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Easily navigate within your Moodle course using the Navigation Buttons plugin

By
Jaswinder Singh
-

Moodle is the acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment and it can be easily extendd with the help of Moodle Plugins. There are more than 1980+ plugins shared by the Moodle community developers in the Moodle plugins directory. One such plugin is Navigation Buttons block which is currently being maintained by Davo Smith.

The navigation buttons plugin is available for all Moodle Versions. You can download the compatible version from the Moodle Plugins directory here. It is worth to mention that the plugin is actively maintained over past so many years

Introducing Navigation Buttons Moodle Plugin

How to install:

To get started with the Navigation Buttons plugin, you need to download it from the Moodle Plugins directory. Since, it is a Blocks type Moodle plugin, you need to install it into your_moodle_site/blocks/  directory followed by completing the installation process through the Notifications page.

If you are not familiar with Moodle plugins installation, check out the complete Moodle Plugins Installation guide here.

How to Setup:

You can setup the Navigation Buttons plugin as an administrator after installation. You can choose how the navigation buttons will appear for different activities in Moodle course. You can choose to show the navigation buttons when activity completion is marked complete or else choose to show them always as shown below.

Easily navigate within your Moodle course using the Navigation Buttons plugin
Navigation Buttons plugin settings for administrator

As the teacher you need to Turn the Editing Mode On and then click Add a Block to your course page and choose ‘Navigation Block’.

Customise the button appearance by clicking on ‘Edit the Navigation Button settings’ in the newly created block.

Points to be noted:

The plugin provide a unique feature to show the quick navigation buttons above & below the course content area. But with Moodle core focusing on improved user experience, do you really need this plugin on your Moodle. Can the users navigate to next activity through the side menu. Just ponder upon these thought before using the Navigation Buttons Plugin.

Submit your presentation proposal for MoodleMoot Global before 30 June

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Submit your presentation proposal for MoodleMoot Global before 30 June
Submit your presentation proposal for MoodleMoot Global before 30 June

Call for presentation proposal is open for the upcoming MoodleMoot Global 2022. The MoodleMoot Global will be held in Hotel Barceló Sants, Barcelona, Spain from 27-29 September.

This will be the third Global MoodleMoot and this time it will be held in person. So you will get a chance to connect with  Moodlers around the world to learn & share your ideas around Moodle.

This year the MoodleMoot Global will be focussed on the following topics:

  • Moodle of the future
  • Realising the full potential of Moodle
  • Integrating Moodle with external tools
  • Supporting an international and diverse community
  • Learner centred education: empowering learners
  • Using Moodle in unique and unexpected ways

Submit your presentation proposal before 30 June

You can submit your presentation proposal to present your ideas, case studies and showcases of best practices with Moodle LMS and Moodle Workplace.

Click here to submit the proposal.

An Introduction To Plugins In Moodle LMS, Types & Description For Beginners

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
An Introduction To Plugins In Moodle LMS, Types & Description For Beginners
Moodle Plugins Introduction

Moodle as the name suggest is Modular in nature. You can extend the Moodle functionality  by installing plugins on your Moodle site.

Moodle Plugins directory is the official area where you will find Moodle Plugins compatible with different Moodle versions. As on 19 May 2022, there are 1978 Plugins available in the Directory. These plugins are developed and shared by 1097 Moodle community members.

The easiest way to add new functionality in Moodle is by using Plugins. First have a look around the Moodle Plugins directory to see if there is a plugin already developed by Moodle community doing the job. Otherwise you can easily write your own Moodle Plugin.

Moodle core allows you to add various types of plugins to extend the functionality of different areas. In Moodle 4.0 release, the question bank is upgraded to allow plugins to extend the quiz functionality.

Overall Moodle allows more than 59 types of plugins. Moodle plugins are sorted by types, the most popular filtering criteria in the directory.

The plugin type often determines the location in the Moodle directory where they should be installed like mod_Plugin need to be kept in Moodle/mod directory.

