What do you get with Print?

Instant access to your digital copy whilst your Print order is Shipped

Paperback book shipped to your preferred address

Redeem a companion digital copy on all Print orders

Access this title in our online reader with advanced features

DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion Beginner's Guide

Chapter 2. Setting up your Courses

In the previous chapter we started our Moodle journey. In this chapter we're going to see how to lay the foundations for moving your department's courses into Moodle. In this chapter we will:

Learn how to map your academic curriculum to a number of Moodle courses
Create a new Moodle course and give it a name and description
Set up an appropriate structure for the course
Assign teaching staff to the course
Set up an enrollment method for your course

By the end of the chapter your course will be set up and ready for you to start populating it with content.

Key benefits

Move your existing course notes, worksheets, and resources into Moodle quickly

No need to start from scratch! This book shows you the quickest way to start using Moodle and e-learning, by bringing your existing lesson materials into Moodle

Demonstrates quick ways to improve your course, taking advantage of multimedia and collaboration

Requires no prior knowledge of Moodle, even experienced Moodlers will find this useful for converting ‚Äòpaper‚Äô resources and face-to-face lessons into Moodle

Description

Schools, colleges and universities all over the world are installing Moodle, but many educators aren‚Äôt making much use of it. With so many features, it can be a hassle to learn ‚Äì and with teachers under so much pressure day-to-day, they cannot devote much time to recreating all their lessons from scratch.This book provides the quickest way for teachers and trainers to get up and running with Moodle, by turning their familiar teaching materials into a Moodle e-learning course.This book shows how to bring your existing notes, worksheets, resources and lesson plans into Moodle quickly and easily. Instead of exploring every feature of Moodle, the book focuses on getting you started immediately ‚Äì you will be turning your existing materials into Moodle courses right from the start.The book begins by showing how to turn your teaching schedule into a Moodle course, with the correct number of topics and weeks. You will then see how to convert your resources ‚Äì documents, slideshows, and worksheets, into Moodle. You will learn how to format them in a way that means students will be able to read them, and along the way plenty of shortcuts to speed up the process.By the end of Chapter 3, you will already have a Moodle course that contains your learning resources in a presentable way. But the book doesn‚Äôt end there‚Äì you will also see how to use Moodle to accept and assess coursework submissions, discuss work with students, and deliver quizzes, tests, and video. Throughout the book, the focus is on getting results fast ‚Äì moving teaching material online so that lessons become more effective for students, and less work for you.

Who is this book for?

This book is for teachers, tutors, and lecturers who already have a large body of teaching material and want to use Moodle to enhance their course, rather than developing brand new ones. You won‚Äôt need experience with Moodle, but will need teacher-access to a ready-installed Moodle site.Teachers with some experience of Moodle, who want to focus on incorporating existing course materials will also find this book very useful

What you will learn

Incorporate your existing handouts, worksheets, and other resources into Moodle courses

Quick methods to make your Moodle courses engaging, attractive, and fun

Fast ways to add multimedia to your course, or incorporate existing sounds and videos

Using Moodle as a repository for departmental guidelines and documentation

Move marking online! See how students can submit their assignments straight into Moodle, for you to mark assess on the computer ‚Äì no more backbreaking boxes of assignments to lug to and from school

Use forums and messaging to keep in contact with students when it‚Äôs convenient, rather than having them call into your office during your breaks or preparation time.

See how you can make your course a completely online experience ‚Äì dispensing with face time all together

What do you get with Print?

