VLE

Moodle refresh for 2018/19

Each year, Moodle courses are refreshed to remove old student data and prepare for the next cohort of students.

For 2018 the refresh will take place on:

Tuesday 14 August and Wednesday 15 August 2018. Moodle will be unavailable all day for all users.

Tuesday 11th September 2018 for courses used to collect dissertation submissions (primarily those with 499 course codes). These courses will be unavailable on Moodle all day.

Current staff and students will need to take action to ensure they have all the information they need from Moodle before the refresh take effect. More information about the process can be found on our website:
http://lti.lse.ac.uk/moodle-end-of-year-arrangements/

If you have any queries email lti.support@lse.ac.uk

June 20th, 2018|Announcements, Moodle, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Delete and declutter

It’s coming up to the start of term and time to get Moodle courses ready for the new cohort of students. We have refreshed most courses and upgraded to the new theme so it’s the perfect time to clear out old material, delete and de-clutter!

The LTI Moodle audit identified many issues with layout and structure that could easily be rectified by following our suggestions below.

Common issues and how to solve them:

Poor structure

Many courses consist of one long messy list with content hard to find and often current material is hidden at the bottom of the page.

Consider a different course format. Perhaps the grid or collapsed topics if you have lots of content.
It may be worth hiding and revealing content as the course progresses so students see the most current information at the top of the page. You can also highlight the most current section by clicking on the light bulb on the right hand side.
If you have lots of material on the same topic then it might be worth consolidating it into a Moodle page or Book.
Consider the order that you present material to students – you might want to move sections around so important information is at the top of the page and is quicker and easier to find.
You might want to add a table of contents block with links to each section highlighted.
When using the grid format Images can provide visual clues and signposts to students as to the type of material each section contains.

Inconsistent titles

Once you have chosen your course format make sure that you have consistent titles for each section or topic.

Try to use titles that are clear and descriptive rather than the default section 1, section 2.
Remember that you can add labels to clearly sign post material.
You can also use the text editor to add colour, or different text size if you want to emphasise certain text.
If you have a large course you may want to use the groups and groupings features on Moodle to ensure student can differentiate and access between the various resources and assignments.

Too much clutter

Many courses have old material hidden that dates back years and can clutter the page for editors – don’t be afraid to delete things!

Moodle now has a recycle bin so things can be restored within seven days if deleted in error. LTI also keep back up copies of all courses every year and retain them in an archive so your current course does not have to contain a historical record of old course files.
If you have lots of sections that are not in use then delete them, you can always add more sections later.

Broken links

Check that the links on your course still work, if you are linking to LSE reading lists make sure you use the reading list activity and if you are linking to lecture recordings you will need to use the Echo360 activity and make sure that you have consented for your lectures to be recorded on LFY.

Deadlines and dates

Make sure that your course start date is correct in the Edit Course settings, this is especially important if you are using the weekly format.
Ensure that any dates and deadlines are up to date and check your settings if you are using the assignment activity.

Check enrolments

Automatic enrolments are now active on Moodle, so when students make course choices in LSE for You, they will automatically be enrolled in the corresponding Moodle course. Choices for 2017/18 made by continuing students have already been processed.

Check your course is set up for automatic enrolment. This can be done by going into the settings: Administration block > Edit Settings. If the “Course ID number” field is empty. Please contact Lti.support@lse.ac.uk.

If using alternative methods of enrolment please check that they have been set up properly. This can be done by looking in the Administration block > Users > Enrolment methods.

Teaching staff may still be enrolled on the course from previous years. Email LTI to remove any enrolments that are no longer accurate.

Lastly remember to make your course visible to students. Even if students are enrolled on your course they will not see it in their list of courses or be able to access it if it is still hidden in the edit settings.

September 18th, 2017|Assessment, Moodle, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Moodle recharge

Following on from our post back in February on our plans for Moodle we will be holding an event for all Moodle editors on Tuesday 27 June from 3-4pm to give everyone a sneak peak of the changes that will taking place this August in time for the new academic year.

Moodle is getting a recharge for 2017/18. In addition to the usual refresh of all courses we will be upgrading to version 3.1. On the 27 June we will be going through some of the new features that we think editors will be most interested in and unveil our new theme for the platform. We will also share the results of our Moodle audit and invite Moodle editors to try out our new features ‘my feedback’ and Moodle labs.

New features
Moodle 3.1 features improvements to the layout, course editing, course administration, grading, and activities. We will go through some of the more significant changes plus give attendees a chance to try out our new interactive guides.

