// Latest Posts

Tip of the Day. Ways to contact students (as an alternative to Moodle emails)

As you might imagine there has been a huge increase in the use of Moodle over the past couple of years. This sometimes shows up areas we need to improve. As of October 2021, we have seen issues with sending out emails from Moodle Announcements and Forums (incident details are reported here on the status …

Moodle quick wins #1: Collapsed topics

The Collapsed Topics format is an easy way to avoid the “Scroll of Death” on your Moodle page. The topics look tidy, clear, and easy to navigate. Accessibility is much improved because it’s easier for screen readers to find a section without having to read out all section contents. As a format for a Moodle …

Double marking in Turnitin Assignments in Moodle, using Feedback Studio

A requirement often mentioned to the Learning Technology Consultants is for two or more markers to work on a student submission. This often includes blind double marking – where not only does the marker not see the student’s name but each marker does not see the other’s marks or feedback until finalised. Neither Moodle nor …

MS Teams Tip of the Day: Keyboard shortcuts

Microsoft Teams has a number of quick tricks and keyboard shortcuts: these include shortcuts for moving around Microsoft Teams, opening menus, sending messages, and starting and ending calls, and more. Even if you’re unlikely to use many of them, it can be useful to know the shortcuts for the actions you use most often. Here …

7 accessibility tips for staff who create learning resources

We occasionally get queries from staff who are struggling with the online systems that we are now using much more often and more consistently. Here are some hints and tips about Teams and Office 365 that some have found helpful: Teams 1. The Immersive Reader in Microsoft Teams enables you to hear posts and chat messages. …

Moodle improvements for all, from the University of Nottingham

Our key Moodle developer has been looking at our community plugins. By far the most popular of our plugins is Signup Sheets. Since the start of 2020 through to September 2020 we doubled the number of sites it is installed on from around 200 to 400 (we’re guessing thanks to the pandemic).  It has also …

A Summer of Moodle #13: Training sessions to help you use Moodle and other technologies

A number of training sessions are being run by the Learning Technology Section and colleagues to help staff plan and create online learning for the new academic year.  More sessions are added all the time, but currently the following are available, all of which help you use Moodle more effectively, often by linking to other systems.  They …

A Summer of Moodle #12: Engaging students with Moodle Quizzes

The Quiz activity in Moodle allows you to design and set quizzes consisting of a large variety of question types, including multiple-choice, true / false, and short answer questions. Moodle questions that you create are kept in the course question bank and can be re-used within courses and between courses. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts. Each attempt …

A Summer of Moodle #11: Communicating with students on your module

Moodle gives you the ability to send an email message to all the students who are enrolled on your module. The email message will be sent to the email address in the student’s profile which has been fixed to the student’s University of Nottingham student email address. Use the Announcements function in your module to send …

A Summer of Moodle #10: Encouraging students to collaborate using Wikis and Databases

You may want your students to work together as a whole class or in groups of whatever size is appropriate. If so, Moodle has several activities to make this happen.  By using collaboration tools such as the Wiki and Database you can set up group work exercises in the same way as you might in a …