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Moodle Q&A: How to transfer content from one course to another

As the semester winds down, faculty may need to move assignments, quizzes, videos, audio files or photos from one class to another. The easiest way to do this is through Moodle’s Import feature. This allows you to reuse instead of recreate activities and resources.

Q: How do I transfer material from one course to another?

A: You can transfer all materials or specific activities from a course. By importing a course’s content, you avoid having to recreate all class materials. Review the step-by-step instructions on our Technology wiki.

Read other Moodle Musings posts, which include FAQs and tips on how to enhance teaching and learning.

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Moodle Q&A: Student collaboration functions

In this Moodle Q&A post on groups, faculty ask about student collaboration functions. In previous Moodle Q&A posts on groups, we discussed what groups are, why we should use them, how to create them and how to collect assignments from them.

Moodle handles groups differently than Blackboard. In Blackboard, groups were automatically given a workspace that included discussion boards, file sharing and more. In Moodle, you create the groups and then create the activities you would like for groups to have and use. The advantage of Moodle’s approach is you can give your groups only the functions they will use. For example, to allow for group file sharing, you can create a wiki or group discussion forum where members of the group can collaborate.Group discussion forums introduce an element of interactivity to the classroom as they allow students to comment on class material. Additionally, group discussion forums allow individual users to share files with others and respond to previous entries. See how Dr. Karl Sienerth used group discussion forums in his CHM174 online class.

Wikis, or collections of collaboratively-authored web documents, allow students to create and edit documents together. Typically, there is no single editor of a wiki page—all users have equal access in contributing and editing content. Instructors can use wikis to allow students to combine their lecture notes, to create virtual workspaces for groups, to promote brainstorming and to encourage collaborative storytelling.

Note: The glossary function within Moodle does not support the use of group modes.

Q: How do I create a group discussion forum where students can communicate and share files?

A: Before starting, you need to determine what type of discussion you would like your students to have and then select if groups will have access to other groups’ forums. You can choose from options such as wikis, blogs or forums, but in this case, we will discuss how to create a forum. Review the step-by-step instructions on our Technology wiki.

Read other Moodle Musings posts, which include FAQs and tips on how to use Moodle to enhance teaching and learning.

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Moodle Q&A: How to collect assignments from groups

A group working together.In this Moodle Q&A post on groups, faculty ask how to collect particular assignments from different groups.

Collecting assignments from groups is advantageous because it allows you to view submitted assignments from specific groups rather than from the class as a whole. For example, imagine you have assigned a group project in your class and want one team leader from each group to submit his or her group’s work. By using group assignments, you can quickly view the submitted assignments and the members of the group. This is what you would see:

group assignment

In a previous post, we discussed the basics of Moodle groups by defining what groups are, why we should use them and how to create them.

Q: How do I collect assignments from groups?

A: It’s easy. There are basically two steps: Create groups then create the assignment. Learn how to create groups.

Review the step-by-step instructions on our Technology wiki.

Read other Moodle Musings posts, which include FAQs and tips on how to enhance teaching and learning.

Image by Flickr user Jörg WeingrillCreative Commons licensed BY-CC 2.0

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Moodle Q&A: Create Groups

In this Moodle Q&A series on groups, Elon faculty ask what groups are, why they should use them and how to create them.

Groups provide a way for instructors to arrange students into clusters so that assignments and grades can be allocated and accessed separately.

 

Continue reading »

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Save time grading with joule Grader

Save timeProviding feedback and grading assignments can be very time consuming. Luckily, Moodle has a new feature that makes grading more efficient. The joule Grader puts all student submissions in one place making it easier for professors to grade one assignment and quickly move to the next assignment.  Continue reading »

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Moodle Q&A: Make grades and feedback visible to students

Grades and FeedbackIn this Moodle Q&A post, Elon faculty ask how to make grades and comments in their gradebooks visible to students.  In older posts, we discussed how to import grades from Excel into Moodle. Now, we’ll cover how to ensure students can see the feedback you are providing on those assignments.

Q: How can I make sure the grades and comments I’m posting in Moodle’s gradebook are visible to my students?

A: Making grades and comments visible to students is simple, just set up appropriate time stamps and enable visibility access. You can choose to display feedback for a limited amount of time or for the entire semester. Review the step-by-step instructions in our Technology wiki.

Read other Moodle questions from faculty.

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Moodle Q&A: Import grades from Excel into Moodle

Question mark signQuestion: I prefer to enter grades using Excel. How can I import grades into Moodle using Excel?

Answer: Importing grades from an Excel document into Moodle is easy, if you follow some very specific, non-intuitive, steps. Importing grades from Excel is useful if you prefer to use Excel for grade calculations or if you use Scantrons and have a spreadsheet of scores that you want to quickly copy and paste into Moodle.

Summary of steps:

  1. Add the grade items in Moodle
  2. Export the gradebook to a TXT file
  3. Enter the grades (or copy and paste from Scantron spreadsheet)
  4. Import the TXT file back into Moodle

The first step is to add the items you want to grade to the Moodle gradebook. The import will not work unless the items have been added to the gradebook in Moodle first. To do that, change views to Simple View.

Simple View

At the bottom of the page, click on “Add grade item.”

add grade item

Give that item a name and set the maximum points. You can either add all the graded items you’ll need for the semester — or wait and add them as you need them.

grade item detail

Now that your gradebook is setup in Moodle, you are ready to continue. Follow the directions at the bottom of this page to learn how to export and import your grades. (Wesleyan University)

Note for instructors using Scantrons: You won’t be able to import the spreadsheet with your Scantron results. Instead, you’ll need to copy a column of grades then paste that into the correct column on the spreadsheet you exported from Moodle.

Read other Moodle questions from faculty.

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