Barcelona March 2012

Special thanks to Jane Ewart from the IES Abroad Barcelona Center for submitting these photos!

A Note from John S. Lucas

Dear Colleagues, As you know, our main priority is that Moodle be used as an e ective teaching tool. This year, we have added more interactive modules to Moodle so that faculty can engage students outside of the classroom. These include the Forum, Workshop, Chat, Choice, Wiki, and Hotpot modules. This month, Id like to feature a few interactive uses of Moodle that encourage interaction between students and faculty.

Using a Glossary to collect student re ections in Berlin

Students in Wolfgang Bialas Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll: The Impact of Pop Culture on the Modern Metropolis course write questions and comments about the reading assignment in Moodle before each class. This creative use of the Glossary module allows students to see each others responses, and allows Wolfgang to guide class discussion based on the students entries, summarizing their re ections and raising concepts that they might have missed.

Using Audacity for language learning in Dublin

Regina Fitzpatrick, the instructor for Introduction to Irish Language and Culture, has found a creative way to use Moodle to track her students progress in learning the Irish language. She uploads recordings of Irish conversations in Moodle so that students can listen to Irish pronunciation and learn vocabulary relevant to the curriculum. Then, students use Audacity to record role plays in Irish using the new vocabulary, and upload the recordings to Moodle, where Regina can access and evaluate their e orts. Regina listens to each students recording with them and provides feedback. This method is particularly useful for Reginas course because Irish is not the everyday spoken language in Dublin, so students have limited opportunities to speak the language aloud and improve aural comprehension. Students in this course have enjoyed using this new technology, and doing oral rather than written assignments.

Using Hotpot to test student comprehension in Paris

Trc Long V Trn uses the Hotpot module in his Business French course to test student comprehension of course material. He writes 20 multiple choice questions that give concrete situations and ask students to identify the concept being represented. After class, each student must answer 10 of these questions, which Hotpot randomly selects from the 20. That way, students can complete the quiz more than once and see di erent questions. This allows students to come to understand what content they have mastered, and what they need to review in more detail. Trc Long also uses Hotpot to administer graded quizzes throughout the semester to ensure that students keep up with course material before the midterm or nal exams. I hope that these ideas inspire you to use Moodle to its fullest potential! If you nd another creative way to engage students in Moodle, remember to contact your Regional Educational Technology Specialist to learn how to submit your course for the Most Creative Interactive Moodle Activities contest, part of the Moodle Faculty Development and Incentive Program.

Barcelona March 2012

Featured Moodle Module - Quickmail Block

The Quickmail Block adds a link to an interface that has a check box list of all students in the course and a mail composition text area. Teachers can select some or all of the students to email. This enhances the messaging system by allowing teachers to communicate with a speci c subset of students. To add the Quickmail block to a course, click Turn editing on. Click the drop-down under Blocks and select Quickmail from the list. The image above shows how Quickmail will appear when added to a course. Both links are described as follows: Compose: takes you to Quickmail's email composition page. History: takes you to a history of all your emails sent by Quickmail in the current course. Emails are sent to students personal email addresses. Any replies are delivered to the senders email address. Quickmail has an attachment option available but is limited to one attachment per email and teachers can attach course site les only. These les are not removed by Quickmail and will remain in the History.

Adding a Trip Planner Widget to Your Site!

Trip Planners allow students to get information on traveling from one destination to the next. Some public transportation websites have Trip Planner widgets available to add to your website. Simply go to your citys local transportation website and search for the trip planner widget (if available): Copy the embedded code for the widget. Add an HTML block to your Front Page/course. Click the <> toggle HTML button in the editor. Paste the widget embed code and save. London Trip Planner: https://www.tfl.gov.uk/widgets/ Sydney Trip Planner: http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/tripplanner/index.html

New Modules/Blocks
Choice Module: The Choice Module simulates a single question poll. It can either be used to vote on something, or to get feedback from every student. The teacher sees an intuitive table view of who chose what in the activity. Students can optionally be allowed to see an up-to-date graph of results. Chat Module: The Chat Module allows smooth, synchronous text interaction. Chats can be limited to group members or roles, or be for anyone in the course. Pro le pictures can be included in the chat window. The Chat Module supports URLs, emoticons, embedded HTML and images. All sessions are logged for later viewing.

This newsletter was sent to provide the latest information for IES Abroad Moodle. IES Abroad Chicago 33 N. LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60602-2602 Phone: 1.800.995.2300

New Moodle Course Themes!

