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Moodle Teachers – Let students track their progress with the Checklist plugin

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Moodle Teachers - Let students track their progress with the Checklist plugin
Moodle Teachers - Let students track their progress with the Checklist plugin

Moodle Checklist plugin allows the teachers & students to track their progress through a Moodle course. The students can tick off the items in the list as they progress through the course items which record their progress. The teachers create a To-Do list for students and students progress through it provides an easy visual representation of what has been accomplished so far. So, let’s start and see how you can use the Checklist plugin in your Moodle course.

The Checklist plugin is one of the most popular and actively maintained over past so many years. The plugin has received the Early Bird badge since Moodle 3.0 version release for every new Moodle version released. The checklist plugin provides a number of useful features, including:

  • List of items students should complete, with the option to include course activities and resources.
  • Progress bar that shows what percentage of the list a student has completed so far.
  • Option for students and/or teachers to check-off items.
  • Option to allow students to add private items and notes to a checklist.
  • Due dates for checklist items.

How to use the checklist plugin

The checklist activity can be used in many different ways in your Moodle course. Here are few examples use cases of Checklist activity:

  • Teachers Add all required tasks in the checklist which students need to tick off as they progress – In this option, teachers manually add items to a checklist. The teacher can monitor the resulting progress, and the checklist will also display a progress bar to the student.
  • Teacher create a checklist and students add their own tasks to it – This option allows the students to add their own tasks under the headings created by the teachers. This may be useful in case the students wants to break down a major task into multiple minor tasks in a similar way we divide our projects in smaller milestones.
  • Let Moodle automatically populate the Checklist from course activities and resources – In this option, teachers let Moodle auto-populate the course activity and resources as the checklist items.

You can download the latest version of the checklist plugin from the official plugins directory here. In case you are new to Moodle, please follow this guide to learn how to install Moodle plugins. Once installed, you can add the Checklist activity as other activities in your Moodle course.

The main configuration settings fields are:

  • User can add their own items: Lets you choose whether students can create sub-tasks under the items you add to the checklist.
  • Updates by: Determines who can manually update a checklist
  • Add due dates to calendar: Adds due dates to the Calendar for any items created manually within this Checklist.
  • Teachers can add comments: Allows teachers to add personalized comments on students’ individual checklist items.
  • Maximum grade: If you want to make the checklist ungraded, set this value to zero (0) and make sure the grade category doesn’t aggregate by Mean.
  • Email teachers when checklist is complete: This option send an email to the student and/or teacher when the checklist is marked as complete
  • Show course modules in checklist: Adds activities and resources (other than labels) from the current section or entire course and adds a link to each item.
  • Check-off when modules complete: Detects certain student activity in a course and automatically checks items in the checklist based on the activity completion criteria.
  • Lock teacher marks – When this setting is enables, the teacher will not be able to change after saving the mark once.

It is one of the most popular Moodle plugin ever more than 8k downloads in the last 12 months. It is always among the top 10 most downloaded activity plugins in the Moodle plugins directory. I will always recommend all the Moodle users to use the Checklist plugin.

Here is a brief introduction about the Checklist Plugin and how you can use it:

It is also accompanied with a Checklist block plugin as well as Checklist grade export plugin which further enhance this activity.

What is your opinion about the Checklist plugin? have you ever used it on your Moodle site? Please share with us in the comments section below.

For regular updates about Moodle, eLearning and edtech industry, please visit us regularly at https://lmsdaily.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Workplace Knowledge & Experience Platform Talkout Raises $1.2M to expand

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Workplace Knowledge & Experience Platform Talkout Raises $1.2M to expand
Workplace Knowledge & Experience Platform Talkout Raises $1.2M to expand

Talkout, a Birmingham-based startup that aims to improve learning and communication within companies, has raised £1 million ($1.2 million) to develop and expand its platform. Founded in 2020, Talkout provides cutting-edge software and training to promote workplace wellness. It centralises a firm’s knowledge, democratises the creation of training, and improves productivity, learning & development through an AI-powered learning assistant.

The funding, which the startup received from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF) will create up to 40 jobs in sales, engineering, finance, and business development, and enable rebrand of the firm this year, according to a press statement.