Moodle theme

LTI will be changing the look of Moodle to be more in line with the LSE website. We will give LSE Moodle editors a sneak preview of the new theme.

Moodle Audit

In March 2017 LTI carried out/commissioned an independent review of a sample of LSE Moodle courses from across all the departments. Approximately 22% of all courses were reviewed using three different metrics – the 3E framework (Enhance, Extend, Empower), an overall classification and a traffic light Red, Amber, Green system. We will be sharing the findings of this audit and promoting some of the good practice that was discovered as a result. Individual reports will also be made available for departments which highlight areas or issues that were cause for concern or need attention.

Moodle labs

A separate instance of Moodle that features the latest release for teachers to test out new approaches to teaching and is available for LTI grant projects.

My feedback

Developed by and rolled out successfully at UCL. My feedback allows students and staff a single view of all Moodle grades and feedback.

To reserve a place at the Moodle recharge event please book via the LSE Training and Development system.

More information about the Moodle refresh for 2017/18 can be found on the LTI website.

If you have any questions about the Moodle refresh or recharge email LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk

May 15th, 2017|Announcements, Events & Workshops (LTI), Moodle, Show and tell, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Light for LTI by Helen Page www.helenlouisepage.com

Students are expected to do a substantial amount of their learning outside of the classroom and technology such as Moodle can be used to engage with resources and carry out active learning. All too often staff and students use Moodle to simply access and download material. However good use of the different activities and features can enable more interaction outside of class in order prepare students for in class activities and support students to develop peer learning.

Embedding Moodle activities into your face to face teaching can be aided by introducing them at the outset and referring to activities in lectures and classes. Student engagement can be encouraged by ensuring that activities relate to course content, referring to readings, lecture content and seminar discussions. Participation should be expected (set out as a course requirement) and contributions should be encouraged and supported through teacher engagement. Some examples of successful activities used at LSE include;

Pre-course discussion activities:

These help start to develop a learning community but also get students used to contributing and participating online.

Ice breaker
Students are asked to introduce themselves and say a bit about their background and why they are interested in studying the topic.

Resource discussion
Students are required to watch a short film clip or other relevant resource and post some thoughts about it onto a group discussion forum before the first lecture.

Preparation for lectures and seminars:

These encourage early engagement with course readings and help students to be more prepared for face to face discussions and activities. Participation can be encouraged by making contributions count towards assessment.

Blog posts
Students have to write one blog post in response to the allocated week’s readings. All students should visit the blog before coming to class and make a comment on the entry posted for that week. The blog entries are then viewed at the start of the seminar each week before moving on to a more general discussion of the week’s topic.

Presentations
Require students to post or even record presentations before class. Other students must come ready with questions.

Discussion forums
Teachers can post answers to common queries and reach the entire cohort or class rather than having to send multiple individual emails. Relevant items of interest can be posted by teachers, talks, news items, interviews and students can be encouraged to share their own questions and discussion topics.

Collaborative (students as producers) activities:

These encourage students to apply their learning to create and collaborate. Asking students to re-contextualise or critically evaluate theory and concepts develops deep learning skills.

Wiki’s
Students work in groups or individually to write wiki entries.

Glossary
Students are asked to add glossary entries. These can be definitions of key concepts or relevant images, videos or news stories.

Assessment and feedback:

the majority of activities already mentioned can be used as part of a formative or summative assessment but there are also specific activities that enable e-assessment.

Quizzes
These can be used to diagnostic purposes before courses start or to test understanding of key concepts at various stages throughout a course. Feedback can be given immediately within Moodle so students can complete at their own pace and reassess understanding as many times as they want. Common areas of misunderstanding can be reviewed in seminars and lectures.

Peer assessment and feedback
Students are required to submit an assignment online and then use marking guidelines and or rubrics to grade and give feedback to a peer. Teachers review the work and feedback. Final marks take into account the peer feedback and the peer marking activity. Students gain a greater understanding of the marking process and find marking another’s work allows them to reflect on their own assessment.

Collective feedback
Teachers provide collective feedback for the cohort/class that goes over some common mistakes and provides model answers. Feedback can be given via video, audio, or text. Model answers can be annotated to illustrate links to marking guidelines or learning outcomes.

Course evaluation and student feedback:

Allows teachers to find out what students views on what worked and what can be improved. Activities can be used in conjunction with course restrictions to ensure engagement, for example students cannot upload an assignment until they have completed the activity.

