Moodle Upgrade on Friday 8/8/2014

On Friday August 8, 2014, ITS will be upgrading the Moodle site. Moodle will be unavailable from 8AM to noon on 8/8/2014. Some highlights of the new version of Moodle: Ability to mark up student PDF assignments from within Moodle Modernized appearance, simplified interface, and improved usability for tablets and phones Ability to drag and drop images and text onto a course page Ability to show contents of folders on the course main page OpenBadges compatible badging system All existing courses and course material will still be available on the upgraded site. ITS will be offering introductory and intermediate courses … Continue reading Moodle Upgrade on Friday 8/8/2014

Moodle 2 Upgrade on Thursday August 8, 2013

ITS will upgrade to Moodle 2 on Thursday August 8, 2013.  Moodle will be unavailable from 11AM to 8PM.  All your existing courses and enrollments will remain in Moodle after the upgrade. In addition to design improvements, Moodle 2 has useful new features, such as: Drag and drop file uploads Easy downloads of all student assignment submissions Conditional access: automatically make items visible after a specified date More display options, including collapsable topics or week sections To help you with the transition to Moodle 2, we will offer several workshops in the coming weeks.  If you can’t make any of … Continue reading Moodle 2 Upgrade on Thursday August 8, 2013

Moodle 2 Upgrade This Summer

ITS will be upgrading our Moodle site to Moodle 2 this summer.  There are many improvements in Moodle 2 that make creating and updating a course easier.  Among the updates are the following: Drag and drop file uploads Conditional access: automatically make resources and activities visible after a specified date or to specified users. Quick edit of resource and activity titles from the front page More display options, including collapsable topics or week sections Design and layout improvements We will continue to keep past courses in Moodle so that you will be able to access materials from previous years after … Continue reading Moodle 2 Upgrade This Summer

Upcoming Moodle Training

ITS will be hosting a series of workshops for faculty and staff interested in learning more about Moodle. Our Introduction to Moodle workshops cover the basics of getting started and how to set up a course in Moodle.  You can bring your syllabus and readings and start to set up your courses for Fall 2012. The Intermediate Moodle workshops are geared towards people with some experience using Moodle and cover how to set up online assignments, blogs, wikis, surveys, and quizzes in Moodle. Other topics, such as groups, the gradebook, and discussion forums can be discussed based on attendee interest. … Continue reading Upcoming Moodle Training

Blackboard goes offline

At 11:00 AM, the Tri-co shutdown its shared instance of the Blackboard course management system. In a two-step process, Swarthmore Professor Aimee Johnson (Math) and Haverford CIO Joe Spadaro pressed the “enter” keys that shut down the Blackboard services for the final time. On a separate screen, the assembled group of onlookers verified that Blackboard was no longer available. The shutdown is the conclusion to a period of over 11 years where Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges shared a single instance of Blackboard for all of their students, faculty and staff. All three schools have already switched to Moodle, … Continue reading Blackboard goes offline

The end of the line for Blackboard

The Blackboard leaning management system will be shut down permanently on June 29, 2012.   Please save any materials you have on Blackboard that you would like to retain.  ITS has archived all the courses and organizations  on Blackboard and can assist with transferring your materials to Moodle, the new learning management system. [updated 6/22/12 to include information on the Honor Exams archive] Is Blackboard really going away?  Yes, our Blackboard license expires at the end of June 2012 and the system will be shut down and totally unavailable. How can I save my Blackboard materials?  Use the “Export” feature in Blackboard to save … Continue reading The end of the line for Blackboard