The platform solves the challenges of communication, knowledge retention, learning, and well-being. It allows employees to connect with employees of other departments and share their issues, providing organisations to retain, develop, and support their employees.

Commenting on the development, Ian Fairclough, Investment Director at Midven, said,

We are backing a proven management who have developed a disruptive mobile-first learning platform, addressing the large and growing L&D market. Talkout has already won several blue-chip customers, and this investment will allow for further product market fit refinement to win new business.

Paul Putman, CEO of Talkout, said,

The whole team at Talkout is extremely proud that both Midven and Mercia have recognised our innovation, the market opportunity the platform creates, and the amazing team that has built the company this far. We believe this new approach to knowledge creation and learning is truly disruptive and will allow Talkout to become a UK tech company that can compete and win globally.

For regular updates about eLearning and edtech industry, please visit us regularly at https://lmsdaily.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Join NERCOMP Annual Conference on March 27–29, 2023

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Join NERCOMP Annual Conference on March 27–29, 2023
Join NERCOMP Annual Conference on March 27–29, 2023

The NERCOMP Annual Conference 2023 will be organized from March27-29, 2023 in Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence. The NERCOMP Annual Conference plays a pivotal role in bringing together a community of higher education IT and library professionals to build expertise and share information on the latest issues in the field. This conference is the place to connect with peers, share successes (and struggles), and enhance the collective learning.

The NERCOMP Annual Conference is where IT professionals, faculty, researchers, learners, and institutions come together to engage, network, and learn from each other’s experiences in advancing innovation and leadership in higher education.

The program sessions will focus on these key topic areas:

  • Audiovisual and IT Services: Support, Models, and Practices
  • Data-Driven Decision-Making
  • Innovating Student Success
  • Leadership and Organizational Development
  • Libraries and Scholarship in the 21st Century
  • Policy, Regulation, and Security
  • Systems and Solutions
  • Teaching and Learning

Early Bird Registration will be available until February 13 as you can register to take advantage of early registration rates.

Full Conference Registration Through Feb. 13 After Feb.13
Full conference registration, (EDUCAUSE and NERCOMP member)  $465  $565
Full conference registration, (nonmember)  $655  $755
The full conference registration fee includes:

  • Breakfast, lunch, and refreshment breaks on Tuesday and Wednesday
  • Tuesday reception
  • All program materials
Single Day Registration Through Feb. 13 After
Feb. 13
Tuesday or Wednesday only, (EDUCAUSE and NERCOMP member) $305 $405
Tuesday or Wednesday only, (nonmember) $405 $505
Your Tuesday-only registration fee includes:

  • Breakfast, lunch, refreshment breaks, and reception on Tuesday evening
  • All program materials

Your Wednesday-only registration fee includes:

  • Breakfast, lunch, and refreshment breaks
  • All program materials

For more details check out the official event website here – https://events.educause.edu/nercomp-annual-conference/2023

For regular updates about Moodle, eLearning and edtech industry, please visit us regularly at https://lmsdaily.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

What is Canva Live? How you can use it for Education? Tips and Tricks

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
What is Canva Live? How you can use it for Education? Tips and Tricks
What is Canva Live? How you can use it for Education? Tips and Tricks

Canva is one of the fast growing design creation tool. It can help you to create Images, Presentations, Videos, Whiteboards, Mindmaps, Infographics and everything you can think to design. In this post we will have a look about What is Canva Live and how you can use it for education.

Canva Live is a great way to engage your audience with your presentations. With traditional presentations, the learners are always feel like boring with only single way communication. However, Canva Live can turn your presentations into an engaging session as the learners can ask/respond to questions, comments and contribute to the discussion about the topic.

What is Canva Live?

To use Canva Live feature, you need to start with creating your presentation in Canva. When you are ready to present, enter presentation mode and click the Canva Live button. This will generate a unique 6-digit code which you need to share with your learners to join. You can ask your learners to visit canva.live and enter the 6-digit code to join.

Canva Live will turn your presentation into an engaging presentation. Once you understood how to use Canva Live you will never deliver your presentation through other programs.