Instant access to your digital copy whilst your Print order is Shipped

Paperback book shipped to your preferred address

Redeem a companion digital copy on all Print orders

Access this title in our online reader with advanced features

DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

Frequently bought together

€41.99

€37.99

€24.99

Total € 104.97

Janet Bianchini Feb 29, 2012

Written by Ian Wild and published by Packtpub as a second edition in November 2011, Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion Beginners' Guide provides a valuable and insightful guide to converting your teaching materials to the latest edition of Moodle 2.0. At 368 pages long, with nine clearly defined chapters, divided in two parts, the information showcased is comprehensive and easily managed.Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion Beginners' Guide is primarily aimed, but not exclusively, at teachers / educators who are beginners in dealing with Moodle. This comprehensive book demonstrates in a very clear manner how easy it is to create a course entirely online using the teacher's own worksheets and materials. My opinion is that this is a very practical and useful guide to have for any teacher contemplating shifting their work from a paper based / non digital format to a highly sophisticated and modern online medium.The introduction quotes the notion of a "fast" learning curve for readers of this book, and this caught my eye. Although the book is packed full with useful information, it is indeed condensed in a very efficient way and therefore easy to read in manageable chunks with clearly defined headings to lead the way. My feeling is that objectives can be achieved in a short space of time by following the considerable amount of tutorials, screenshots and clear explanations included in the book.What I liked...The step by step approach with ample screenshots was greatly appreciated, and made the information much more easily accessible.I particularly liked the Pop Quiz to recycle information digested, and there were many examples of this feature in each of the chapters. I found myself keen to see if I could answer the questions quickly to prove to myself that I had taken in the information.In addition, the "Have a go hero" feature is a great touch, which sets practical challenges. It also gives you ideas for further experimentation of materials covered.I also liked the practical "Word of caution" sections and I learned some useful tips for things to avoid doing, such as not logging on to Moodle as two different users.The frequent "What just happened?" question was effective in breaking up chunks of information, and served as a useful review of the content. The "Time for action" heading also served a useful purpose for running through procedures.Would I recommend it?Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion Beginners' Guide seems to do what it says on the blurb and cover and as a result, I would recommend this book to any teacher / administrator / tutor embarking on changing files and materials to Moodle.

Amazon Verified review

Janetta Garton Feb 25, 2012

From the start it is apparent that this book is written for teachers just getting started with Moodle, the premise being "how to get your existing teaching material online quickly and easily." This approach should make the creation of an online course less daunting for beginners.It follows a logical sequence, and covers all the main concepts. The directions are kept simple, avoiding detailed explanations of every option you have, and focusing on the common choices beginning users might make when creating a course. I think this is a great approach and is less likely to overwhelm a newbie than a comprehensive how-to would, that explains in detail all the options.I was especially pleased to see the information shared on how to set up a shared quiz bank to allow teachers to share questions beyond the course level. I feel this is an example of what using technology in teaching is all about. Using technology to do things we can't do without it.I also like that he spends some time explaining how to make your course visually appealing by using labels, images, tables, and the embedding of content. You can tell it is written by an experienced user when he includes reminders about embedding content that might be blocked by the school filter for students and thus not accessible to them.He explains situations in which a teacher would need to check with the administrator of the Moodle to enable features. It also includes good examples and explanations about the management of collecting and grading student assignments.I will be recommending this book to our teachers who are just getting started in Moodle.

S. Betts Jan 12, 2012

This new book is a good guide for newbies to Moodle 2.x. "Overview of Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion Beginner's Guide" by Ian Wild takes the reader through setting up a course to enhancing it with multi-media. I like how it exemplifies converting an existing course into one with blended learning. Mr Wild uses a Physics course of his own to demonstrate how this "conversion" would be done.His examples are clear and he does a great job of sorting out and emphasizing the most important steps. You can easily see that this is written for teachers by a teacher. Anyone can use this book to make that first move to online learning without any prior knowledge of the Moodle platform.Please note that I was fortunate enough to be one of the reviewers on this book.

