Moodle site. Email noti cations to students can be sent through Atlas or through Moodle. Center Admins can nd a Moodle Semester Preparation Quick Reference Guide located on the MoodleLearn website under Center Admin Resources. For general questions about the Moodle Import process, please contact the Educational Technology Team: Kattrina Cannon - Education Technology Manager, kcannon@iesabroad.org Erika Quinn - Education Technology Specialist, equinn@iesabroad.org.

New Moodle Student Guide Available!

Incoming students new to Moodle? Introduce them to Moodle with the new Moodle Student Guide. This helpful guide provides step-by-step instructions for students to log into Moodle, reset their passwords, and navigate the Moodle front page and courses. The Moodle Student Guide is available for download in Microsoft Word or PDF format on the MoodleLearn website under Center Admin Resources.
This newsletter was sent to provide the latest information for IES Abroad Moodle. IES Abroad Chicago 33 N. LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60602-2602 Phone: 1.800.995.2300

Moodle Book Module!

The Book Module is a resource that can be used to build online books chapter by chapter. The Book Module makes it easy to create multi-page collections of resources in a book-like format inside a Moodle course. Previously created websites can be imported into the Book Module, and books can be printed in their entirety or by chapter. The Book Module allows you to have main chapters and sub-chapters. The Module itself is not interactive, but it is possible to link to Choice activities, Forums, and other interactive modules from within a book. A book can also include multimedia objects such as Flash movies. For instructions for using the Moodle Book Module, log into MoodleLearn to nd the step-through guide under Faculty Resources.

Moodle Tool Guide for Instructors

Wondering which Moodle activities to use to achieve the pedagogical results you want for your course? Take a look at the Moodle Tool Guides for Instructors. The Moodle Tool Guides for Instructors are charts that help you nd the best Moodle activity for the result you want to accomplish with your students.

You can nd the Moodle Tool Guides in PDF format in the Faculty Resources section of MoodleLearn. The Moodle Tool Guides are available in English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Catalan, and Portuguese.

Upcoming MoodleMoots
A MoodleMoot is a gathering to discuss and learn about Moodle. Some MoodleMoots may include workshops, guest speakers or collaboration and discussions among guest attendees. Here are the 2012 MoodleMoots scheduled for the upcoming months:

Midwest MoodleMoot 2012 - Goshen, Indiana, USA, 25-27 July US West Coast MoodleMoot - Los Angeles, California, USA, 31 July-3 August Wisconsin MoodleMoot - Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, USA, 6-7 August MoodleMoot Romania 2012 - Arad, Romania, 20-26 August Swiss MoodleMoot 2012 - Luzern, Switzerland, 7-8 September 1st Moodle Research Conference - Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 14-15 September MoodleMoot Brazil 2012 - So Paulo, Brazil, 19-21 September MoodleMoot Spain 2012 - Madrid, Spain, 19-21 September MoodleMoot Hong Kong 2012 - Hong Kong, 20-22 September

Important: Back Up Your Courses

All IES Moodle courses are con gured to automatically create backups every Saturday at 12 noon in your Centers time zone. Please note that Moodle may be slower on weekends due to course backups. Backups include user data (e.g. grades, student work) and can be used to restore student data (e.g. grades, assignments). Only the two most recent course backups are retained. Instructors also have the option of saving the backup le to their hard drive by clicking the le and going through the regular Save procedure. After adding new content to your course its a good idea to backup your changes immediately.

International Technology Terms!

The technology term of the month is:

User Interface - A user interface, also called a "UI" or simply an "interface," is the means by which a person controls a software application or hardware device. A good user interface provides a "user-friendly" experience, allowing the user to interact with the software or hardware in a natural and intuitive way.

In this months IES Moodle Newsletter, well take at look at how technology terms can be written in di erent languages!
Italy interfaccia utente Andora (Catalan) interfcie d'usuari