Moodle 2 for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds Beginner’s Guide

By Mary Cooch

This book is part of Packt's Beginner's Guide series. Written in a friendly tone, the book starts at the very beginning with a blank Moodle page and you are taken step by step through the most useful features of Moodle, helped with many illustrative screenshots. This book is for regular, non-technical teachers of pre-teen or early teenage children. It assumes no prior knowledge of Moodle and no particular expertise on the web. Classroom assistants may also find this book a very useful resource. We will assume that you have an installation of Moodle managed by somebody else, so you are responsible only for creating and delivering course content.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Release date: May 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781849518338

Mary Cooch

Mary Cooch has taught Languages and Geography in the UK for over 20 years. She manages several web sites, even more Moodles, and runs her own Moodle blog. A Moodle Certified Teacher, she now spends part of her working week travelling the country as a VLE trainer specializing in Moodle. She regularly promotes its benefits in Junior and High schools and has a deep understanding of what works best for younger students. Known online as the moodlefairy, Mary is a frequent contributor to the help forums of Moodle.org where she aims to enthuse others with her passion for this open source Virtual Learning Environment.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Moodle 2 for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Time for action — heading

What just happened?

Have a go hero — heading

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting Started

First impressions

Time for action — customizing our course page

What just happened?

Making changes on the course page

Getting the best out of the side blocks

Time for action — moving, adding, and deleting blocks

What just happened?

Useful and less useful blocks

Have a go hero — get the right choice of blocks for your course!

Making our own side blocks in Moodle

Time for action — configuring an HTML block

What just happened?

Customizing the middle section

Using the text editor

Have a go hero — give titles to each section of your course

What just happened?

Brightening up the course page with images

Time for action — uploading images to our Moodle page

What just happened?

What if you don't have any good images on your computer?

Have a go hero — add an image to your HTML block

Adding links to other websites in Moodle

Time for action — making a click here link to a website

What just happened?

Summary

2. Adding Worksheets and Resources

Putting a worksheet on Moodle

Time for action — uploading a factsheet on to Moodle

What just happened?

Have a go hero — putting a slideshow onto Moodle

What can you pick from the File picker?

Putting a week's worth of slideshows into Moodle

Time for action — getting a whole folder of work into Moodle in one go

What just happened?

Making a 'click here' type link to the River Thames website

Have a go hero — linking to a website

Recap—where do we stand now?

Making a multimedia worksheet about flooding, directly in Moodle

Time for action — typing our flooding worksheet straight into Moodle

What just happened?

Online worksheets—some ideas to consider

Making our page look prettier

Time for action — improving the look of our course page

What just happened?

Have a go hero — move the label!

Summary

3. Getting Interactive

How do we do all this?

Getting our class to reflect and discuss

Time for action — setting up a discussion forum on Moodle

What just happened?

How do we moderate the forum?

Why use a forum?

Carrying on the conversation in real time—outside of school

Time for action — setting up a chat room in Moodle

What just happened?

Why use chat? (and why not?)

Making our own class Glossary

Time for action — getting students to create their own Glossary

What just happened?

Showcasing the plans in a database

Time for action — setting up a database

What just happened?

How far have we come?

Giving our class a chance to vote

Time for action — giving students a chance to choose a winner

What just happened?

Have a go hero — getting the class to give us feedback

Why use Choice?

Announcing the winner

Writing creatively in Moodle

Time for action — setting up an online creative writing exercise

What just happened?

Time for action — marking students' work on Moodle

What just happened?

Other ways to set and mark work in Moodle

Have a go hero — mark their campsite design

Collaborative story-telling

Time for action — getting our class to work together on an online story

What just happened?

Summary

4. Self-marking Quizzes

Forget the paper

Hot potatoes—cool learning

Time for action — getting a program to create our self-marking activities

What just happened?

Time for action — matching rivers to continents with the JMatch Hot Potato

What just happened?

Have a go hero — make the rivers and continents into a drag-and-drop activity

Time for action — getting our matching activity into Moodle

What just happened?

Consolidating knowledge with Hot Potatoes activities

Time for action — creating a self-marking gap-fill exercise

What just happened?

Have a go hero — make differentiated exercises for students with mixed abilities

Time for action — making a self-marking crossword exercise

What just happened?

Time for action — making a self-marking mixed up words exercise

What just happened?

Time for action — making a self-marking multiple-choice quiz

What just happened?

How can we save the scores in Moodle

Words of warning

Adding pictures, sound, or video to our self-marking exercises

Making an assessment test with a Moodle quiz

Time for action — setting up a Moodle quiz as test on rivers and continents

What just happened?

The quiz question screen

Time for action — making a multiple-choice question

Have a go hero — Jazz up the question with an image!

What just happened?

Have a go hero — making a true/false question

Time for action — adding a video to a Matching question

What just happened?

Have a go hero — Add a sound file to a quiz question

Previewing and using our Moodle assessment test

Other types of questions

Summary

5. Games

Making an Alien Abduction (hangman) game

Time for action — finding and making the Alien Abduction game

What just happened?

