Moodle Updates for Spring 2015

Moodle Assignments
Creating assignments is easier in the upgraded Moodle assignment activity. You will see a single Moodle activity type called “Assignment.” The options for this activity can be configured to allow for single or multiple file upload, online text, or offline activity. More information available here: https://kb.swarthmore.edu:8443/x/K4AxAQ.

Academic technologists will hold two workshops on “Online Assignments in Moodle,” which will cover how to create, distribute, grade, and provide feedback for assignments using Moodle.  The workshops will take place on:

  • Wednesday January 28, 10:30AM-11:30AM in McCabe 306 (computer classroom)
  • Thursday January 29, 1:30PM-2:30PM in Kohlberg 326 (Language Resource Center)

Turnitin
ITS has fully integrated the Turnitin.com service with Moodle. Turnitin can support you with grading, grammar, plagiarism checking, and peer review services. You can create an assignment in Moodle and have student papers automatically submitted to Turnitin.com. More details here: https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/its/blog/2014/10/22/turnitin-moodle-elegant/

WordPress Blogs
You can easily create a WordPress blog for your course from within Moodle.  Students are automatically added to the blog when they click on the link from Moodle to WordPress. (Special kudos to Michael Kappeler and Andrew Ruether who wrote the scripts to do this and contributed their work back to the open source community!) Instructions are available at https://kb.swarthmore.edu:8443/x/NIAxAQ

Common “Start of the Semester” Questions and Answers

Help!
If you have Moodle-related questions, you can email help@swarthmore.edu or contact any of the Academic Technologists: Michael Kappeler (Humanities), Doug Willen (Social Sciences), or Andrew Ruether (Natural Sciences and Engineering).  We also have Swarthmore-specific Moodle help available at https://kb.swarthmore.edu:8443/display/MOODLE.