Nicknames in Moodle ISU 2

Moodle ISU 2 receives nickname information from Banner - BengalWeb. Therefore display names in Moodle ISU 2 will not always be the same as your legal name. Names can be changed in Banner by contacting the appropriate department:

• If you are a faculty or staff at ISU and want to change your display name in Moodle ISU contact the Office of Human Resources at: (208) 282-2517 or hr@isu.edu
• If you are a student contact the Office of the Registrar at: (208) 282-2661 or reginfo@isu.edu

Tips for Designing an Effective Online Course

Tips for designing an effective online course

1. Always include a navigation block at the start, even if you think the learners have done eLearning before. The navigation block should have clear and simple instructions so any learner can easily progress through the course. By making navigation easy, learners can focus on the course content.

2. Provide clear contact information for the instructor. If the learners do have questions, how do they contact you and what is your response time?

3. Pay attention to the layout of each and every section. Avoid cluttering sections with too much information. The course should be pleasing to the eye and designed to draw the learner’s eye to the most important information.

4. Include a glossary. Never assume that the learners will understand jargon, technical terms or acronyms. The glossary should be comprehensive and explain key terms in plain English.

5. Include regular quizzes or case studies to check the learners’ understanding of the content. Instead of having one huge test at the end of a course, it is better to have shorter tests at regular intervals throughout the course. Regular tests and quizzes are a good way for learners to measure their own understanding and build their confidence.

6. Give learners the option of finding out more information if they need to. You could include a box on some blocks saying “Want to know more? Click on this link to learn more about …..”

7. Ask another person to check the course to see if it makes sense and to look for any content that is unclear.

8. Engage in continuous improvement. Even when you have published and released your course to learners, there is still the opportunity to gather feedback and make improvements to the course. You could include a survey asking learners if there was anything they found unclear. This is a great way for you to keep learning about the learners’ perspective and to remind yourself that you are designing courses for real people.

Exciting feature enhancements in Moodle ISU 2!

Check out the following enhancements to Moodle ISU 2:

Drag and Drop for adding files and resources:

• To add a file, simply drag and drop it from your desktop or other file location onto the course section where you'd like it to appear and it will be added to your page as a resource.

• To add a folder of files, simply zip the folder then drag and drop it onto the course section where you'd like it to appear, answer 'Unzip files and create folder' to the popup dialogue, then click the upload button. 

• To add a SCORM package, simply drag and drop it onto the course section where you'd like it to appear, answer 'Add a SCORM package' to the popup dialogue, then click the upload button.

Course Page:

• - the pencil icon allows you to rename your item directly on the course page without entering into the settings for that item.

•   A new popup "Activity chooser" for adding resources and activities has been added that provides a full introduction, examples and links about each activity or resource module. Select an activity or resource then click the Add button, or simply double-click on the activity or resource name.

File picker:

• Images now display as true thumbnails in the file picker and file manager. 

•  Other files have pretty icons for most file types.

• Files view can be easily toggled between icons view or a table view with sizes and dates, or a hierarchical list view. 

•  File info (eg license information, sizes, dates) can be easily edited and viewed in a popup dialogue. 

•  Files can be uploaded from your existing Google Docs, Dropbox and Wikimedia accounts (additional repositories to be added later).

 

How Often Should Faculty Post in Online Forums?

In the Faculty Focus article How Many Faculty Discussion Posts Each Week? A Simply Delicious Answer Cheryl Hayek, EdD uses a dinner party analogy to help instructors understand how to successfully participate without dominating online discussions.

Here's the dinner party break down:

The Dinner Party: The Host’s Actions….

• Welcome EVERYONE personally at the door. (Online forum)
• Make sure every person feels comfortable in the new environment. (Tone)
• Don’t ignore anyone. (Reply to each student throughout the course)
• Disagreements are phrased professionally.
• No one should be silent, including the host! (Be present in forums)
• Serve them something delicious. (Content!)
• Invite them back! (To weekly forums, to the next assignment even if they’ve faltered on the previous one, to the university if they’ve finished your course)
• Proportionate time with every guest. (Don’t reply to the same students every time)
• Spend extra time with needy guests. (Struggling students)
• Don’t talk all at once, spread the conversation throughout the party. (Post on various days, keeping the volume consistent)
• Start up a new conversation when one is stale! (Add a relevant link to a current event to discuss)
• Hosts are visible, immediately attend to guests’ needs, personable, and proactively plan for a great evening!

Just as each dinner party is as unique as both the host and the participants, so too will discussions change and adapt to the individuals in the course. With a little planning and getting to know the "dinner guests" each faculty member can "host" amazing online discussions.

Web Conferencing

To: All Faculty

From: Blake Beck

Idaho State University is going to add a new tool for distance education, Web Conferencing.

In the ITRC, we have heard some questions and confusion about the new web conferencing tool ISU is in the process of acquiring. ISU has been working with other institutions of higher ed in the state as well as the Office of the State Board of Education (OSBE) and are very close to acquiring web conferencing for our campus. Some of the questions that are coming up regarding this new tool revolve around a confusion about Blackboard (Bb). Bb is the company that offers the Web Conferencing tool we will be purchasing. Bb is a company that offers several different tools to the education market including their LMS, Bb Learn; their communication tool, Bb Connect; their card service, Bb Transact; their mobile solution, Bb Mobile; and their Web Conferencing tool, Bb Collaborate. All those tools work and are sold independently or bundled. ISU is only purchasing their Web Conferencing tool, Bb Collaborate. This won't change our current LMS, which is Moodle. Moodle will remain the primary means to reach students at a distance with asynchronous education.

Because we are working with other higher education institutions as well as the OSBE, the timing of actually obtaining this tool is not entirely in our control. Thus, we continue to wait for final purchase and access to this tool. Everything seems to be in place now to complete the purchase and gain access within the next 30-45 days. The ITRC and the Provost's office will notify the faculty as soon as this tool becomes available.

Web Conferencing will provide a synchronous teaching means to reach students at the desk top that can also be recorded for asynchronous play back. With the acquisition of a Web Conferencing tool, ISU will have three primary tools for teaching distant students, Video Conferencing, a Learning Management System, and Web Conferencing. Although Video Conferencing and Web Conferencing are both synchronous distance tools, both can be recorded for asynchronous play back by the students at their convenience.

Hopefully this makes clear the various products. The ITRC will support all three means of reaching students at a distance. The brand of the tool is of less importance, and can change over time, than the functionality of the tool. The quality of the education, along with the functionality of the various distance learning tools is what will allow ISU to compete for and reach distance students.

If you have questions about how you can most effectively reach and teach students at a distance, please don't hesitate to contact the ITRC and we can assist you with evaluation of the best tool to meet your needs. Additionally, the ITRC can assist with the development and presentation of content, or instructional design. We can be reached at itrc@isu.edu or 282-5880.

ONLINE FACULTY -- GUIDELINES

This article provides some sound guidelines for faculty teaching an online course. eISU faculty would benefit from the eight performance expectations developed by the Penn State. Enjoy the read/video -- Randy Stamm, eLearning Coordinator

Moodle 2 -YouTube videos

It seems like every day a new Moodle 2.o tutorial is posted to YouTube. The ITRC will be doing some video tutorials and posting these videos to our own YouTube channel. By posting these videos to YouTube, we hope to make them available to our faculty and other university and college faculty from around the world.

Stay tuned!--- Randy Stamm, eLearning Coordinator