Waffle Bytes

Here are the steps to import material from one Moodle Course into another.  Note: if you are moving an entire course’s content, make sure you have changed the course settings to include the same (or more) number of topical a reas as the course you are copying.  In the course you want the material in: -Go to the Admin Pane -> Import In the next window, select the course that contains the material you want to move from the “Courses I have taught” or the “Courses in the same category” Click on the “Use this course” button. In the next window, select the material you want to move by checking/unchecking boxes (if you are using most of the material, hit “All” to start with everything checked; if you are only moving a few items, hit “None” to start with nothing checked.)  You can take as much or as little as you want. At the bottom, select if you want the course files to be copied over. Then click on “Continue”.  Another screen will come up, hit “Continue” on ...

Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General- Crayola Interactive Coloring: http://www.crayola.com/coloring_application/ Free website from Crayola for coloring and printing pictures. ELA- Technology Tips for Poetry: http://www.thewritingsite.org/resources/technology/poetrysites.asp For all students: examples, links to some great resources, ideas for publication Math- nrich, Specialists in rich mathematics: http://nrich.maths.org/public/ “NRICH is a team of qualified teachers who are also practitioners in RICH mathematical thinking. This unique blend means that NRICH is ideally placed to offer advice and support to both teachers and learners of mathematics.” Science- Kinetic City:   htt...

Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General- Google PDF Handouts with Screenshots: https://sites.google.com/site/mcccdtech/pdf-handouts-with-screenshots Many How-to Handouts on using Google developed for Maricopa Community College.  There is a link to editable versions of the handouts. ELA- 250+ Places for Free Books Online: 250+ http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/50-places-free-books-online 250+ .htm “This is a listing of 260 sites that legally offer free books (eBooks) for download or for online viewing.” Math- Johnnie’s Math Page:  http://jmathpage.com/ “Interactive math tools, math activities and math fun for kids and their teachers.” Science- Cells Alive: http://www.cellsali...

When you are adding activities or resources on your Moodle site, you often have access to an HTML Editor toolbar such as the one pictured here: (If you do not see this toolbar, you are probably using a browser that does not support it. If you are able to, try using another browser such as Mozilla’s Firefox to see if you have access.) Let’s break the toolbar down a little and describe what you can do with it! The first couple are font formatting settings, allowing you to set the font type and size: The third one is a little less obvious, unless you have experience in working with HTML code. It uses some preset font formats that are set by the Moodle theme you are using. These presets might change any of the following, depending on which theme you use: -color of the font or the background behind the font -add a border around the font -bold or italicize font -text alignment -spacing after a return -font type & size Next are a few font formatting selections:...

This week I've started cleaning up, organizing and deleting old documents as I have moved to a new laptop.  I ran across this sheet I created for teachers using Mac OSX; it turned out to be useful to a few colleagues so I thought I would share it here. Here are a couple screen shots of it: Link to file: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13600278/MacShortcuts.pdf Feel free to use and to pass on to fellow Mac users :-)

This month we are going to look at some Moodle blocks you might find useful.  Today is about the Activities Block. Once you begin adding more items to your Moodle, it begins to grow in length, and students (and you) might be getting frustrated at the amount of scrolling they are doing.  Or you might reference Moodle activities in a handout.  Or you might have students who think about the material in a different way.  The Activities Block might be useful for dealing with these type of situations.  To add the Activities Block, Turn editing on and select Activities from the Add Block area: A new side block will appear with the types of activities found on your Moodle Course: Clicking on one of the activities will result in a list of all the activities of that type on the course. (Here is a partial list of links on my sample site): You will notice that the Topic in which the item resides is displayed with the name; the summary will also be display...

Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General- Information Literacy : http://novemberlearning.com/resources/information-literacy-resources Great resource for testing and improving your own information literacy, and provides resources to help you teach it to your students.  Many of the tips can easily be shared with students within a research project you are already doing without requiring additional teaching time. ELA- Technology Tips for Poetry : http://www.thewritingsite.org/resources/technology/poetrysites.asp Useful sites and tips for incorporating technology into learning poetry. Math - nrich, Specialists in rich mathematics: http://nrich.maths.org/public/index.php Site has activities, puzzles and question...