Mary Cooch Dec 11, 2011

This is an updated version of Ian Wild's original book, written for 1.9 at the end of 2008 and was Packt's first Beginners' Guide - easy to follow, step by step introductions to cutting-edge technologies and new techniques. The style is friendly, to the point and moves the newbie Moodler quickly on to where they need to be. In chapter 1 following a brief rationale and history of Moodle and an outline of course roles and navigation we log in and get to business. Chapter 2 has us setting up our course and assigning users, teachers and students and looking at the various ways to do this. We really felt we were getting to grips with Moodle right from the start; no extraneous, unnecessary detail; just hands on action. Probably the first thing most tutors will want to do is put on their resources for their students, be those resources word-processed documents, presentations or whatever, Chapter 3 covers how to do this in depth and also includes a discussion on the best ways of doing this. Sometimes the best way isn't merely uploading a document: Ian has the tutors investigating Moodle pages and wikis too , and is careful to explain how Moodle's so-called "file picker" system operates. So we have our stuff online-how can we make it as much entertaining as it is practical? (in Ian's words) Chapter 4 covers sound and vision and Moodle's great media icon that lets you embed multimedia literally at the click of a button. In chapter 5, Ian then moves us on to the actual appearance of our course by offering hints (with labels and tables ) to make it more visually appealing. You can read chapter 5 as a free sample on the Packt website. And then -just as we were beginning to get carried away with making it pretty ! -we get to the important business of assessing and grading our classes .Chapter 6 covers assignments, marking, giving feedback, custom grades and outcomes.Chapter 7 is all about ways to communicate: forums, chats, the calendar and messaging, while Chapter 8 takes the reader into more "advanced" Moodling with some of the more complex activites such as Quiz, Lesson and Workshop. He also briefly touches on selected release, or Conditional Activities. We like the way admin settings are given a section of their own "Ask the admin" rather than keeping them in with the tutor's needs, as most tutors won't have admn access yet need to know what they require of their admin. Chapter 9 covers a mixture of items -changing the course settings to fit the needs of specific learning environments; creating a SCORM activity; ways to divide classes up in to groups and -most important -how to backup and restore your course. A nice way to end the book -we start from no knowledge and finish by having a fully functional course we can take away with us:)In conclusion, we found this an extremely readable book that certainly lives up to its name of "Beginner's Guide".

Nancy V Dec 27, 2011

As e-learning becomes the mode of preference for students and institutions, big or small, teachers need to (reluctantly or not) get on board. Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion for Beginners (2nd ed.) speaks directly to teachers who want to get up and running online with their existing teaching materials.Not only does this book do a great job of guiding and encouraging teachers new to Moodle, but it also does so with a sense of light humour at a non-pressured pace. At the outset, adding files and audio and video are covered, but as the book progresses, even collaborative learning tools such as discussion forums, groups and wikis are addressed.I was most impressed that the text covered some workshop functionality (peer review projects), so definitely even an experienced teacher could learn new tricks.To sum, you can indeed convert existing course materials into a very acceptable online learning experience for students while ramping up your knowledge of e-learning.This book, with its many screenshots, will walk you through the process.

What do you get with Print?

Moodle 2.0 Course Conversion Beginner's Guide

Chapter 2. Setting up your Courses

From curriculum to courses: What counts as a Moodle course

Let's get started: Setting up the course

Creating your course

Do you need to create your course yourself

Time for action – configuring the Backyard Ballistics course

Course structure and format

Time for action – setting up the course format

What just happened?

Time for action – defining each week/topic

What just happened

Assigning teaching staff

Time for action – assigning roles

Let in the rabble: Enrolling students on your course

Enrolling with a key

Time for action – specifying a course enrollment key

What just happened?

Summary

Page 1 of 13

Key benefits

Description

Who is this book for?

What you will learn

Product Details

What do you get with Print?

Product Details

Frequently bought together

Table of Contents

Recommendations for you

Customer reviews

People who bought this also bought

FAQs

What do you get with Print?

Contact Details

Shipping Address

Billing Address

Key benefits

Description

Who is this book for?

What you will learn

Product Details

What do you get with Print?

Contact Details

Shipping Address

Billing Address

Product Details

Packt Subscriptions

Frequently bought together

Table of Contents

Recommendations for you

Customer reviews

People who bought this also bought

FAQs