Who can use Canva Live?

Canva Live is a feature which is available only for Canva Pro, Canva for Enterprise, Canva for Educators, Canva for Nonprofits. In case you are having a Canva Free Account, you can make use of free trial to use the Canva Live and other pro features.

If you are a teacher or school or educational institute then you can check out the Canva special plans for educators.

Build your Canva Presentation

Once you are having your Canva account setup, You can create your own awesome presentation. Canva offers easy to make presentations, whiteboards, images, videos, infographics, and many others. You can start making your presentation form scratch or else use the templates (which have designs for all purposes).

Believe me the Canva Templates will save you lots of time as you can use already built presentations and put your content. I have never created anymore presentations from scratch afterwards. Once you have finished your presentation, let’s deep dive into Canva Live.

How to Setup Canva Live

Open your Canva presentation and Above the editor, click Present.

What is Canva Live? How you can use it for Education? Tips and Tricks
Canva Live

To enable Canva Live, you have two ways:

  • From Standard Presentation mode
  • From Presenter View Mode

For the Standard Presentation mode, the Canva Live button appears on the bottom of the screen along with other control options like Magic Tools, Switch to Presenter View etc.

What is Canva Live? How you can use it for Education? Tips and Tricks
Canva Live in Standard Mode

For the Presenter View mode, Canva Live appears in the Presenter View Window in the sidebar along with Notes.

Canva Live Presenter View
Canva Live Presenter View

Click Start new session. This will generate a unique 6-digit code which you need to share with your learners. Then ask them to join through Canva.Live and enter the code. You will be assigned a new login code every time you start a new Canva live presentation, even if it’s the same presentation.

Canva Live Code
Canva Live Code

Kindly Note – Exiting the Presentation view doesn’t end the Canva Live session. It is intended to be used in case you want to share your browser screen or any other window with your learners. You can return back to Canva Live by clicking on  Present again.

Your learners can ask questions/respond to your questions from their own devices. They can also enter their names or choose to stay anonymous. For example, here is an example from my mobile:

What is Canva Live? How you can use it for Education? Tips and Tricks
What is Canva Live? How you can use it for Education? Tips and Tricks

The comments made by your learners will appear in the presenter view as below:

What is Canva Live? How you can use it for Education? Tips and Tricks
User Comments Canva Live

You can click on three dots next to the comments and click Display Bigger to show the comment to all users on the participants view. You can also delete the comment if its inappropriate.

To end a live session, you need to click End in presentation mode on the Top.

How to start using Canva Live

It is not comfortable to use a new tool during your big presentation, so I suggest you to test out the Canva Live first with your friends and practice. Get a feel for how to set it up, all of its features, and what you need to know to use it successfully. Ask your friends to leave comments, ask questions, and use all of the features that audience members are afforded.

Conclusion

Canva Live is another exciting feature in already rich portfolio of Canva app. It allows you to engage your learners during the presentation. You can ask them questions or let them comment/share feedback about presentation easily. I will definitely suggest you to try out Canva Live for your next presentation.

For regular updates about Moodle, eLearning and edtech industry, please visit us regularly at https://lmsdaily.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Study.com Partners with TNTP to help aspiring educators earn credentials

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Study.com Partners with TNTP to help aspiring educators earn credentials
Study.com Partners with TNTP to help aspiring educators earn credentials

Study.com – one of the most transformational edtech companies is partnering with TNTP Teaching Fellows to help aspiring educators earn their teaching credentials. Study.com will donate 400 test preparation scholarships to aspiring teachers across the five Fellows programs in Baltimore, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Minnesota.

The TNTP Teaching Fellows program offer career changers, graduating college seniors, and recent grads a more affordable, faster path to teacher certification through practice, job-embedded training, and personalized coaching. TNTP will manage the distribution of the scholarships to diversify and strengthen the teaching pipeline in the five communities they serve.

Through Keys to the Classroom, Study.com partners with education departments, school districts, colleges of education, and education-focused nonprofits to help aspiring educators prepare and pass their credentialing exams. Keys to the Classroom is currently in 20 states, and Study.com has committed to donating over $4 million in test prep materials. Keys to the Classroom was recently honored by Tech and Learning with an Award of Excellence for Primary Education.