My latest project has been creating a Moodle Help 101 course on our Moodle server.  With so many of our local school districts converting to Moodle, I find that it is nice to have one site to store documents, links and videos.  I'm sure it will quickly become overwhelming, but at least here at the start it is manageable! Site: http://onlinelearning.calhounisd.org/cisd/course/view.php?id=69 For the sake of clarity: the topics are organized by how particular features are (or will be) leveled at county-wide training.  As you can see, the Introduction topic is for Moodle orientation and helping users to add resources to a course; a majority of the Introduction material is already loaded onto the site.  We are using Basic, Expanded and Advanced to classify all remaining Moodle modules, add-ons, tricks and anything else you can think of.  These will be added in as the trainings happen in the next couple months. Please note the creative-commons licensing points o...

App Title: A Life Cycle App Grade Level: 4th-9th Grade Purpose: A A Life Cycle App walks the user through (currently) ten different biological life cycles.  Some examples of cycles the user can choose from include phases of the moon, pollination & fertilization, life cycle of the butterfly, water cycle, and oxygen cycle.  Each phase in a cycle is represented with graphics and/or pictures.  Touching a graphic brings up information about that phase in a text box.  Audio accompanies the text so the user could listen to the information as well as reading it. Program Functionality:   B The Life Cycle App has very little interactivity for the user.  The user basically can click on the graphic/picture within the cycle to read or listen to long boxes of text about that item.  While it is a step up from a static textbook, it is little different than going to a website with similar information.  Additionally, the screen seems very cluttered whic...

I often get told that the Quiz Module is very time-intensive and overwhelming, especially for newer Moodle users, so I thought we would look at the Feedback module today as an easy to use alternative.The Feedback module is a great assessment piece that can often times suffice in place of a quiz. To begin, when you add a Feedback activity you provide some general information, such as giving it a Name (just like any other activity) and a Description.  Think of the description as the directions you want to give the users that are filling out the feedback. Before you get to creating your questions, you have several other options you can set.  Like other activities, you can set the availability timing of the feedback and group settings.  But in between those two items are a few interesting options unique to the feedback. First, is the Feedback Options area.  You can choose whether the responses are recorded with the user’s name or if they are anonymous.  You ca...

Happy Monday of Thanksgiving week, Moodle users! Today, in  honor of our shortened week, I am sharing a trick to shorten the time needed to upload files to your Moodle site!  This trick is useful for Moodlers of every level :-) If you have a bunch of (or even just a few) files you want to use in your Moodle course, you DO NOT have to go through the “Upload File” process for each file… (do I hear that gasp of wonder?) You can go through the process just once using the steps outlined below: 1.Put all the files you want to upload into a folder on your computer. 2. Compress the file (Windows XP: Right-click the folder, select “Send To” and select “Compress (zipped) Folder”; Macintosh: control+click the folder, select “Compress”).  This will create a zipped file with the same name as the folder, ending in .zip. 3. Navigate to your Moodle course and login 4. In the Administration Block, click on Files to access the course files 5. Click on Upload ...

Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General - Teachers' Domain: http://www.teachersdomain.org/ "Teachers' Domain is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You’ll find thousands of media resources, support materials, and tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities."  This is a NSF funded project that currently is being updated quite regularly. Math - Basic Algebra Wikibook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Basic_Algebra Great resource for students.  Each "lesson" has vocabulary, lesson, example problems, practice games and practice problems.  This is part of an entire Algebra se...