Have a go hero — adding a link to our game in Moodle

Time for action — showing just the game without the web page

What just happened?

Garbage in the bins—making a sorting exercise

Time for action — finding and making the bin game

What just happened?

Have a go hero(1) — adding a link to a file (our game) in Moodle

Have a go hero(2) — embedding the game into a Moodle page

Bish Bash Bosh—a differentiation game with a hammer!

Time for action — finding and creating the Bish Bash Bosh game

What just happened?

Time for action — uploading and displaying our game on Moodle

What just happened?

Have a go hero — make a wheel of fortune game

Making a Monster memory game from Languages Online

Time for action — downloading Memory Game Maker

What just happened?

Time for action — creating our memory game

What just happened?

Have a go hero(1) — upload the game to Moodle

Have a go hero(2) — create a different type of game

I know what you're thinking!

Fling the Teacher—making a Moodle-marked homework

Time for action — finding and setting up Fling the Teacher

What just happened?

Time for action — creating a Fling the Teacher game

What just happened?

Time for action — getting our game to work in Moodle's gradebook

Have a go hero — playing the game

Summary

6. Multimedia

Making a sound recording to put into Moodle

Time for action — getting Audacity

What just happened?

Time for action — setting up to record

What just happened?

Have a go hero — recording audio

Improving the recording and involving our class

Time for action — getting rid of the coughs and giggles

What just happened?

Time for action — adding background music

What just happened?

Time for action — saving our recording

What just happened?

Have a go hero — displaying our MP3 file on Moodle

Time for action — displaying the audio file in a player on the page

What just happened?

Making a film to put into Moodle

What can we use to make our movie?

Getting Windows Movie Maker

Time for action — creating our movie

Have a go hero — adding photos to the movie and testing it out

What just happened?

Improving our movie with effects and sound

Time for action — adding special effects to our movie

Have a go hero — make your movie zoom in and change color!

Time for action — adding sound to our movie

What just happened?

Getting the sound to match our images

Adding the finishing touches to make our movie ready for Moodle

Time for action — adding our opening credits

What just happened?

Have a go hero — adding our closing credits

Time for action — saving and uploading the movie into Moodle

Have a go hero — displaying our movie in Moodle

Summary

7. Wonderful Web 2.0

Web 2.0 words of warning

Getting the pupils to blog!

Time for action — adding the blog menu block so we can blog inside our course

What just happened?

Time for action — introducing our project with a blog entry

What just happened?

Words of warning

Have a go hero — commenting on our pupils' blogs

Putting a map onto Moodle

Time for action — how to display a Google Map on our course page

What just happened?

Words of warning

Introducing the project with a cartoon character

Time for action — creating a moving and a talking teacher

What just happened?

Have a go hero — put your Voki onto Moodle!

Words of warning

Telling our story through an online picture book

Time for action — signing up and making our picture book

What just happened?

Have a go hero — add our online picture book to Moodle

Have a go hero — setting up our Moodle Storybird forum

Summarizing our project in a word cloud

Time for action — making a Wordle word cloud

What just happened?

Have a go hero — getting our students to send us their Wordle word clouds

Words of warning

Summary

8. Practicalities

Miss, I can't do the homework because I haven't got Word at home!

Time for action — getting a free alternative to Microsoft Office

What just happened?

Have a go hero — giving our students an alternative to Microsoft Office

Choosing the best file type for Moodle

Time for action — saving a Rivers homework as a .pdf file for ease of access on Moodle

What just happened?

Have a go hero — convert a PowerPoint to a PDF and upload it to Moodle

Making it easier for our students to view our slideshows

Time for action — getting a program that displays our interactive presentations

What just happened?

Time for action — saving our slideshow so that everyone can see it

What just happened?

Have a go hero — uploading and displaying our new slideshow in Moodle

Making sure that all of our images look correct on Moodle

Time for action — getting a program to help us edit images for Moodle

What just happened?

Time for action — resizing a single photo to display on Moodle

What just happened?

Have a go hero — proving the importance of resizing images!

Time for action — re-sizing several photos, all in one go

What just happened?

Showing YouTube videos on Moodle when YouTube is banned

Time for action — how to download a YouTube video to use on Moodle

What just happened?

Using Moodle on your i-devices

What's good

What's not so good

Summary

9. Advanced Tips and Tricks

Using Moodle to get our students to make decisions

Time for action — creating a decision-making exercise (DME)

What just happened?

Have a go hero — carry on decision making!

Time for action — finishing and viewing our DME

Getting feedback from our students

Time for action — setting up a feedback activity at the end of our course

What just happened?

Controlling the learning path with Conditional Activities

Time for action — scheduling conditional activities (1)

What just happened?

Time for action — scheduling conditional activities (2)

What just happened?

Time for action — scheduling conditional activities (3)

What just happened?

Time for action — finalizing conditional activities

What just happened?

Have a go hero — set this up in your course?

Finishing off—what else can Moodle do for me?

