Archive

Archive for the ‘Learning-Tool-is-any’ Category

What are best practices for recycling Moodle course teaching content? A running log

2011/12/08 Leave a comment
  1. Guiding Questions:
  2. I am in the process of creating Moodle assignments with instructors. I am inclined to tell them that this is best done now, before the term starts. I have met several instructors who seem to redo all their Moodle assignments and other content, for each term and each section, and who change Moodle courses on the fly, in the middle of the term, adding identical assignments to multiple sections. When I taught with the LMS (in Blackboard environments), the entire course (content) was “rolled over” between terms (and copied into sections), after subtracting student data. What are best practices in Moodle for reusing/recycling such course content, across terms, sections, and instructors? 
  3. Is it possible to get entire course+instructor combinations recycled centrally and automatically, whenever an instructor teaches a course again, from the archive of the last version of the course, sans student data?
  4. Or does each instructor, any time she reteaches a course, have to manually reimport all materials she wants to reuse from her old courses? So far, I have followed this page: http://teaching.uncc.edu/Moodle/how-to/importing-Moodle-course (here is an example of using the import feature when adding assignments into multiple sections in the middle of the term: https://plagwitz.wordpress.com/tag/importing+moodle/). Can this be done before term start at least into one section, from which the other section is created by copying? What would be the cut-off date for that?
  5. Would instructors use the last live version of the course to go forward, like I did with Blackboard, or are instructors advised to develop all content in separate development courses, and selectively import content from there into live courses? Does each instructor have a development course by default? Is it possible/advisable for an instructor to have one development course per actual course she teaches (repeatedly)? Does access of instructors to past courses expire when they get archived, and when would that be?
  6. Finally, how could assignments be exchanged between instructors who teach the same courses? 
  7. Courses seem to be complex packages. Repackaging individual assignments from one generic development course into course packs while importing seems administrative overhead, unless there is a in-built support for packaging that allows to add course tags to content. On the other hand, courses need to be easily updateable: student data needs to be added and removed easily. Teacher content needs to be refined, possibly updated with some current materials each term.
  8. Exploration:
    1. files planning:
      1. When publishing files, I have been trying to restrict all information that needs regular updating (dates, fine tuning of assignments and grading) to the syllabus files which I upload every term. So that I can “roll over” the rest of the course, including its files. 
      2. observe the (max 64mb) file size limit in your Moodle courses
      3. You cannot use this procedure to share Kaltura videos, not even the ones a teacher made
    2. importing
      1. importing steps see here.
      2. To be seamless, source and target course need to have the same format (settings / topical, weekly or other). Otherwise, your exports from a weekly formatted course into a topically formatted course will get put into the topic number corresponding to the week # (which, if you have set to fewer topics than you had weeks, may effectively hide them. Not to worry, you can still retrieve them by adding topics to your course, then moving the assignments where you want them).
      3. backing up/restoring
        1. backing up see here 
        2. restoring see here
        3. more on backup/restore from the Moodle docs FAQ
        4. primary instructor can use assign roles to add other teachers to give them access to importing; better create an intermediate, not student-accessible Moodle course for sharing instead
Categories: audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, e-learning, lms, service-is-learning-materials-creation Tags: , , ,

Screencasts for Fall 2011 Workshop: Computer classroom management in the LRC using Sanako Study 1200

2011/12/08 Leave a comment
  1. The workshop stayed  “this side of the digital audio lab”, i.e. focused on those generic teaching tasks that the Sanako Study 1200 can facilitate which have the widest teaching application (including in, but also beyond language-skill-courses):
    1. remote controlling student computers,
    2. screen sharing, collaborating with students,
    3. launching applications on students computers,
    4. sending students to webpages,
    5. launching handout files to students and collecting their input back
    6. locking their computers, screens or keyboards,
    7. “clicker” classroom polls, for which I have written a PowerPoint Template you can base your own clicker-like face-to-face class exercises on.
    8. and more…
    9. Here are two screencasts of my presentation:
      1. one for the right screen/participant screen (using the Study1200 teacher to student screen casting). Requires Windows Media Player on PC, like in the LRC: download from MS-SkyDrive.
      2. one for the left screen/projector, where I displayed mostly a PowerPoint. You can watch this in parallel using another player, e.g. the VLC player, like in the LRC. However, it can also stream from MS-SkyDrive.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-learning, LRCRoomCoed434, Presenter-Computer, Screencasts, software, Student-Computers, training, workshops Tags: , ,