Here is the complete list of Moodle Plugin Types available in Moodle.

Planning before using Moodle Plugins

  • User Experience Evaluation – This includes decisions not to install plugins due to conflicting or overlapping functionality.
  • Server Storage space & memory consumption analysis.
  • Site performance Impact
  • Support for Moodle Plugin
  • Future compatibility

If you  are looking to learn how to write your own Moodle plugins, then you can follow this guide.

MoodleMoot Brasil 2022 – Check out the final presentation schedule

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
MoodleMoot Brasil 2022 - Check out the final presentation schedule
MoodleMoot Brasil 2022 Schedule

Fasten your seatbelts for the MoodleMoot Brasil 2022 as the event will take place on 27 May 2022. This year the event will be completely online and the interested community members can register for free through this link. The schedule for the MoodleMoot Brasil 2022 is out now with lot of exciting topics.

The presentation topics include Gamification in Moodle, Gamified Learning, Using skills in Moodle, Cost optimization in cloud enviroments. There will be case studies and ebooks also during the MoodleMoot Brasil 2022.

Check out the complete schedule for the MoodleMoot Brasil 2022 here – https://moodlebrasil.org/category/mootbr22/palestrante-27052022/

The registrations for the attending the MoodleMoot Brasil 2022 are open. All interested community members can register for the event through this link. The registrations for the event are completely free of cost.

What are the topics you are looking to attend in the MoodleMoot Brasil. Please share with us in the comments below.

Moodle Educators – Create a 5 star rating scale in your Moodle course

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Moodle Educators - Create a 5 star rating scale in your Moodle course
Moodle Scales

Moodle as the name suggests is Modular in nature. It can be customized to meet eLearning requirements in all industries like Schools, Universities, Corporates etc. In Moodle there are many ways to rate or evaluate learners progress. You can use Outcomes, Grades & Scales including other advanced grading methods like Rubrics.

Dave Foord from Loughborough College shared his tips to create a 5-star scale in Moodle which will allow students to peer rate other students’ contributions. Check out his original blog post here.

Image showing the 5 star scale as a dropdown
Image showing the 5 star scale as a dropdown (Image Credits – Dave Foord)

In Moodle, New scales can be created by teachers with editing rights or by administrators. You can use symbols from https://unicode-table.com/en/ to create stars or any other type of symbol. Go to Course administration > Grades > Scales to add a new scale in any course.

 

Enter the name of the scale as per your wish. In the scale field, enter ☆☆☆☆☆, ★☆☆☆☆, ★★☆☆☆, ★★★☆☆, ★★★★☆,★★★★★  as the values. When this scale is then used within an activity, the 6 different options will appear in a drop-down menu, and the student chooses the option they want.

Here is the video tutorial from Dave Foord to show how this new scale can be added in Moodle course:

What are the other Moodle tricks you are using to engage your learners? Please share with us in the comments section below.

Moodle Educators – How to make your Moodle courses read only for students

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Moodle Educators - How to make your Moodle courses read only for students
Context Freezing Feature in Moodle

During the Year end procedures, Moodle Educators needed to make their courses as readable only without any further modification or any new addition of content. This will ensure that the students can still access the course resources without making any new change to course activities. There is a hidden feature in Moodle which allows the administrators to make categories, blocks, courses or course content ‘read-only’.

Since Moodle 3.6 version, there is a new feature added in the Moodle core called as “Context Freezing”. The feature is added as an experimental feature but it is very handy. So, let’s have a look how you can enable and use the “Context Freezing” to make your courses read only.

How to enable Context Freezing

First as an administrator, go to Site Administration > Development > Experimental Settings. Here you need to enable the Context Freezing checkbox. The next setting “Context freezing applies to administrators” will make sure that even administrators also can’t make any changes.