“Research shows that students benefit when a teacher’s race and ethnicity reflect the students they serve,” said Dana Bryson, SVP of social impact at Study.com. “With over half of the teacher candidates in Keys to the Classroom identifying as people of color, we share a joint commitment with TNTP to break down barriers for teachers of color to get into the classroom, creating quality classroom experiences for students.”

According to a 2019 National Council on Teacher Quality report, half of teacher candidates do not receive a passing score on their first certification exam, and a quarter never pass. The discrepancies in passage rates between white candidates and candidates of color are significant, as 38 percent of Black teacher candidates never pass the Praxis.

“At TNTP Teaching Fellows, we prioritize equitable education to ensure economic and social mobility for our students,” said Jamila Newman, TNTP Vice President. “One proven way to improve student performance and life outcomes, especially for students of color, is to ensure that the teacher workforce is diverse and holds and delivers on the high expectation that all students can excel.”

For regular updates about Moodle, eLearning and edtech industry, please visit us regularly at https://lmsdaily.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Educational VR Startup Dreamscape Learn Raises $20M in Series A Funding

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Educational VR Startup Dreamscape Learn Raises $20M in Series A Funding
Educational VR Startup Dreamscape Learn Raises $20M in Series A Funding

An immersive learning educational technology company developed in collaboration with Arizona State University – Dreamscape Learn, has raised $20 million in series A funding as it continues building its virtual reality-enabled coursework and platform and putting them to work in classrooms.

Dreamscape Learn, which is based in Santa Monica, California, was developed through a two-year partnership between ASU and VR company Dreamscape Immersive. That included input from ASU faculty in the development of materials that add a cinematic and emotional element to the learning, as well as the ability to give students a view beyond the classroom.

Dreamscape Learn platform is a unique software package that both enables the richly immersive experiences of its products and supports third-party development of new environments and tools. The company’s software development kit allows clients to build extraordinarily realistic 3D environments for both synchronous and asynchronous teaching with minimal technical resources.

Founded by Walter Parkes, a motion picture producer, and Michael Crow, President, Arizona State University (ASU), Dreamscape Learn is on a mission to transform education through cinematic storytelling, cutting-edge immersive technologies, and advanced pedagogy. It develops immersive learning experiences that blend innovative pedagogy with cinematic storytelling.

Dreamscape Learn has reinvented the biology course for both undergraduate and K-12 levels in deep collaboration with world-class biologists and biology educators. With modules spanning core biology areas like cell signaling, genetics, adaptation and evolution, niches, biostatistics, and experimental methodology, Dreamscape’s biology lab can work in combination with an established biology curriculum, or it can become the entire curriculum.

“When I first experienced this technology, I immediately knew it could power a whole new way of teaching,” said Michael Crow, president of ASU. “It allows us to place students in situations and roles never before possible. When students are captivated by these environments, we can send them on academic missions that are authentic, rigorous and emotionally compelling.”

“By combining cinematic storytelling with innovative curriculum and emerging technology, we are creating educational experiences that motivate students to do the work necessary to master a subject,” said Dreamscape Learn founder Walter Parkes. “Throughout our deep partnership with extraordinary teachers, we are discovering the vast educational potential of emotional storytelling.”

For regular updates about Moodle, eLearning and edtech industry, please visit us regularly at https://lmsdaily.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Moodle Users Association – January – June 2023 Project Development cycle Live now

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Moodle Users Association - January - June 2023 Project Development cycle Live now
Moodle Users Association - January - June 2023 Project Development cycle Live now

Moodle Users Association‘s next Project Development Cycle for January-June 2023 is now available for Project Proposal submission. The proposal submissions can be entered through February 28th, 2023 on MUA website here.

The winner of the July – December 2022 project cycle is “Default Settings for Activities and Resources Completion Criteria”. Check out the Moodle Tracker issue here. The project will add a system level settings page to manage all the default completion criteria for activity and resources.

After the initial project submission phase ends on February 28, the submitted projects will undergo a preliminary round of voting among MUA members from 1 to 15 March 2023. Afterwards the project requirements will be finalized for the top voted project until Mid-May 2023.

