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Moodle Tips – Make Moodle easier for new teachers using Site Admin Presets feature

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Moodle Tips - Make Moodle easier for new teachers using Site Admin Presets feature
Site Admin Presets in Moodle 4.0

Moodle 4.0 brought a whole plethora of new features which make it most exciting Moodle version ever. One such feature in Moodle 4.0 is Site Admin Presets feature. The new feature is included into the Moodle core inspiring from the Site Admin presets plugin.

The Site Admin Presets feature allows you to improve the user experience for educators and learners on your Moodle site. Moodle contains a whole lot of tools and features which can be sometimes difficult to understand from the teachers & learners who are using Moodle for the first time. This feature helps Moodle administrators streamline the experience for teachers and learners by offering them customised LMS settings to support their needs.

Site Admin Presets helps you to keep things simple and remove anything their users don’t need. You can enable only the required features on your Moodle and turn off the ones which are not required. Moodle 4.0 comes with 2 default presets which allows you to use Starter & Full preset.

The starter preset, has Moodle’s most popular features, including assignment, feedback, forum, H5P, quiz and completion tracking. On the other hand, full preset includes features that only more advanced users might be utilising, such as external tool (LTI), SCORM, workshop, analytics, badges, competencies or learning plans.

In addition you can also create new presets specifically picking the features based on your learning environment requirements. You can also import & export the presets to use on other Moodle platforms. This makes it easy to replicate a specific configuration from one site to another and ensures that the experience that administrators provide to teachers and learners is consistent.

How to use the Site Admin Presets in Moodle 4.0

  • Go to your Moodle 4.0 site as an admin and navigate to Admin presets under Site Administration > General > Admin Presets
  • Change the default preset to ‘Starter’ and go back to see the changes on your course page. For example, you will see less activities while adding a new activity in the course as shown below:
    Share your Moodle site configuration settings easily using Site Admin Presets
    Moodle Site Admin Presets

    This new feature can be utilized by the Moodle site administrators to make the interface clear and concise for the teachers & students.

    What are the other new features in Moodle which made you excited? Please share with us in the comments section below.

Moodle Release calendar – How you should plan to upgrade your Moodle site

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Moodle Upgrade - How you should plan to upgrade your Moodle site
How you should plan to upgrade your Moodle site

Moodle is the world’s most popular open Source Learning Management system. It is used globally with more than 325 million users across 240+ countries. Since the release of Moodle 2, there is a new Moodle version released every few months. Moodle Administrators often struggle to devise a strategy to keep their Moodle site updated to latest version. In this post, we will see the schedule for release of Moodle version so that you can plan your upgrade process accordingly.

Moodle is following a half-yearly cycle for the new version release. The six-monthly release is termed as Major release. Major versions are intended to introduce new features & functionality in Moodle core. Then, there is a version release after every two months, which is termed as Minor release. This version is mainly intended to fix the bugs & security issues in the Moodle core. There is another Major version which is termed as LTS release which is generally released after every 2 years or 4 major releases.

Moodle HQ team will provide support for general core bugs for 12 months (1 year) from the date of release for all Major versions. After general support period, the support is limited only for the security issues which will be provided for 18 months from date of release.

The support period for the LTS version is maximum which is 18 months for General bugs and 30 months for security fixes. The LTS Version is planned to cater the need for the educational institutes which need a longer period to plan their upgrade. The most recent long-term support release (LTS) version is Moodle 3.9 while the next release (Moodle 4.1) will be November 2022.

Moodle Release graph
Moodle Release graph

You can refer to above image for the upcoming Moodle version releases and the support period. You can check the official Moodle release page here to check the currently supported Moodle versions and the support period.

Once you have finalize the schedule & frequency for your Moodle site, you can follow the Upgrade process as mentioned here.

MoodleMoot DACH 2022 cancelled for this year

By
Jaswinder Singh
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MoodleMoot DACH 2022 cancelled for this year
MoodleMoot DACH 2022 cancelled for this year

MoodleMoot DACH, which is the Moodle community event in Germany, is unfortunately cancelled for this year. The MoodleMoot DACH 2022 was planned for August 30 – September 2 (a 4 day event). The reasons for cancellations are not known.

The community event is hosted by Technische Hochschule Lübeck, Vienna University of Technology, University of Vienna, Academic Moodle Cooperation (AMC), ETH Zurich & eDaktik.at – Moodle Partner Austria.

The event was last hosted in the year 2020. It is generally comprising with a DevCamp on first 2 days and BarCamp in the later days.

As per the information available on the official website, the next MoodleMoot DACH 2023 will be hosted in Zurich.

For more information about the MoodleMoot DACH, you can check out the official website here. You can also follow them on Twitter or Facebook.

