Optimising your Moodle module for tracking learners’ interaction with the material

One of the aspects of measuring student “engagement” (see previous post What does learner “engagement” really mean?) is to see if students have actually accessed anything in Moodle, and often to ascertain the last time that they accessed it all, or accessed it in a meaningful way. This often means taking advantage of Moodle’s in-built logs. …

Monitoring student engagement via analytics: the problem with Moodle folders

Files, such as Word documents, can easily be added to Moodle as File resources. Some teachers prefer to upload a number of files into a folder instead of keeping them separate. However, there are generally more advantages to adding the files individually. You can do very much more with individual files that is not possible …

What does learner “engagement” really mean?

I notice that there are a number of ways in which the word “engagement” is being used in the context of talking about learners and learner engagement. It is a word that is even in some people’s job descriptions. I sometimes wonder whether, when we use it or discuss it, we are talking about the …

Learning Technology new SharePoint site: Advent Calendar #24

Learning Technology have created a new  SharePoint site. It is designed to help staff get support quickly, find training sessions to book onto, and read case studies for inspiration. It’s very early days as yet, and content hasn’t yet been migrated from Moodle, other Sharepoint sites and Workspace (which eventually it will replace). Now is …

This post was written by a robot… Advent Calendar #21

There’s been quite a bit of buzz around Artificial Intelligence engines recently. It seems like every meeting I go into there’s a group excitedly discussing their researches. Is it a good thing? Will we have to rethink assessment? To contribute to the debate I asked an Artificial Intelligence interface to write a blog post for …

Webinars relating to digital learning: Advent Calendar #20

One benefit of the pandemic is that webinars became a routine part of professional development. I particularly like series of webinars which cover a variety of topics in learning technology and Higher Education. Here are some series of webinars that others might find useful. The University of Kent’s Digitally Enhanced Education webinars With contributors from …

How to use Xerte 360° image viewer: Advent Calendar #16

Xerte Toolkits has a number of different types of pages and interactivities to include in learning resources. The new 360 Image Viewer combines the immersion and interactivity of virtual tours with the power and versatility of Xerte Online Toolkits. Virtual tours created on commercial platforms are often standalone objects but, because 360 Image Viewer is …

Universal Design for Learning: Advent Calendar #15

Universal Design is a well-known principle in, for example, the built environment. One example is where buildings that have been designed for wheelchair access are also more accessible to older people with mobility issues, people with pushchairs or bikes, or the person who fell off their bike yesterday and temporarily injured their knee. It tends …

Timed Moodle Forum posts: Advent Calendar #4

Did you know that there’s a feature in Moodle forums that allows you to set a time that a post will be released? This is really handy for limited-time semi-synchronous discussions, or for scheduling Announcements at a particular time and/or date later on, so that you don’t have to log into Moodle at that particular …

Using video for formative assessment

We have been seeing an increasing number of video assignments being used with students. Having students submit video has a number of advantages including:  Can be used in the context of peer review.   May be a more authentic method of assessment.  Can be included in a career-facing e-portfolio.  Many students really enjoy creating videos. Video …