How to…

Set up your Moodle 1.9 class. 1. You may have an administrator add your course for you.

If you are doing admin yourself, you’ll login and in the site

administration block, you’ll click on Add/edit courses.

Each installation is different, and these steps are Moodle

admin, so I won’t go into detail here

2. Your administrator will have created a userid for

you as a teacher or course creator role so that you

can create your class. Enter your class (if already

created) and click on Turn Editing On (upper

right). (If you’re the Admin and just created the

course, you’ll be taken to the Settings dialog

directly.)

3. Then go to the Administration block (lower left).

Click on Settings. This is where you tell your course

the basics about the organization of your course.

Most things you will want to leave as defaults for

now. You can always go back and change items later.

4. Click on the ? to see more information for each item.

5. Here are the basic settings for one of my courses.

Your administrator will have set

the Category (I use the teacher’s

name). The Full name is a few

word description of your course.

The Short name is especially

important – this is what will

show in the “breadcrumbs,” so

make it meaningful to your

students. The Summary shows

in the school catalog, but doesn’t

have to be long.

Format is a very important

decision. Most people either

select Topics or Weekly, and

then select the number of topics

or weeks. You can always

change the number later.

6. Enrollment (not shown here) is very site-dependent, so you will probably have to ask your site

administrator what settings you want to use. Enrollment in Moodle seems to have been set up

for adults, but since many of us work with kids – and kids don’t always follow directions so well

– it’s usually better to enroll students in bulk.

7. This is where you set the default for groups

(but you can change this for individual

activities).

8. This is also where you set up availability

(whether students have access to it yet) and

guest access. If you want to provide guest

access provide an enrollment key (essentially a

password) and change Guest Access. Guests can see everything students can see, but can’t

change anything. Be careful with Guest Access. Who has the right to see everything in your

course? Consider the privacy of your students, particularly if there are minors. What is your

school policy? Do the parents of child A have the right to see the work of child B? Guest Access

is nice to offer to your principal, who can see the course, but can’t alter it by mistake.

9. At the bottom, click on Save Changes and you’re set to go.

Now you’re looking at your basic Moodle page. This will be a little different for each installation.

10. Concentrate on the center for now.

11. The top “topic” is always News. Unlike D2L and other LMS (Learning Management

Systems)/CMS (Content Management Systems)/ VLE (Virtual Learning Environments), the

“news” won’t show directly there. Students have to click on the News Forum and then on the

individual thread. My 8th graders never read what I post there, so I don’t use the News Forum.

If you don’t want to use it, click on the Eye next to the

News Forum and this will minimize what’s in this

“topic.”

This is a good time to describe these icons, which are associated with each activity/resource, but

only show if you have clicked on Turn Editing On.

The right arrow means to indent the item. (Once it’s indented, you’ll have the choice to un-indent.)

The up/down arrows indicate that you want to move the item. When you click on that, you’ll see

possible places to move it, and click on the place that you want.

The Notepad/pencil icon means Edit. This allows you to change the name and the content of this

particular activity/resource.

The red X means delete this item. You’ll be asked if you REALLY want to delete this.

The eye open means this is an item that students can see. The eye closed means you can see it, but

students cannot. This is a toggle.

The figure indicates the group status (mouse over it and you’ll see the group status for this activity).

12. Now, let’s create a unit of study. Use an empty topic (not the news topic, because you can’t

move it).

It looks

like this.

The number

indicates the topic

number. The square in the top right corner, if clicked, will make all but the top topic disappear (usually

this happens by accident – click it again and everything shows again. The eye shows whether or not this

topic is visible to students. The up and down arrows allow you to move this topic among the rest of the

topics. The light bulb is used to highlight the current topic.

13. You can start with the Edit icon, next to the number. This is for the Summary information about

the topic – the title and associated picture. This is essentially the main label for this topic. I

strongly suggest that

you use an image

here. Moodle can be

quite boring to look at

without images. Click

on the Edit icon and

you’ll see this (right):

14. The editing icons you

see are similar to

those you’re familiar

with in programs like

Word. But there are

additions. If you want

to copy in text from

Word, you’re wise to

use the W

icon – it

strips out most of the extra garbage Word adds –

but I’ve found that items that were bullet points in

Word still don’t all get copied.

15. You can also switch to HTML (handy if you are

embedding a video from elsewhere).

Adding pictures is more complex than you may be used to.

You must either have the dedicated URL of the picture or

have it already stored on your computer.

Click on the picture icon (next to the happy

face). You’ll get this dialog:

Edit

icon

If you have a URL just for the picture, copy

and paste it into the Image URL box.

Otherwise, click on the icon to the right

(indicated with the arrow). You’ll then have the opportunity to Browse on your own computer. Once

you’ve found the file you want, click on

Upload.

You’ll see the image listed (or find it in

the list). Click on it and it will appear

in the Image URL box. Now, add an

Image Description (this is the Alt Text

for students using screen readers). But

don’t stop yet. Click on the Appearance tab, so you can tell

Moodle where in the topic you want the image to show.

Select the Alignment you want.

Then click on Insert and click on Close. Now you’ll see the

picture, still in the Edit mode. Add any text, format as

desired, and click on Save Changes. If you’re not happy, go

back and modify.

Note: you can shrink an image within Moodle, but it’s better

to resize the image outside of Moodle, as Moodle will store all that data about the picture, and it will

take longer to load. I use http://webresizer.com/.

16. Now you’re ready to add resources and activities.

(Remember, Editing must be on for you to be able to

do this). On the left are Resources. Each Moodle

installation has slightly different offerings, so you may

not see the same Resources as are shown here. The

most used in the beginning are

Insert a Label (for headings and directions),

Compose a web page (preferable to a Word doc)

Don’t bother with the summary.

Link to a file or web site. Don’t bother with the

summary.

17. On the right are Activities. Again, these will vary by

Moodle installation. You can see that my installation has

more Activities than can show without scrolling down.

Those you will probably use initially may be:

Forum (discussion)

Glossary

Quiz or Hot Potatoes (if available – easier)

Choice

Again, if there is a summary, don’t put what you want to display in your Moodle there.

18. Once you have added resources and activities, move

them around (using the up and down arrows), and

maybe add labels to help students understand your

organization.

19. Now, test it. Switch role to Student. This is useful

for discovering that you forgot to make the activity

visible ;)

20. But when you’re working with something complex,

use a test student to try the activity out. Especially

when working with discussions and with groups, this will show you how something really works.

A test student is a student record that is used just for testing – it can help you keep from making

embarrassing mistakes that also frustrate your students.

21. Explore, practice, and see what works. If you can possibly have students start working with

Moodle in school (say, in the computer lab, or with those 3 computers at the back of the

classroom), you will build confidence for them (and for you), and help them try things out when

you are around to help. Not every student is a technology whiz and some students don’t like

technology all that much. With some practice your students will fly.

Label