Moodle free webinar – Deliver Effective Virtual Classrooms Using BigBlueButton

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Moodle free webinar - Deliver Effective Virtual Classrooms Using BigBlueButton
Moodle free webinar - Deliver Effective Virtual Classrooms Using BigBlueButton

BigBlueButton is world’s most popular open source web conferencing platform. In Moodle 4.0, the BigBlueButton is integrated in Moodle core. Moodle Academy has released a new course on delivering effective virtual classrooms using BigBlueButton in Moodle.

The course will have a free webinar on Using BigBlueButton with Moodle effectively. If you are a Moodle user who is looking to learn how to use BigBlueButton for online teaching, then this webinar is for you. After joining the webinar and attending the course, you will be able to setup a BigBlueButton activity and customize it.

You will be able to learn the basic theories of learning and how they apply to a virtual classroom, how to structure segments in a virtual classroom to maximise active learning for your students. In addition, you will be able to how to deliver an effective virtual class across four key foundations: management, relationship, engagement, and assessment and how BigBlueButton supports delivery in each of the above foundations.

The free webinar will be organized on Wednesday, 27 July 2022 13:00-14:00 (UTC) time. You can register for the free webinar through the Moodle Academy link here.

Moodle Tips – How to display course activities dates based on course start date of student

By
Jaswinder Singh
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display course activities dates based on course start date of student
Content Dripping feature

Course Relative Dates is an experimental feature which was introduced in Moodle 3.8. The course relative dates features enables course or activity dates to be displayed relative to the user’s start date in the course. This feature can be very helpful in asynchronous courses where you have users enrolling in the course throughout the year.

Let’s say that User 1 is enrolled in your course on 4th July, so he will see the 1st week content after his enrollment. Similarly User 2 is enrolled in your course on 11 July, so he will see the 1st week course content after his enrollment but the User 1 will be able to see the 2nd Week content by now.

The users course start date is their enrolment start date. The experimental feature is available only for the following areas since Moodle 3.8:

  • Weekly Course Format
  • Assignments

However, the feature is planned to be added to other course areas like Quiz, Lesson or other Restrict Activity areas.

Kindly note that in order to use the course relative dates feature, you need to enable this on before the start of the course. Relative dates mode cannot be changed once the course has been created. Relative dates mode cannot be enabled for existing courses. 

How to use the Course Relative Dates feature

Before you can use this feature, the site administrator need to enable this feature. To enable this feature, please check the Site administration > Development > Experimental settings > Course Relative Dates.

Now as a teacher, when you add a new course, you will see a new setting under the General Section of Course Settings page.

Course Relative Dates
Course Relative Dates feature in Moodle

However, it seems that the Moodle HQ need some more time to make it as a stable feature in Moodle core. With all the focus towards improving the UX of Moodle, it may be coming in future Moodle version in core. In case you are interested in using this feature, you can vote for the Tracker MDL-66044 to get it developed for all activities.

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 announces winner of Hackathon supporting UNESCO equitable education goal

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Moodle announces winner of Hackathon supporting UNESCO equitable education goal
Moodle announces winner of Hackathon supporting UNESCO equitable education goal

With the first of its kind hackathon initiative, United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT) announced the winners. The hackathon – ‘Get plugged into education!’ was aimed to expand the footprint of digital learning possibilities.

There were three challenges for anyone to participate in the Moodle Hackathon. Initially there were only two challenges while the third one was added later. The three challenges were:

  • The Mobile App Challenge to improve or extend Moodle plugins for the Moodle mobile app
  • The VideoConf Challenge to improve or extend Moodle plugins
  • An open challenge for anyone working on a plugin to improve Moodle functionalities

Winners of Hackathon

Here are the winners of the Hackathon:

1st Prize:

Mr. Essoh Lathe Gnagne Sebastien, Principal Inspector, Ministry of National Education and Technical Education, Government of Côte d’Ivoir. Mr. Sebastien solution helped Jitsi plugin to integrate the Moodle course groups. The Jitsi plugin allows teachers to create webconference activities fully integrated with Jitsi Meet—an open-source videoconferencing solution.

2nd Prize:

Mr. Étienne Roy (RÉCIT FAD team). The RÉCIT FAD team developed the HTML Bootstrap Editor plugin which allows to create a much more attractive and ergonomic HTML content directly in Moodle.

3rd Prize:

Ms. Marie-Eve Lévesque, Mr. Annouar Faraman and Mr. Andrew Caya (University of Montreal, Canada) The team developed a combined calendar which provide users with an overview of group events in the form of a table, where events are grouped by time (for events having exactly the same start and end times).

Honorable mentions

Mr. Renaat Debleu (IT Specialist, eWallah) who developed a Moodle plugin which can translate a Moodle course using Neural Machine Engines.

Mrs. Celine Perves (University of Strasbourg, France) who has contributed many Moodle plugins like Restore courses from remote moodle platforms, Command Line Manager, POD repository.

Hearty congratulations to all the participants and winners of Moodle Hackathon from LMSDaily team.