How to use Context Freezing

As a regular teacher, just navigate to the course which you want to make read only. On the secondary navigation bar, you will see an option for “Freeze this Context” under ‘More’.  This will make the whole course as read only. Similarly, you can also make any activity also as Read Only by going to site settings and then using “Freeze this context”.

Here is a video guide from Moodle HQ about the Context Freezing in Moodle:

Disclaimer – Please note that the Context Freezing feature is still an experimental feature and may allow duplication of activities, blocks etc. So, please use at a test environment before using it on your Moodle.

How to enroll users automatically in a Moodle course

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Moodle Educators - Allow free access to your Moodle courses using Auto Enrol plugin
Auto enrol

Moodle is the world’s most popular open source LMS with over 300 million users around the world. The strong community backing is one of the main reason behind Moodle’s popularity. There are more than 1975 plugins contributed by the Moodle community. The architecture of Moodle is designed to easily extend the functionality by the means of Moodle plugins. It’s also clear from the name Modular  Object  Oriented  Dynamic  Learning  Environment.

Many Moodle Users were often look to provide open Moodle courses for all users in Moodle. These courses may include self-help courses like how to navigate, or open for feedback. Auto Enrol is one such plugin which is like the Swiss army knife of Enrollment plugins for Moodle.

Introducing Auto Enrol Moodle Plugin

The Auto Enrol plugin for Moodle was initially developed for use on courses which you want all users to be able to access. The plugin is well supported since then and is available for all Moodle versions including latest Moodle 4.0.

The plugin also includes advanced filtering mechanism to support automatically grouping and filtering users based upon their profile fields.

How to install:

To get started with the Auto Enrol plugin, you need to download it from the Moodle Plugins directory. Since, it is Enrollment method type Moodle plugin, you need to install it into your_moodle_site/enrol/  directory followed by completing the installation process through the Notifications page.

If you are not familiar with Moodle plugins installation, check out the complete Moodle Plugins Installation guide here.

How to Setup:

After installation, as an administrator you need to configure the default settings for this enrollment method when it is added to a course. The configuration option includes:

Add instance to new courses, Allow new enrolments, Enable self unenrol, Max enrolled users, Send course welcome message & Enabled availability plugins. You can restrict by Activity Completion, Date, Group, Grade, Groupings, Profile.

As a teacher, you need to go to the course where you want to add the Auto Enrol plugin as an enrolment method. Navigate to Course Participants > Enrollment Methods and Add Auto Enrol at the bottom of the page.

The settings page includes options for – Default assigned role, When to Enrol, Enrollment duration, Automatically unenrol inactive users etc. In the bottom part you will see the restrictions criteria which will allow users to enrol when they meet the defined criteria.

You can also add users to groups based on specific criteria like Language, Department, Address etc.

Points to be noted:

  • If you allow “Allow enrolments on login“, it may impact the site and result in slowdown your site performance.
  • You can also define to unenrol users who are inactive for certain duration and the action to carry out when the user filtering rule is no more matched.

I had tested this plugin on my Moodle local development site running Moodle 4.0 version on XAMPP environment. I really like the simple and amazing features provided by this awesome plugin which makes the enrollment process simpler to manage. If you are looking for such feature, you should give a try to this plugin.

What are the other Moodle plugins which you like as Moodle Administrator? Do share with us in the comments section below.

Using Moodle on XAMPP – What’s the Path to PHP CLI

By
Jaswinder Singh
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Using Moodle on XAMPP - What's the Path to PHP CLI

While trying to use the H5P activity in new Moodle environment for the first time, I came across the problem that there were no content types were installed. By default Moodle core includes a schedule task to Download available H5P content types from h5p.org. However, since I was running the Moodle in a local environment based on XAMPP, so it was not working.

Looking around Moodle documentation, I understood that to install the H5P content types, first the Moodle cron job has to be setup and running. After doing that, I was still not able to run individual tasks in Scheduled Tasks list.