Questionnaires
These can be used to gain feedback on your own teaching. Responses from students can be anonymous.

Quick poll
These can be used to answer one specific question. Students can only see the overall responses once they have submitted their individual answer.

Hot topic
Students can post questions for lectures and rate each other’s questions.

To see more examples of embedding Moodle activities into face to face teaching see our Moodle portal. If you have any queries or questions about how you can use Moodle in your teaching see our Moodle guides, book a training session or contact LTI.Support@lse.ac.uk;

October 4th, 2016|Assessment, Moodle, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Musings on Moodle part 2 – layout and design

As the previous blog post in this series indicated students often experience dissatisfaction with inconsistencies among layouts and types of information provided on Moodle courses. With over 1,307 standard Moodle courses and an additional 172 Summer School courses on Moodle there is a huge variety in approaches to using Moodle. The most common complaint that students have is not being able to find material. Setting up a well structured course design can avoid this problem.

Clear signposting

Your course should have an intuitive logical structure, this can be linked to the course structure (course topics) or face to face teaching (week 1,week 2) but it should be consistent and easy to navigate. Keep assessment information in one place and use clear titles and labels (see more on labels below). You may want to include a simple statement on how students are expected to use the course or particular resources and activities.

Avoid the ‘scroll of death’

Moodle courses can all too often develop into extremely long page of resources and activities with users finding they have to scroll down and endlessly search to find anything. Several of the new themes such as ‘collapsed topics’ or ‘grid’ format help to signpost and divide up your Moodle course in easy to navigate sections. (A guide to different Moodle formats can be found on our Moodle portal).

Use labels
It is always worth using labels to identify different aspects of your course. Labels can be images as well as text, remember to use creative commons images and attribute appropriately. When providing titles for resources and activities make sure they are clear, consistent and work out of context, generic titles like ‘summative assessment’ can cause confusion.

Make it accessible

Any images should contain a description for screen readers. Different colours and fonts can be useful to make distinctions between information but make sure they can be read clearly and will work on all devices. Check out the Government Digital Service guide on the ‘Dos and don’ts on designing for accessibility’. When adding files or links make sure that you select ‘automatic’ for the display option under appearance settings to allow for pop up blockers or devices that will not download files.

Remove clutter

A cluttered course can be difficult to navigate. You may want to use the book or lesson activities to group resources together. Make sure that you update your course each year, are the resources from 3 years ago still relevant? Do the links to external resources still work?

Apply restrictions

Access restrictions can hide and then reveal activities so students cannot progress until they have met certain requirements.

Groups and groupings can ensure that students only see material that is relevant to them. Class groups are created automatically from timetable information so using the groups option in activities allows teachers to view student participation by each of their class group.

Activity completion
One way signpost the suggested or compulsory activities on your course is to use the activity completion feature. If you can combine this with course completion it provides students with a clear indication of how they are progressing on the course and can give you a quick snapshot of how students are engaging on the course.

Mix it up

Using a variety of resources; images, video, tv, web, audio, can keep students interested and engaged in course content. Alternative formats can allow for different approaches to study (listening to a podcast on the commute) and help students to apply concepts and theories from classes and lectures to real world case studies and develop critical thinking skills.

Similarly a mixture of activities can develop students understanding and indicate that they are expected to be active learners. See post 3 for more details on how to embed moodle activities into your face to face teaching.

To see some examples of good Moodle design see our Moodle portal.

September 27th, 2016|Moodle, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Making more of Moodle

Here within LTI and in the wider learning technology community there has been a longstanding debate on how to make more of Moodle and ensure that it is used to it’s full potential as a learning tool. In an ideal world the VLE(1), in our case Moodle, plays an essential part in the learning process, allowing students to go at their own pace through material, test their understanding of key concepts or theories, work with others to develop and produce content, gain feedback on their progress and build a learning community. Online course features should interweave with face to face teaching, link to the course learning outcomes and follow a clear sequence of activities which build on each other and are referred to in lectures and classes. That is how it could be used, but how is it currently used at LSE and what can we do to improve things?

In these three blog posts I have explored the issue of how we can make more of Moodle. These short Musings on Moodle are grouped under the three themes of standardisation, layout and design and embedding Moodle activities into face to face teaching.