Get ready for the second BigBlueButton World 2022 from July 18th – 21st

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Get ready for the second BigBlueButton World 2022 from July 18th – 21st
BigBlueButton World 2022

The second BigBlueButton World 2022 conference will be organized from July 18th-21st 2022. The theme for this year’s conference will be “Hope through Education”. This year the conference will be held completely online.

The aim of this conference is to showcase the importance of education and educators, explore how education is shifting in the online environment, share examples of how education is raising communities (and countries), and host discussions about the future of virtual classrooms.

The 4-day conference is full of exciting sessions with different topics for each day. The agenda will be distributed as:

  • Day-1 Hope through Education – The day will include a speaker from UNSECO and educators from around the world. Representatives from leading educational research institutions will also be sharing their thoughts on the future of online learning.
  • Day-2 Development
  • Day-3 Administration
  • Day-4 Ecosystem

You can check out the whole agenda for the BigBlueButton World 2022 on the official website here. The conference will provide 4 days of inspiring discussions on the future of the BigBlueButton Project and how it’s improving the world of online learning.

You can register for the BIgBlueButton World 2022 through this link.

Moodle Admin Alert – Moodle 4.0.2 and other supported versions released

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Moodle Admin Alert -Moodle 4.0.2 and other supported versions released
Moodle 4.0.2 released

Moodle has released the minor versions of Moodle 4.0 and other supported versions. The new version release includes minor bug fixes and other improvements in core. In addition to Moodle 4.0.2, other Moodle versions like Moodle 3.11.8, 3.9.15 are released.

The new version of Moodle brings many general fixes and improvements, accessibility improvements and some security fixes. Here is the list of all fixed issues in Moodle 4.0.2.

Notably, the support for Moodle 3.10, 3.8 & other lower versions have ended. So, in case you still have an older Moodle version running on your site, you are advised to upgrade it to the latest version on priority. Please these official docs to upgrade your Moodle site.

You can download the latest Moodle version from the official Moodle download channels like Moodle Download page or through Git.

Moodle Tips for Beginners – Notify students about content update easily in Moodle 4.0

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Moodle Tips for Beginners - Notify students about content update easily in Moodle 4.0
Moodle Tips for Beginners - Notify students about content update easily in Moodle 4.0

Many times as a teacher you need to add new content or update the existing course content which leaves students guessing all the time. In previous Moodle versions, there was no way to notify students about the changes you made in course content. In this Moodle Tips for Beginners series, we will look at the Notify Course Content feature in Moodle 4.0.

Moodle 4.0 brought a lot of new features on the table with major focus on User experience and Quiz. However, one handy feature which is quite helpful for teachers is the “Notify students on new or updated course content”.

With the new features now you can see a small little checkbox on the bottom of Activity/Resource settings page, just above the Save button. If you check this box then the users who have access to that activity will receive the notification.

The only thing which you need to ensure is that in the User profile -> Notification preferences section. The “Course content changes” notification type is enabled for both online and offline in the “Email” column. In addition the Cron job must be set properly to send the notifications.

What are the other features which you liked the most in Moodle 4.0? Have you ever need to send the course content update notification to your students in past? Do share your experience with us in the comments section below.

Moodle 4.1 – More enhancements in Quiz & Database activity with other UX improvements

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Moodle 4.1 - More enhancements in Quiz & Database activity with other UX improvements
Moodle 4.1

Moodle 4.1 will be the next major version of Moodle releasing in November 2022. Like the recently released Moodle 4.0 the next major version will also continue to improvise on the User Experience with other significant improvements.

Moodle 4.1 will continue to focus towards improving the overall User Experience. Additionally it will be an LTS (Long Term Support) version release. The Moodle HQ team is working on various features to make Moodle – a better LMS for the next decade.

Moodle 4.1 Exciting new features

Here are some exciting new features which will be coming in Moodle 4.1 version:

  • User Experience Improvements – After a major overhaul of User Experience in Moodle 4.0, the next version will focus on improvising course activities like Quiz, Assignment, gradebook & other areas like filters.
  • Moodle App Store – The plugins developers will can build financial sustainability for their work, while teachers will have easier access to use hundreds of new plugins in their courses via the web interface, without needing to convince their admins to install code. This will help the entire plugins ecosystem.
  • Question Bank Improvements – In Moodle 4.1, the question bank will be enhanced significantly with a new question bank activity. There will not be a question bank by default for all courses, you can choose if you want one. Manage categories screen in the question bank will also be improved. There are hell lot of changes in the Quiz activity and Question bank coming in Moodle 4.1, please check out this forum thread for all changes..
  • Database Activity Improvements – The MUA supported project which aims to modernise Moodle’s database interface, improve the existing workflows and make its usage a more intuitive and user-friendly experience. The goals of this project are:
    • To makes it easy for teachers to create new database activities, providing a new set of presets and preview mode
    • To improve the student experience by providing a better experience with the existing views in his journey.
  • Better integrations between Moodle products
  • Better integration with Open EdTech products and major stakeholders to design and build an open architecture for a long-term future
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