Deep diving further, I understood  that to be able to run individual scheduled tasks via ‘Run now’ links on the scheduled tasks page, there are two conditions which needs to be met:

  • Condition 1: ‘Allow ‘Run now’ for scheduled tasks’ (tool_task | enablerunnow) in Site administration / Security / Site security settings should be enabled
  • Condition 2: ‘Path to PHP CLI’ (pathtophp) in Site administration / Server / System paths should be set.

After enabling the first one, I was stuck up with the PHP CLI Path for XAMPP. So for the help of all Moodle users who are using Moodle with XAMPP, here is the path to PHP CLI which needs to be entered:

C:\xampp\php\php.exe

You can save this as system path and then you can run the scheduled task individually in Moodle. Pl share in the comments below if this post was helpful for you.

Check out the new Moodle jobs this week

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Check out the new Moodle jobs this week

Moodle is world’s most popular open source Learning Management System. It is used by over 300 million users around the world in 241 countries. There are many job opportunities for Moodle developers, Administrators, experts to showcase their Moodle skills.

In this weekly roundup of latest Moodle Jobs, here we are listing down the jobs listed on Moodle.org Jobs Database. You can check out the following jobs and apply for the same if you are eligible & interested for the same.

Moodle Jobs This Week

  • Developer
    • Type: Contract
    • Location: remote
    • Description – We have our own hosting, and are looking for someone to help back up and upgrade our site, as well as support with initial design and functionality and other ad hoc support.
  • Senior Learning Management System (LMS) Administrator
    • Type: Full-time
    • Location: Boston, MA, USA
    • Description: This is an onsite Moodle Administrator position situated in the Metro-Boston area, Massachusetts, USA. University is looking for a Senior Learning Management System (LMS) Administrator that provides application administration for the LMS and associated components including plug-ins, integrations, and supporting systems. Possessing strong analyst and developer skills, the individual provides tier-2 and tier-3 technical support, develops and monitors processes geared to proactively detect system issues, creates and maintains system documentation, and develops training resources. The Senior LMS Administrator leads other administrator and development team resources on projects such as product and infrastructure upgrades.
    • Click here to Apply
  • BackEnd Developer
    • Type: Full-time
    • Location: Milano
    • Description: Looking for Back End Developer who contributes proactivity , curiosity , energy and enthusiasm to the development of our Digital Learning projects.
  • Help Desk Specialist/Delivery
    • Type: Full-time
    • Location: Milano
    • Description: Looking for Help Desk Specialist who contributes with proactivity , energy and enthusiasm to our Digital Learning projects, processes an active assistance of the client’s knowledge and the ability to provide technical support to help us profit from our work and use of our training environment.

For all Moodle Jobs available now check out the Moodle Jobs database here.

Free Moodle Webinar – Significant Learning Experiences in Moodle

By
Jaswinder Singh
-
Free Moodle Webinar - Significant Learning Experiences in Moodle

Moodle HQ is hosting a free webinar on Significant Learning Experiences in Moodle. The webinar will be hosted on 24 May 2022 2:00 PM US & Canada Time.

The free webinar will use Fink’s (2013) taxonomy of significant learning experiences and framework for integrated course design to explore Moodle activities, resources, and features.

Fink’s taxonomy of signinfcant learning taxonomy includes:

  • Foundational Knowledge: understanding and remembering information and ideas
  • Application: skills, critical thinking, creative thinking, practical thinking, and managing projects
  • Integration: connecting information, ideas, perspectives, people, or realms of life
  • Human Dimension: learning about oneself and others
  • Caring: developing new feelings, interests, and values
  • Learning How to Learn: becoming a better student, inquiring about a subject, becoming a self-directed learner

During the webinar the Moodle HQ team will help you in understanding how Moodle can support the Fink’s taxonomy.

The webinar is suitabe for all Moodle Course creators, Educators, Instructional designers.

You can register for the webinar through this link. For all upcoming webinars, please check out Moodle HQ’s events page.

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We are not associated with Moodle HQ or any such organizations.