The Office of Moodle Support has recently released three videos to assist students with posting assignments, participating in forums, and checking grades.

Nola Navarre has spent several weeks writing the scripts, producing the videos, and editing these short presentations. The videos are located on the Moodle homepage (http://moodle.louisiana.edu) in the Main Menu block at the top left hand side under the title “Student Help Videos.”

Please alert students in your hybrid and online course sections to these resources. It is our hope that they will save you time in answering common questions regarding assignments, forums, and grades.

Additional student help videos are in production now including taking an online quiz and updating one’s profile in Moodle.

The Office of Distance and Electronic Learning has recently released the reservation system and instructions for reserving one of two vOffice Web-Conferencing classrooms. Each vOffice can hold 50 users (for example:49 students and 1 instructor). This is the first supplemental tool to Moodle that we are releasing after the careful study and recommendation of the EDUTools task force led by Dr. Doug Williams.

Please log onto the E-Teaching Tools section of the Distance Learning web site - http://distancelearning.ucs.louisiana.edu/content/e-teaching-tools.

From this site you can:

• Watch an introduction YouTube video to the vOffice;
• Access a Moderator Guide for using the vOffice Web-Conferencing classroom;
• Download a PowerPoint PDF with step-by-step instructions for reserving a vOffice; and/or
• Watch a screen cast with step-by-step instructions for reserving a vOffice.

Please submit one invitation per event. You may reserve a vOffice up to 2 hours per event.

If you are interested in participating in a live demonstration of Elluminate, you can do so from your office on Tuesday, August 31 at 2PM or Friday, September 3 at 9AM. To register for one of these events, please email luke.dowden@louisiana.edu.You will need a microphone and speakers to fully participate, but you could participate with speakers only.

The Offices of Distance and Electronic Learning and Moodle Support are hosting professional development events for faculty and staff to learn more about Moodle NG. Two modules, Teaching with Moodle: An Introduction and Enhancing Student Learning Through Moodle: Advanced Applications, will be presented in a face-to-face format. During the months of August and September 2010, these modules will be offered on multiple dates at multiple times in the Bibliographic Instructional Laboratory, Room 141, on the 1st floor in Dupre′ Library.

Experienced and new Moodle users are invited to view available times and dates on the Moodle NG calendar. More dates and times will be released soon.

Register for one or more of the currently scheduled events by emailing your name, desired date(s) and time(s) to moodle@louisiana.edu.

Quickmail v2.0:

The Quickmail block is available in Moodle NG. Faculty and staff members can use this function to send bulk emails to their students and/or group members in much the same way that these messages could be sent using the “Compose Mail” block on old Moodle.

To use Quickmail, please follow these steps:

1. Log into the course or group page;
2. Turn Editing On;
3. Scroll down to the block titled “Blocks;”
4. Click the drop down menu;
5. Select Quickmail;
6. Move the block to wherever you can easily find and use it to communicate with your class or group members;
7. Test it with students or group members.

1. Log into the course or group page;
2. Turn Editing On (sometimes not required);
3. Click on “Add A New Topic;”
4. Enter the Subject for the news item;
5. Insert the news text;
6. Save Changes.
   

1. Select the month in which a new event will be added using the back and forth arrows;
2. Click on the month name;
3. Click on the new event button;
4. Type in the information, select the time, and save;
5. A calendar item will appear.