A PowerPoint Template to base your clicker-like face-to-face class exercises on

2011/12/08 2 comments
  1. Enables easy exercise creation: slide0567_image532
  2. Resides on S:\coas\lcs\labs\lrctest\templates\Teacher.pot;
  3. Requires MS-PowerPoint 2010, as installed on the teacher computer in LRCRoomCoed434.
  4. Training videos are available for download here (requires Windows Media Player on Windows, as installed in the LRCRoomCoed434).
    1. powerpoint_template_overview_default_slide.wmv
    2. powerpoint_template_sequential_slides.wmv
    3. powerpoint_template_interactive_slides.wmv
  5. Usage samples available on request from
    1. German Beginners, teacher_pot_dual_screen_bundeslaender_with_response_analyzer
    2. Intermediate  cc-teacher-pot-interactive-drink-listening-comprehension
    3. and Advanced Classes. cc-teacher.pot-100-deutsche-jahre-example
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-learning, learning-materials, Presenter-Computer, presenter-computer, Screencasts, software Tags: , ,

More Moodle Kaltura video assignments here: French

2011/11/30 Leave a comment

  1. Yay! You can find the assignment right on your course home page:  french vance 1
  2. french vance
  3. Provided you do not miss the deadline – visit your calendarfrench vance calendar, better load your deadlines into NINERMAIL at term start
  4. Come to the LRC to record your Moodle video assignment and practice speaking with our webcams.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-languages, French, learning-usage-samples, lms, marketing, multimedia-recording, Speaking Tags: , ,

How to start the term with making your Moodle courses available to your students

2011/11/30 Leave a comment
  1. Three simple steps:
  2. moodle-unhide
  3.  moodle-unhide2
  4. moodle-unhide3
  5. Beats making courses available by default, when you might still refine them.
Categories: audience-is-teachers, e-learning, lms, service-is-training Tags: , , ,

How to duplicate assignments in Moodle course sections by importing

2011/11/30 Leave a comment
  1. Limitation: You cannot use other users’content. Use the backup/restore content procedure instead.
  2. Benefits are:
    1. You can save the time it would take to redo the assignment from scratch.
    2. plus avoid breaking things when you try and copy the assignment over manually: this built –in way does not break links.
  3. But have to jump through these hoops:
    1. Start here:import-1
      1. Choose your source course which has the assignment: import0
      2. Then choose what assignment you want to import: import1
      3. Jumpimport2
      4. throughimport3
      5. theimport4
      6. hoopsimport5
      7. done:  import6-done
Categories: assessments, audience-is-teachers, e-learning, lms, service-is-learning-materials-creation, service-is-training Tags: , ,

LRC computer and other hardware inventory

2011/11/24 Leave a comment
  1. These lists document hardware owned by the LRC:
    1. Symantec-Ghost generated.
    2. A handmade overview (partially based on the previous) can be (permissions provided) viewed or edited here.
Categories: Area-is-any, audience-is-IT-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-manager, audience-is-language-learning-center-staff, audience-is-language-learning-center-temp-staff, documentation, e-infrastructure, hardware, Metrics, service-is-documenting, Spreadsheets Tags:

Symantec Ghost Software inventory of the LRC PCs

2011/11/24 Leave a comment
  1. This list documents the configuration of the LRCRoomCoed434 and LRCRoomCoed433PCs (that are imaged using the Symantec Ghost client).
    1. View here.
    2. LRC staff click here for edit in browser access to the non-embedded list.
    3. Click here for background information about this inventorying method.
Categories: audience-is-IT-staff, e-infrastructure, hardware, Listening-Stations, LRCRoomCoed434, Metrics, Presenter-Computer, software, Spreadsheets Tags: , ,