Moodle Help

Writing an Announcement

All students are automatically subscribed to announcements, which allows you to communicate with your whole class. Students will receive announcements posts as an email, and will also be able to view them within Moodle. Students are unable to post or reply to announcements. To write an announcement, do the following: 

1. Click announcements on your course homepage. 

2. Click add discussion topic. Fill out the information on the page and select post to forum. There is a 30 minute delay before the post will be sent out. To avoid this, click advanced and select send forum post notifications with no time-editing delay to share your post immediately. 

Creating a Forum

The forum activity enables asynchronous threaded discussion between students and faculty. In a forum, participants can post comments and share content. Forums can be graded using whole forum grading, making it easy to award points/credit for student participation. Before creating the forum, consider these online discussion strategies in our Tips for Teaching Online, and then do the following:

1. In the top right corner of your course, toggle on editing. 
2. Select add an activity or resource and select forum.
3. On the next page, add a forum name (required).
4. Choose a forum type. Most will use "Standard forum for general use." 
5. You can add a description, additional files, minimum word count, and dates. Use Groups if you wish students to have discussions in smaller groups.
6. Forums can be graded by changing the settings under whole forum grading from none to scale or point.
7.  Click save and display.  
8. To monitor student participation in forums, go to your list of participants in the course and click on a student's name. Under reports, click complete report to view student participation. This may prove easier than going through each forum to track individual engagement.

Utilizing Quickmail

With Quickmail, you can send messages to one or many students. Remember that students are unable to send messages through Quickmail.  To send a message, do the following:

1. In the top right corner of your course, toggle on editing. 

2. Select the arrow on the right of the screen to bring out a hidden menu and click add a block. Select Quickmail.

3. Choose individuals or groups to receive your message.

Utilizing Moodle Chat

Moodle Chat allows for text-based synchronous chats with others in the course. Potential uses include hosting scheduled office hours or meeting real-time with your class when not everyone has broadband internet access to support video conferencing. To utilize this feature, do the following:

1. In the top right corner of your course, click toggle on editing.
2. Click add an activity or resource and choose chat.
3. From this page, you can change the name of the chat room. Access can be limited to certain dates/times, and whether you want students to be able to view past chat sessions. 
4. After you have edited the chat activity, click save and display.

Utilizing Messages

Teachers, students, and other users can use Messages to send and receive private messages within Moodle. Teachers have the ability to send group messages to  participants in their courses. You can access Messages by doing the following:

1. In the top right corner of your course, click the word bubble icon to view your Message drawer and send Messages.
2. As a teacher, you can send messages to individuals or multiple users from within your list of participants. Select the checkbox next to the name(s) of user(s). Using the with selected users dropdown, select send a message.

Utilizing Zoom

You can have remote class discussion with Zoom. You should think very carefully about potential student equity issues (e.g. lack of access to connectivity or hardware) and the logistics of different time zones. When possible, sessions should be recorded and made available. You can upload to Kaltura and add captions. After considering this, you can access the following resources: 

1. Zoom - create your own username (your sessions have a 40-minute limit). If you need more time contact helpdesk@earlham.edu for an Earlham Zoom license. 
2. Quick Start Guide for Teaching (Earlham)
3. Zoom Teaching Manual (Claremont McKenna)
4. Earlham Zoom Resources

Adding a Profile Picture

User pictures are periodically uploaded from Banner. If you have loaded a different picture into Moodle it won't be overwritten, but if you have deleted your picture from Moodle, your Banner ID picture will be re-uploaded in the next sync. After considering this, do the following:

1. Log into Moodle and click your name in the top right screen. Go to preferences,  edit profile, and then scroll to the user picture area.
2. Drag your desired image to the new picture box. Your file should be .jpg or .png and that it will be automatically resized to a 100X100 pixel square. 

Changing Your Preferred Name

In order to change your preferred name in Moodle, you must follow these instructions to change your preferred name in The Heart/Banner Self-Service. These changes will automatically update Moodle. There may be a slight delay, as Moodle only updates Banner information every few hours.

To add your personal pronouns, do the following: 

1. Log into Moodle then click your name in the top right of the screen.

2. Choose  preferences, followed by edit profile.  

3. Scroll down to the pronouns.You may enter your pronouns in the box.

4. Click update profile to save your changes.

5. If you wish to change your personal pronouns in The Heart/Banner, click these instructions.