Dear Faculty,

In preparation for the coming school year we will be holding information sessions in the Library Alcove. The focus will be the improvements to Moodle in the latest upgrade, specifically Gradebook, Attendance, and Questionnaire.

I will be available September 6 through September 10 from 2 pm to 4 pm in the Alcove. I will also be available after September 10 by appointment.

Please call ext. 4843 for more information and to schedule an appointment.

I look forward to meeting with you!

Kathy Filatreau
Instructional Technologist
562.907.4843

Whittier College Moodle will be upgrading to 1.9.9 later this week. Included in this upgrade are a number of big changes to the Moodle gradebook from the 1.9.5 release.

Click here for a visual peek at the changes.

Among the changes:

• The student name column is now sticky (which means you can still see the students name as you scroll to the right to look at additional assignments).
• The categories page has been re-organized and color coded to make things easier to understand.
• The Gradebooks drop-down navigation menu can now be supplemented by tabbed navigation.

We'll post when the upgrade occurs. Over the next few weeks, and into the Fall semester, we'll run workshops in the Alcove to help you understand the new gradebook. We'll have further workshops to cover the Attendance module (successfully tested in the spring) and the Questionnaire activity.

A worthwhile article from Educause Review...

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age
Larry Sanger
Three current strands of thought regarding memorization, individual learning, and books have led to a profound mistake: the idea that the tools of the Internet can replace the effortful, careful development of the individual mind—the sort of development that is fostered by a solid liberal arts education.

A reminder - All classes are hidden until you make them visible. If you don’t want to use Moodle you don’t have to do anything. The class will be invisible to students. If you want to use your Moodle class then just follow these easy steps to make it visible.

1. Log onto Moodle
   
2. You will see the courses that belong to you under My Courses (upper left-hand side of the screen)
   
3. Click on the plus (+) sign next to Spring 2010
   
4. Click on the class you want to make visible
   
5. Click on Settings (in the Administration box inside the class)
   
6. Scroll down to the Availability box
   
7. Click the down arrow next to Availability and Choose
   
• "This course is available to students"
  
8. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes
   
9. Repeat for each class that needs to be visible