Based on the negotiations with Moodle HQ and MUA committee reviews the Final Project Voting Cycle will go from 5 June to 19 June 2023. As on date, there are two projects already suggested for this Project Development Cycle as below:

  • Improve Moodle Reporting
  • Add the Ordering question type (qtype_ordering) into Moodle core

If you are a member of Moodle users Association, you can also suggest a new feature which you would like to see in Moodle core.

Check out the Moodle users Association website for more details about joining and project development cycles.

For regular updates about Moodle, eLearning and edtech industry, please visit us regularly at https://lmsdaily.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Moodle HQ updated the release calendar, check out the new schedule

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Moodle HQ updated the release calendar, check out the new schedule
Moodle HQ updated the release calendar, check out the new schedule

Keeping the demand of institutes Moodle HQ has made minor changes in the release schedule of Moodle LMS. The new changes will give more time to prepare for the upgrade to the new version. This will also help other Moodle HQ solutions like Mobile App and Workplace Solutions to be ready in time before the summer break.

In a recent announcement, Maria Achour – Global Head of Product at Moodle HQ announced the decision to tweak the release calendar. According to the announcement, these changes are being made to:

  • Provide a large portion of our user base more time to prepare for upgrades to their solutions which are often managed during the summer break period in both the southern and northern hemispheres.
  • Create a buffer allowing updates to our Mobile Application and Moodle Workplace solutions, which are updated within weeks of our latest Moodle LMS release, to be completed before the summer break period, meaning that all key Moodle solutions will be available for our users in time for their upgrades.

The revised release schedule is preponed by few weeks. She had also shared the tentative release schedule for upcoming few Moodle versions. Here is the schedule:

Moodle New Release Schedule
Moodle New Release Schedule

You can plan your Moodle upgrade in future based on this release schedule. In case you need any help in upgrading your Moodle site to latest version, please feel free to drop a comment below.

For regular updates about Moodle, eLearning and edtech industry, please visit us regularly at https://lmsdaily.com. You can also like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Allow temporary access to Moodle course for any user using the Invitation plugin

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Allow temporary access to Moodle course for any user using the Invitation plugin
Allow temporary access to Moodle course for any user using the Invitation plugin

Moodle plugins offers you the easiest way to extend Moodle functionality to meet your organization needs. There are more than 2050 plugins in the official directory contributed by the Moodle community developers. In this post we will discuss about the Invitation Moodle plugin.

The Invitation Moodle plugin allows you to setup temporary access to your Moodle course for all users. Any person on the internet can access your course and once he logs out the plugins clears the user data automatically. The main advantage is that the user doesn’t need to have a Moodle user account.

You can download the latest version of the Invitation Moodle plugin from the official plugins directory here. Please follow this guide if you want to learn how to install a Moodle plugin. Once install you will see the configuration settings screen of the plugin. You can enable the plugin and define other settings here.

Allow temporary access to Moodle course for any user using the Invitation plugin
Allow temporary access to Moodle course for any user using the Invitation plugin

Now, if you go to the course where you want to use the Invitation plugin, you will see a new item under Course Navigation bar > More >Invitation for temporary course access. Here, you can define the following settings:

  • Delete the invited account as soon it is logged out.
  • Delete the invited account within a range of days.
  • Define a limit how often a invitation link can be used.
  • Define a role the invited user should assigned to in the course he is invited to.
  • Define a system role the invited user should assigned to globally to give you more possibilities for restrictions.
  • Define a bunch of urls to prevent some actions which can not be prevented by Moodle permissions.
  • Allow invited user to use a single name as alias.
  • Define an optional policy consent.

Once configured a guest invitation will remain active unless a new one is created.

You can share the Invitation URL to the guest users or otherwise share the QR code for simplicity. The user will click the URL and he will be directly taken to enter the first name and last name. After which he/she can access the course without any issues.

The plugin can be helpful in scenarios when you want the users to take a glimpse of the whole course before purchasing.

What are the other Moodle plugins which you are using? Do you ever need to send a guest invitation to your students? Do share with us in the comments section below.

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