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Academic Technology, Moodle

What’s New in Moodle for Fall 2018

ITS upgraded to the latest version of Moodle this summer.  Moodle version 3.5 has new features that make teaching your class easier.

Audio Recording Anywhere

A new button on the text editor allows faculty and students to record audio anywhere.  This could be used by a professor to provide instructions or for students to provide audio submissions for an assignment.  Audio recording works with any device including laptops, tablets, or smart phones.

Moodle audio recording button in text editor
Look for the microphone icon in the Moodle text editor

Easier Manual User Enrollment

In the past, manually enrolling users was cumbersome.  It is now possible to do the enrollment right from the Participants page.  Click on the “Participants” page link on the left menu and then look for the new “Enroll Users” button on the top right of the page.  Much easier!

Accessibility File Scan

The File Scan block is a new tool added to all Fall 2018 classes.  The tool shows the accessibility levels for all PDF files in a course.  In our goal to ensure that all course content is accessible, it is important that, at a minimum, all PDF files contain text and not just an image of the text.  In the future, we will also need to add more accessibility features such as a document outline and metadata title and language to PDFs.  For more information about the tool and how to fix PDF files see the Moodle PDF Accessibility Check page.

And More …

Some other new features:

  • Increased number of courses shown on each page of the Moodle dashboard
  • Updated fonts and icons make the display clearer
  • Ability to restrict file uploads to specific file types

 

Please get in touch with your Academic Technologist if you have any questions about Moodle.