Making our course home page look more like a web page

Have a go hero — source and resize suitable images for each topic section

Time for action — adding image links to our topic sections

What just happened?

Time for action — putting our activities into web pages

What just happened?

Time for action — link the topic page to its image

Have a go hero — link the other topics to their images

Concealing our activities to make our course page neater

Time for action — making our course page look more like a web page

What just happened?

Summary

Index

Moodle 2 for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds

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Moodle 2 for Teaching 7-14 Year Olds

Copyright © 2012 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First edition: March 2009

Second edition: May 2012

Production Reference: 1090512

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-84951-832-1

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Asher Wishkerman ( <[e-mail]> )

Credits

Author

Mary Cooch

Reviewers

Dr. Nellie Deutsch

Louise Adele Jakobsen

Ben Reynolds

Acquisition Editors

David Barnes

Sarah Cullington

Lead Technical Editor

Arun Nadar

Technical Editor

Naheed Shaikh

Project Coordinators

Kushal Bhardwaj

Alka Nayak

Proofreader

Mario Cecere

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Production Coordinator

Melwyn D'sa

Cover Work

Melwyn D'sa

About the Author

Mary Cooch, or Moodlefairy, as she is known online, has taught Languages and Geography at Our Lady's High School, Preston, UK for over 25 years. She now spends part of her working week travelling Europe showing teachers, lecturers, or business users how best to use Moodle, and the other part liaising with the ten primary schools linked to her own high school. Based on her personal experiences, Mary has a deep understanding of what works best with younger students, and empathy (being a non-technical user herself) with teachers who just want to use Moodle as a teaching tool without understanding all the geeky stuff behind it. Mary lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes Moodle and you will find her helping out on the forums of www.moodle.org or via the training centre based at her school www.ourlearning.co.uk. Mary will go anywhere to help you Moodle!

Mary is also the author of Moodle 2 First Look, the first ever book about the new features of Moodle 2. She also helps write the documentation on the main Moodle site, www.moodle.org and blogs on www.moodleblog.net.

I would like to thank Steve for his support, Estelle for her eloquence, and Chris for his commitment. I would like to acknowledge my Moodle Manager Assistant Head at Our Lady's Mark Greenwood for his muse, Moodle Community Manager Helen Foster for her help, and last but not least Founder and Lead Developer Martin Dougiamas for his Moodle.

About the Reviewers

Dr. Nellie Deutsch has been teaching English to speakers of other languages since the mid 70s. She has been integrating technology into her classes since the mid 90s. Nellie earned her doctorate in education and educational leadership with a specialization in curriculum and instruction from the University of Phoenix from the School of Advanced Studies in 2010. Her dissertation research (available on ProQuest, Amazon) focused on instructor experiences with integrating technology in blended learning contexts in higher education around the world.

Nellie is the founder of Integrating Technology for Active Lifelong Learning (IT4ALL), an online informal network of volunteers that provides free professional development workshops for groups around the world, generally in conjunction with different projects and initiatives. Dr. Deutsch is also the founder and current coordinator of the annual Connecting Online for Instruction and Learning and Moodlemoot free online conferences, hosted online by Integrating Technology and supported by WiZiQ online learning platform. Dr. Deutsch has provided consultation on how to integrate Moodle and Elluminate learning environments for distance education at Open University of Israel, and worked as a consultant for WikiEducator.org, supported by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Otago Polytechnic (New Zealand), and Athabasca Open University (Canada) in developing online courses and facilitation.

Nellie mentors educators to use technology to enhance student learning using Moodle, WebQuests, Professional Electronic Portfolios (Mahara), Web 2.0 tools, social networks, and wikis. In addition, she is an accredited PAIRS (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills), conflict resolution, and Reiki practitioner. She practices Mindfulness Meditation and the Alexander Technique.

Dr. Deutsch has written chapters in books on the use of technology and research (Cases in Online Interviews) and has peer-reviewed articles and books on technology-enhanced learning. Dr. Deutsch also serves as chair for doctoral students. She is currently researching and writing a book on learning with Moodle.

Finally, Dr. Deutsch has presented on integrating technology into the classroom and educational leadership at conferences in the United States and virtually around the world. Nellie organized and chaired a panel discussion on the merits and challenges of integrating technology into the classroom at the International Leadership Association (ILA) in London, in 2011. She will also present and facilitate Moodle for Teachers workshop at the TESOL, Philadelphia conference on culture in the English classroom in 2012.

Louise Adele Jakobsen is passionate about the potential a wide range of technologies have to enhance learning and support teaching, business, and life. Recent roles and responsibilities which have enhanced her knowledge, understanding, and application of a variety of tools include being the eLearning Curriculum Manager at a large Further Education (FE) College in the UK with responsibility for moving forward the eLearning agenda; supporting and encouraging staff to use Moodle in more interactive and engaging ways, and Learning and Development Manager at a private training organization where Moodle was used to support organisational and work-based development. Her enthusiasm is evident through the various training, sharing, and motivating strategies that are used. She has experience of working in FE, Higher Education, Adult and Community Learning, and Local Government delivering high