Moodle Forums are very useful, and sometimes getting email by subscription is a great way to maintain communication. I frequently use the News Forum on each course to send students updates or announcements. I tend to send them homework assignments, but the students are really waiting to get cancellations and other important notices through Obirin Mail. Many users have email forwarded to their cellphones hoping they can sleep in or get an extra week to study for a quiz if the teacher is out.

Unfortunately, Moodle has spammed some users by repeatedly subscribing them to Forums without users realizing it. Here is one way to stop email from all regular Forums, but still allowing email from the important News Forum.

Download the one minute video Stopping Email From Moodle Part 1. The steps in this video are the same for students and for teachers. Please use the video in class, or embed it in your own Moodle course to help students learn how to stop unwanted email.

As teachers, follow the steps in this second video to prevent any user from subscribing to a specific Forum. It is very important to do this when you create the Forum. Download Stopping Email From Moodle Part-2.

This next video introduces a content management function: Hiding content from students, and then unhiding it. This is quite useful when developing a one year course. You can keep everything in one place, sharing content like glossaries or media, but showing only the current topics to students. Hiding sections is also a great way to keep works in progress hidden until they are ready to go.

Download the Quicktime video Moodle Tip 003–Hide and seek. Running time: Two minutes.

This video introduces one function in the Moodle Course settings–Changing the name of your course.

Download the Quicktime video of Moodle Tip 002–Change the name of your course. Playing time less than one minute.

The Obirin eLearning site has a lot of documentation on the front page. So much in fact that it tends to push the courses off the bottom of the screen. Watch this short video to see how to eliminate the clutter. Or, take a chance and just try it yourself. Next time you login to Moodle, add the word “my” to the end of the URL.

Download the Quicktime video of Moodle Tip 001–My Moodle. Playing time less than one minute.

Some of you may recall that there were two options for Moodle presented at the Retreat: An individual course for a single instructor and one group of students, and a Bulk Moodle course for everyone else who did not request a course of their own. That Bulk Moodle course has now arrived for Eigo IA and B Level 1. Look for laminated handouts around the part-time area, or download the handout here: Level 1 Moodle How To [PDF]

The lunch forum that was held on November 13 was a writing swap shop. Here are the activities and materials presented at the swap shop. For more information about these, please see the teachers listed below.

Peter Bellars
Deborah Bollinger
Damon Brewster
Alison von Dietze
Dan Jackson
Paul Joyce
Chihiro Tajima

writing swap shop folder 1

writing swap shop folder 2

I’ll be conducting a 1 hour workshop 30 May 2007 period 5 16:15-17:15 in Meimei-kan room 606 to help teachers use Moodle to get input from their students. This workshop will focus on the Choice and Feedback modules of Moodle. Teachers with any or no level of Moodle experience are welcome. The workshop will use Moodle to teach Moodle, so I can leave the course online for anyone who can’t make it. Teachers can enrol themselves in the course ELP Moodle Training Workshops as students at anytime using the enrolment key man8dog. A few bells and whistles won’t work if you enrol yourself later, but all of the instructional elements will be useful anytime in the future.

This handout may help you when looking at some of the settings that you need to select when using the Feedback module to create and activity. Please email me or try to find time to sit down at a computer in the Gakujikan if you have questions or need some assistance.

Moodle Workshop: Using the Feedback Module

Feel free to join the workshop late or at the last minute.

I usually find there are two ways that I get up to speed with new technology stuff: Either I go through things step-by-step and build up skills in order; or, I just wander around and let all the information wash over me until it starts to make sense.

Well, if you follow either of these ways of learning about new stuff, these videos should help you. There are three Moodle training videos here that you can watch online anytime you like. I didn’t make them. They were created by Paul Treadwell at Cornell University for the Digital Divide Network. We can use Cornell’s resources because he shared them under a Creative Commons license. Thanks, Paul!

Obirin’s Moodle Course has a slightly different design, but the tools and ideas are the same.

First, there is a general introduction to a simple course.
Working with Moodle- Course Skeleton and adding Resources, Courtesy of Paul Treadwell and Marguerite Wells- Cornell University. About 10 minutes.

Next, there is a video showing how to add a quiz.

Finally, there is a demonstration of how to add video to your Moodle course. About 3 minutes.

All these videos were provided under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.