Some Moodle Forum features you might not know about, but might find a use for: Tracking of read posts:  (" Read tracking for this forum? ") Turning this feature on shows the user which posts have not been looked at yet by making them bold.  Adding attachments: You can have users share files within a forum, such as podcasts, documents, presentations, etc. This can be an area that students share or showcase some of their work with each other. Post threshold: Enabling this will set a limit to the number of posts the participants can make within a certain time period.  For instance, 10 posts per day. I get many questions about the different types of forums and how to use them.  Here's a brief rundown of them: Single, simple discussion: discussion with a single topic, where all responses show on a single page.  Some common uses: an area for students to share/showcase an assignment; a discussion that does not have lots of depth. Each person posts one di...

Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General- 100 Terrific Sites to Find Primary Source History Documents: http://www.bachelorsdegreeonline.com/blog/2009/100-terrific-sites-to-find-primary-source-history-documents/ A list of some of the sites that “feature primary source documents, recordings, images, and more.” Science- National Geographic’s Great Migrations: http://www.greatmigrationseducation.com/ “This fall, National Geographic Channel will premiere a one-of-a-kind special event entitled Great Migrations. In conjunction with this compelling programming event we are pleased to offer the Great Migrations Education Initiative. The initiative features standards-based lesson plans, video content and a virtual assembly that w...

Today we'll look at embedding content and how to hide information on your Moodle course. 1. Embedding content : Since Moodle pages have their base in HTML, you can always embed web content onto your course.  The easiest way is to first generate the embed code for the content.  Most sites will provide an easy way to do this... usually with a click of a button (for instance, on YouTube the Embed button is underneath the video).  Copy the code provided.  Add a label resource to your course. On the the editing toolbar, click the icon with the <> characters.  This will change it so you see the HTML code in the window.  Paste in the code you copied.  Save the resource.  Try it for yourself... go snag a YouTube video and put in on your course! 2.  Hiding Information :  Sometimes you encounter a situation where you need to link to a piece of information you want hidden from general view.  Or you might be trying to "pr...

I know it is Monday; I'm playing catch-up after taking Friday off! Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General- A Visit to Copyright Bay: http://www.stfrancis.edu/content/cid/copyrightbay/ Site to “inform and entertain educators about copyright in a non-profit setting.” ELA- Road to Grammar: http://www.roadtogrammar.com/ Site has quizzes, practice & game activities for students to improve their grammar.  There is a download area where teachers can download the quizzes in pdf format, and 100 conversation questions. Math- The National Math Trail: http://www.nationalmathtrail.org/ “The National Math Trail is an opportunity for K-12 teachers and students to discover and share the math that exists in their own environments. St...

Today I have some ideas for using some of the web design abilities on your Moodle course.  Before you say, “I can’t do web design!” please note that you don’t need to know a lick of HTML in order to use either of these features! 1. One module often overlooked is the Compose a Webpage resource. When you are creating an unit/lesson/activity that includes directions and/or multiple resources you can put all these pieces together on a single page within your Moodle using this feature, and prevent the long list on your course entry page. You have files that need to be used? No problem! Upload the files in your Files directory first, then you can right click (Mac Users: control click) on each one’s name to copy the unique URL that Moodle assigns it; you can then paste this on the webpage you are creating. Additionally you have access to the HTML editing toolbar so you can easily emphasize certain parts of the activity, add pictures or just make it look pretty. 2. A grea...

Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General- 10 Sources for Free Textbooks Online: http://blog.curriki.org/2010/08/31/10-sources-for-free-textbooks-online/ Just as it says… 10 sources for free online textbooks, lots of curriculum areas. ELA- Purdue Writing OWL: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ The Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a free service of writing resources & instructional material Math- Mathtrain.TV: http://mathtrain.tv/ “Kids teaching kids” videos created at a middle school in California.  You can subscribe within iTunes, as well. Science - Animation Gallary: http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animation.html Animated tutorials for a variety of scientific disciplines.  Art - Art Cyclopedia: h...