Part 1 – the standardisation or baseline debate

Part 2 – layout and design

Part 3 – embedding Moodle activities into face to face teaching

(1) Virtual learning environments (VLE’s) are online interactive platforms that are designed to support educational courses, by providing a consistent way for staff and students to store and access resources and tools. These online learning spaces allow teachers and students flexible access to material and provide ways of communicating and assessing collaboratively and individually. Here at LSE we use Moodle as our VLE with the aim that it will support ‘blended learning’, (a combination of online and face to face learning).

September 20th, 2016|Moodle, Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies, Uncategorized|Comments Off|

Free Cloud LMS: Opportunity, Threat or Irrelevance?

With Blackboard’s announcement of the takeover of Moodlerooms and NetSpot last week the VLE/LMS market is clearly undergoing a fair amount of change after a few years of relative inactivity. I originally wrote this piece for a talk at a recent meeting of the M25LTG reflecting on new possibilities and opportunities for teachers to use free cloud-based course management systems instead of institutional VLEs/LMS. I also wanted to consider the non-financial costs and risks involved in this.

Cloud LMS?

A while back I joined Quora and one of the first questions I came across was “What are the major differences between Coursekit, Piazza and Instructure?”. I had only just come across Piazza, but my interest was grabbed by the descriptions of Coursekit and Instructure Canvas, so I decided to investigate.

I’ve used the term LMS (Learning Management System) in the more general sense as it might be used in the US – to cover both ‘teaching’ and ‘training’ related systems. While Blackboard is the leading paid-for LMS provider, there are already a few free LMS or VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) systems out there, e.g. Moodle, but the difference is that the new breed of free cloud LMS are hosted and completely free to the teacher – like any other free or ‘freemium’ cloud-based application such as Google Docs or WordPress.

A key difference, compared to established LMS solutions, is that an individual teacher can sign up and set up a course area in no time at all, as both are designed to be very quick and easy to use. Obviously, it still takes the same amount of time and effort to create your content and learning activities.

Both Coursekit and Instructure Canvas launched in 2011 and of the cloud-based education apps that I have seen they most clearly resemble an institutional VLE. According to at least one blog article written at the time both were in some way reactions to a distinct student dislike of using Blackboard. You only need to check the comments on these articles for confirmation that this dislike is still fairly commonplace.

“Canvas is awesome! I’m at a university where the official LMS is Blackboard (horrible!) but several of my professors have recently had us use Canvas. It’s vastly superior to Blackboard, I really like it.”

Comment by Joshua Lyman on “Instructure Launches To Root Blackboard Out Of Universities“, Techcruch.com

“I’m a student and my university uses blackboard as its LMS. Let me tell you, it’s one of the worst platforms I have ever used…I also have a terrible time using it. It’s very counter intuitive and I usually end up spending more time finding the what I need for an assignment than the actual assignment itself…Remember, people don’t know what they want until you tell them what they want, and maybe it’s time to tell them to try something new.”

Comment by Allan Yu on “The Ingenious Business Model Behind Coursekit, A Tumblr For Higher Education“, Fastcompany.com

Why would a teacher use a free cloud LMS platform?

One of the key strengths of these systems is their simplicity. They are generally limited to providing file resources, a list of books/readings, assignments and calendar and a platform for internal course communication.

“We wanted to create a simple, elegant LMS that covers 95% of instructors’ needs… Blackboard covers 100%– that’s why it’s such a cluttered platform.”

Coursekit founder, Joseph Cohen.

Communication is primarily in the form of a message board more like a Facebook feed than a traditional Blackboard/Moodle style web discussion board. Although VLEs have always had communication at their core, there is definitely something attractive about the way that communication is presented in these examples of LMS – especially CourseKit. The creators have recognised the ubiquity of social media such as Twitter and Facebook and taken this to the heart of their product.

Opportunities

Teachers may have more of a perception of ownership if they are wholly responsible for the creation and updating of their course. They are possibly more likely to invest effort in making their online course work.
More social than most current VLE systems
Easy-To-Use
Independent teachers: anyone can set up courses independent of their institution.
We can take the best qualities of these platforms to improve our institutional systems.
Looking to the future: is it time to reassess the value of an institutional VLE?

Risks

Most of the risks are related to the possibility that teachers will vote with their feet and set up their own course areas independent of any institutional VLE. Many risks are common with the use of any cloud-based application:

Data protection issues – sensitive personal information shouldn’t be stored on such services.
Confidential information
Business continuity – what if CourseKit has an unplanned outage or simply goes bust?
Intellectual property owned by the institution or lecturer.
Loss of control – if you want something changed it may be more difficult to lobby for such changes. Also, changes can be imposed with little or no notice.

