Moodle 2.3 introduces many new, enhanced features, compared with our previous version of Moodle. Those features include:
- Drag-and-drop uploading of content into your course
- The ability to edit resource and activity names directly on the course page
- Conditional release for resources and activities
- Item descriptions displayed on the course page
- A single merged resource and activity menu
- The ability to duplicate resources and activities already added to the course
- An expanded list of resource types (Book, File, Folder, IMS content package, Label, Page, URL)
- All Assignment activity types merged into one overarching Assignment activity
- The ability to collapse and dock Navigation blocks
- Rubric grading
- Simplified Quiz editing
- Course layout changes
- My Private Files
Drag-and-Drop Uploading of Content into Your Course
With Moodle 2.3, instructors can now drag files directly onto their course page in the desired topic area without having to click the “Add an activity or resource” link. Drag-and-drop is also available in the traditional “Add a file” and “Add a folder” resource areas, along with the student file submission area (for the Assignment activity). This drag-and-drop feature works best in Firefox and Chrome, but is not supported in Safari or Internet Explorer. For a short video demonstrating this new feature, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfNiKsz_n9k.
Editing Resource and Activity Names Directly on the Course Page
Under Moodle 1.9 (when Edit Mode was turned on), the “Update” link appeared as a yellow pencil icon. Moodle 2.3 has added an additional “Edit title” icon that looks like a black pencil. When you click on the “Edit title” black pencil icon, you can edit the link name for the activity or resource on the main page for your course (hitting the Enter key to finalize your editing), without having to move to a separate window.
Conditional Release for Resources and Activities
Moodle 2.3 includes new “Restrict access” functionality for all resources and activities, allowing instructors to set specific grade-based or time-based criteria for when activities or resources appear. For the time-based restrictions, Moodle 2.3 allows you to set “Allow access from” and “Allow access until” dates for a resource, similar to the “Display After” and “Display Until” functionality in Blackboard.
Item Descriptions Displayed on the Course Page
Moodle 2.3 allows faculty members to enter a description for a resource or activity, with the new option of displaying that description on the main course page, just below the item name. Under our previous version of Moodle (v. 1.9), instructors needed to add those descriptions as a separate label, which was much more cumbersome and made it harder to move items around in the course.
A Single Merged Resource and Activity Menu
Moodle 2.3 merges the previous “Add an activity” and “Add a resource” menus into a single menu entitled “Add an activity or resource,” simplifying the process of adding content to your course. Within that “Add an activity or resource” menu, you can double-click on the activity or resource that you want to insert, in addition to the slightly more cumbersome method of clicking on the radio button next to the item and then on the “Add” button at the bottom of the page.
Duplicating Existing Resources and Activities
With Edit Mode on for the course, faculty members can now duplicate a resource or activity by clicking the duplicate icon (two interlocking blue circles) next to the name of the activity or resource. This allows you to make multiple versions of a resource or activity very quickly – for example, multiple versions of an assignment for different groups – with only minimal editing required.
Expanded List of Resource Types
Moodle 2.3 adds new resource types and modifies others compared to Moodle 1.9:
- Book – this new resource category allows faculty members to add multiple pages to a course that are linked sequentially, like the pages of a book.
- File – adds any electronic document to your course, such as a Word document, PowerPoint file, PDF file, audio file, etc.
- Folder – The “folder” resource allows you to present a folder (along with sub-folders) of documents to your students.
- IMS content package – a package of materials provided by publishers that can be incorporated into the course.
- Label – the Label resource type allows you to add textual descriptions to the main course page.
- Page – Under Moodle 2.3, “Add a text page” and “Add a web page” have been combined, allowing you to create a separate page with formatted text content.
- URL – add a link to a page or resource existing on the World Wide Web.
One Overarching Assignment Activity
Previously, when you created an Assignment activity on Moodle, you chose among four different assignment types – Upload a single file, Advanced uploading of files, Online text assignment, and Offline activity. At Bucknell, we also had a fifth Assignment activity type, the TurnItIn Assignment, for plagiarism checking. Now, there is only one Assignment activity the combines the four major assignment types, allowing you to choose the options for the assignment from one standardized page. Once students have submitted the assignments, instructors can download all assignment submissions as a single zip file. Under Moodle 2.3, we retain the TurnItIn Assignment type as a separate type.
Collapsing and Docking Navigation Blocks
The blocks on the left side of your Moodle course display – the Navigation block in particular – can take up a lot of screen space and make it difficult to see other content. Moodle 2.3 allows you to “dock the blocks” by clicking on the small rectangles at the upper-right corner of the block titles; the icon resembles a tiny version of the Moodle screen. Docked blocks appear as tabs on the left-hand edge of the screen, whose contents display when you move the mouse over the block title. Docking a block will affect your display only and not how that block will appear to others in the course. You can also “collapse” or minimize blocks by clicking on the minus icon in the top-right corner of the block, reducing the screen space taken up by the block.
Rubric Grading
As part of Moodle 2.3’s advanced grading techniques, instructors can create custom rubrics for scoring one or multiple assignments. For more information on rubric grading, see Rubrics.
Simplified Quiz Editing
Under Moodle 1.9 (and below), you created quiz questions within the Question Bank, then you created a blank shell for a quiz, and then you pulled questions from the Question Bank into the quiz shell. Moodle 2.3 allows you to create a quiz (and its questions) without having to add those questions first to the Question Bank. Indeed, the Question Bank is actually moved to the side (and collapsed), allowing you to choose whether you do or do not want to use that more complex functionality for storing and using questions.
Course Layout Changes
Under Moodle 1.9, instructors and users could choose to display only one topic block, with the others available via a menu at the bottom of the page. Each individual’s choice affected only his/her display. Under Moodle 2.3, faculty members can modify the “Course layout” setting for the course, choosing the “Show one section per page” option, rather than the “Show all sections on one page” option. When “Show one section per page” is selected, the zero block appears at the top of the course page, and the other topics are available via links.
My Private Files
Moodle 2.3 adds a personal storage place for files that you can use in any of your courses, appropriately called My Private Files. The My Private Files area uses the same “drag and drop” functionality of other file uploading spaces, allowing you to add files to your Moodle profile that you can then deploy in multiple courses.
If you are new to Moodle, or even if you have used Moodle before but want an introduction to the new Moodle 2.3 interface, please attend one of our Summer Training Sessions, all held in the Library Lab. No registration is required for those sessions, but we encourage you to bring your own laptop with you, if possible.