Although the Front Page theme cannot be edited, new course themes are available for your convenience. Moodle Course Themes provide a "skin" to completely change the look and feel of your course. Weve recently added seven new colorful course themes in Moodle. To select a theme for your course: In the course under Administration, click Settings Within the General tab, scroll down and click the drop-down next to Force theme Select a theme from the list, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save changes
mocha_theme

golden_globes

leather_binder

navy_bubbles

health

grey_brown

magenta_theme

Role Assignments in Moodle

In Moodle there are roles (e.g. Guest, Center Administrator, Teacher, Student) and there are role hierarchies (e.g. System Level, Course Level, Front Page). Roles are assigned within the various role hierarchies to provide each user with a speci c set of permissions in the Moodle site. In Cerberus, users are assigned a role in their pro les to provide the appropriate permissions in Moodle. These roles are automatically synced to Moodle:

Moodle contains non-syncing roles that give Administrators alternative roles to assign if needed:

Roles are assigned within the following three hierarchy levels in Moodle:

Using Moodle for Beijing Student Affairs

Our IES Student A airs sta provide services and support to students in order to enhance student growth and development while studying abroad. The Beijing Student A airs sta , which includes Joe Wood (Student A airs Coordinator), Josie Wang (Student A airs Assistant) and Travis Thompson (Resident Advisor/Moodle Assistant), have added helpful content to the Student A airs Moodle page including Google Maps, an orientaton video, sign-up sheets, and more! We asked the Student A airs Coordinator, Joe Wood, how Moodle has been bene cial to students studying abroad in Beijing. His comments and tips are below. Students bene t from our Student A airs page by being able to get the information they are looking for from our o ce at any time of the day. Since there are only two sta people Joe Wood in the o ce during working hours, we think of Moodle as a way to pass on that info when Student A airs we cant be around to update students. Information also ows in the other direction as Coordinator (IES Beijing) students are able to give us feedback more easily. Since we are a resource for what is happening around Beijing, students also get information about interesting things going on around town as long as it doesnt con ict with info already on the homepage. When we are working on the Student A airs homepage, we are using the same idea that we used for the IES Beijing homepage: more content means more usage and more usage means information is more successfully communicated to all students through Moodle. With that in mind, we try to think of things that would draw peoples interest to the site. This is where the interactive neighborhood map and photo contest came from. We thought that these were things people would look into on their own. I also think that making everyone feel like Student A airs is committed to using Moodle makes a signi cant di erence. We do this starting with orientation. Students nd as they arrive that other than an orientation schedule, a group assignment, and a Log on to Moodle how-to-guide, all other resources they need have to be obtained through Moodle. The idea for the orientation video came from trying to make the page more manageable in the beginning. Content on the site was starting to build up and we didnt want students to be overwhelmed to the point that they wouldnt look at any resources the rst time they logged on. Once students are using the site regularly, we want to make sure it continues to happen. We looked at all of the major ways in which we interacted with the students (e.g. housing arrangements, travel info, extracurricular events) and we try to use Moodle to communicate that information instead of through traditional means. I think once Student A airs departments start getting into the habit of looking around their o ce and thinking about how Moodle could do it better, it becomes very easy. This is where our homestay map, travel information, and event sign-ups came from. We still believe that for getting major information to students we have to communicate with them by word-of-mouth, mass text message, and email in order to reach everyone. In this respect Moodle has lled the spot of our email noti cations. Once our Moodle page is used fairly regularly, we encourage students to give us feedback on what they would like to see. Most recently, we put the work order for student room repairs on Moodle (using the Feedback activity) and we are creating a Lost & Found forum for the center. All of the resources we have accumulated on the page are time-intensive the rst time we did them, but once learned it becomes very convenient to do. The reason Moodle works well is because email noti cations and content on the site is more reliable at disseminating information than text messages, phone calls, posters, and in person. For better or for worse, students are dependent on the Internet, and that makes Moodle a good mechanism for reaching them.

Using Moodle...(continued)
One thing I would add: when your site becomes more active, you run into the problem of ooding inboxes with noti cations and students start sending Moodle to their junk-mail box. The Moodle Assistant should make sure the settings are such that students only get emails about events they have replied to. Also, using the Choice Activity instead of using Forum post replies for sign-ups will cut down on email noti cations. If it helps, here is what we believe are the main keys to getting a Student A airs page o the ground: 1. Use Moodle during the semester from beginning to end a) Sets the tone and students buy into those expectations 2. Demonstrate commitment to integrating Moodle in all activities a) If Moodle isnt going away, students will adapt to it 3. Use content and required information to drive more hits a) Multimedia makes the site more interesting and less daunting 4. Once in the site, have information that will keep people on the site a) You can come up with a few ideas at rst, but later this can be driven by student demand. You can add whatever resources they come asking about. 5. Make a habit of using Moodle for future tasks and continuously get feedback on the site

Beijing Student Affairs Orientation Video

The Beijing Centers Moodle site contains a New Student Orientation video which was written, directed, edited and produced by Travis Thompson (Resident Advisor/Moodle Assistant). The video was also lmed by Travis Thompon featuring Joe Wood. You can view their Student A airs Orientation video here: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzQyNDgwMzIw.html The video is also located on the Front Page of our Moodle Learn Resources site: https://moodlelearn.muat.iesabroad.org

International Technology Terms!

The technology term of the month is:

megabyte - A megabyte is 1,024 kilobytes and precedes the gigabyte unit of measurement. Large computer files are typically measured in megabytes. For example, a high-quality JPEG photo from a 6.3 megapixel digital camera takes up about 3MB of space. A four minute CD-quality audio clip takes up about 40MB of space, and CDs can hold up to 700MB of space.

In this months IES Moodle Newsletter, well take at look at how technology terms can be written in di erent languages!

Hindi

French mgaoctet

Japanese