Source: LSE’s guide to using cloud-based services

Additionally, there is a risk of confusion for students who will potentially have to use different VLEs/LMS for different courses and the loss of the opportunity to link the core course delivery platform to other systems in an institution.

What happens when the single member of staff that is the owner of a course on one of these platforms leaves their institution or is unfortunate enough to not be in a state to hand over the course to somebody else?

How can they be free?

At the time of writing CourseKit have vague plans to start advertising – so this constitutes another risk as the teacher is unlikely to have control over the type of advertising, plus the advertising will only serve to distract the students from their learning!

Canvas operates a freemium model where individual teachers can use the platform at no cost and has a chargeable Premium option for institutions. They can only be hoping that enough teachers signup at any one institution to make this a viable option.

The future

Can we or should we as learning technologists dissuade or even prevent the use of these ‘additional VLE options? Especially, when in many cases we promote the use of other cloud apps for teaching and learning. Are teachers just likely to go ahead and use them anyway?

Some (e.g. Mark Stiles) have for quite a while been contemplating ‘the death of the VLE’ – contending that the core functions of the VLE will be in time just be another tool in the cloud combined with other more obvious cloud-based applications. Could this be an open source streamlined/slimmed down VLE where only the hosting is paid for i.e. a hosted ‘streamlined’ Moodle or something like OpenClass (by Pearson)? Is this a step in that direction? On the face of it Blackboard clearly see there is a business future in cloud hosted VLEs/LMS, but their view appears to still focus on the institutionally managed and operated environment.

April 2nd, 2012|Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|3 Comments|

Why LSE is sticking with Moodle 1.9

A little while ago LSE decided that it would stick with Moodle 1.9 and not move to Moodle 2.0 for the academic year 2011-12. The LSE Centre for Learning Technology (CLT) started looking at Moodle 2.0 pretty much as soon as the first usable beta version was released. At that stage we decided on a number of criteria that needed to be met before we would make the decision to upgrade during summer 2011. We needed to make the decision at least by our Easter break so that we would have time to implement the upgrade and design and provide any training that might be required.

The decision not to upgrade was made after some criteria had not been met and CLT testing concluded that Moodle 2.0 wasn’t ready to go into enterprise level production at LSE. The main blocking factor was the lack of readiness of third-party modules that we use and rely on. Aside from waiting for them to be released we would have also needed to implement a testing programme for these before we would have felt confident in going ahead with the upgrade.

During testing we of course also discovered some of the significant changes that Moodle has undergone from 1.9 to 2.0. The main one that we felt would affect the user experience is that of file management. In light of these changes and the fact that we have chosen not to upgrade this year we can now look at other alternatives such as integrating a repository system with Moodle. It will also give us extra time to look at using the new web services in Moodle 2.x to integrate with our student management systems at LSE. We now hope to upgrade during the summer 2012 break. And no, this isn’t an April Fools’ day story.

April 1st, 2011|Teaching & Learning, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Publishing Echo recorded lectures in Moodle

Update: I wouldn’t recommend using this method now. The EchoCenter works just fine, and has the added benefit of displaying analytics to instructors.

WTH?

EchoSystem, the lecture recording service we are running at LSE, provides various methods for publishing links to recorded lectures in Moodle, our VLE (LMS).

The “Moodle Publisher” places the links in the course calendar, with each recording listed as a separate “event”. This is useful, but it is not immediately apparent to our students that they should look there for the links.

If configured to do so, EchoSystem will generate RSS feeds for each course’s “section” or “module”. This is also useful, because RSS feeds can be used in a number of contexts, including Moodle’s Remote RSS feeds block. But there’s a problem: unless you have given your presenters the ability to edit their recordings (we haven’t), or you have the time to edit them yourself (we don’t), all the recordings from a particular section end up with the same title.

November 26th, 2010|Images, Audio & Video, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

Text Message (SMS) Pilots

Volunteers needed!

The CLT is looking for LSE teaching staff to pilot the use of text messages (SMS) in teaching. If you would like to participate in the pilots let us know by email to clt-support@lse.ac.uk

Some ideas of how text messages (SMS) could be used for out-of-class and in-class activities include:

Polling students before, after or during a class
Reminding students of a deadline
Prompting students to complete an (online) activity between classes
Collecting short answers/questions from students

The SMS pilots will use txttools integrated into Moodle. If you have any queries or you would like to discuss this further please contact Athina or Matt via clt-support@lse.ac.uk