Happy Monday, Moodle users! Some Moodle points to share: 1. Changing picture sizes : You uploaded your picture, but it is way too large when you view it on the page… what to do!  You can still use it, you just need to use the size area  of the Insert Image window to adjust the picture size when selecting it.  Don’t worry about having a calculator on hand to keep the picture proportional, just fill in EITHER the width or height, and leave the other box empty .  Moodle will re-size to your new value, but keep the image proportional for you! 2. Glossaries: Glossaries are another one of those Moodle activities that-once discovered by a teacher-gain popularity as a versatile activity used often, especially as students can create entries that include pictures, graphics and even videos.  Additionally, you can enable the settings so students can comment on each other’s entries, creating an interactive experience for them. Here are some ways that Glossaries m...

Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General- Download Tube: http://downloadtube.org/ Enter the URL of a YouTube video & select which conversion you want.  The site will retrieve & convert YouTube video, then allow you to download it.  Free service allows for 1 conversion & download every 90 minutes.    ELA- 10 Best Websites for Free Audiobooks: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easy-listening-pleasures-10-websites-free-audio-book-downloads/ A blog posting with links to some of the best locations to find free audiobooks.  Math & Science- Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/#browse “Browse 1800+ videos by topic” –there are other topics there, but a lot of mathematics (Developmental Math throug...

Happy Monday, Moodle users! Some Moodle points to share: 1. Graphics as Links : If you want to “jazz up” your page easily, you can assign links to your graphics or images.   These links can go to outside websites OR even to items within Moodle itself as every added item in Moodle gets assigned a unique URL for your course!   To add the link to a graphics you have already placed on the page: a.        edit the location with the graphic b.       highlight the graphic by clicking on it c.        click on the link icon in the HTML toolbar (the chain link icon) d.       type or paste in the URL   address (this could be an outside site or an activity in Moodle) OR click on Browse to select a file you have uploaded e.       click OK This is a great way to create shortcuts within your Moodle course. 2. Moodle help: If you have a questions a...

Often, finding good web resources are the hardest part of the job for an educator.  With all the demands on a teacher's time, who has time to spend searching?  If this is you, here are some resources you may found useful.  Please feel free to share with others! General- The Educator’s Reference Desk: http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/index.shtml Site with over 2000 unique lesson plans, written & submitted by teachers.  Lessons are categorized, and are searchable.  Assistive- Zamzar: http://zamzar.com/ In addition to providing online file conversion, Zamzar has added a text to speech conversion.  The user can upload files in TXT , DOC , DOCX , EPS , PDF , RTF , WPD , WPS and convert it to an mp3 audio file.  There is a 100MB limit on file size. ELA- 21 st Century Lit .org: http://21stcenturylit.org/ Detailed lesson modules for 7 th -12 th grade students that incorporate journalistic writing, project based learning and technology. S...

Happy Monday afternoon, Moodle Users! 1.        Have you sometimes got a group of files/resources you want on your Moodle site, but don’t want the long list showing up on the screen for students (or other users)?  Or do you have a group of files/resources that might change over time, and as you add or delete you don’t want to constantly change your Moodle links?  If so, then you want to look into using the Moodle Directory resource.  Using a Directory can save you lots of time, in addition to saving real estate as a group of related items can be represented by a single folder instead of a long list of files.  Here is how to set up a Directory: a.        Click on Files in the Administration Pane when in your course b.       Create a New Folder; you might want the name you assign it to be indicative of what is in the directory c.        Upload the files ...

App Title: The MathMaster Grade Level: 3rd-9th Purpose: A The MathMaster app is a math drill application that lets the user set the number, type and range of values used for the problems.  The app times the user on the length of time to complete the number of problems, providing stats on the average amount of time per problem.  The user can select from one or more of these problem types: multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, powers and/or roots.  By the way, this app was written by a couple of seventh grade students! Program Functionality: A The MathMaster does exactly what it is written for.  The user can drill a variety of basic math facts, in a program that is basic but runs very smoothly and does not have slowdowns or hangtime. Overall Educational Value: A As a support application for practicing and drilling basic math facts, the MathMaster is the best one I have come across.  There are no frills, but it is very easy to set up and prov...