Learn Moodle-Five great tips from an experienced Moodle developer #moodle #onlinemoodle

hi this is Russell star from teacher training videos calm today we can look up Moodle I'm gonna give you five of my top tips when using Moodle what I'm gonna do is I'm going to show you a couple of actual Moodle sites that I've created so that you can see some of the things actually working and then I'm going to show you how to do them really hope you find this video useful should really give you some good ideas about how to make a Moodle site look much more professional if you liked the video please like it if you can share it that's even better and if you've got any questions about Moodle then please leave them in the comments section and I will do my best to answer them let's get straight into it so let me start by quickly showing you a Moodle site that I've created this one I create is about the flipped classroom it's basically a course that just teaches teachers how to flip their classes and to create flipped classroom content now if we look at this course I just want to highlight a few things and then afterwards I'm going to actually teach you how to do them one thing that people often ask me so well Russell how do you create these buttons at the top of the screen so for example you're on the opening part of the course and you click here and it will open up a new page and it will take you to where there's some discussions taking place and then you can click on the back button here and jump back again so a lot of teachers ask me Russell how did you do that how do you actually make the the navigation work like that another common question that people ask me is about this system which is kind of called the grid system I'm going to show you this as well so for example with this particular course you've got an introduction here at the top where of course you've got a little video afterwards we'll be looking at that as well and then we've got this kind of introduction and if I for example click on any of the units and then I click on it we go into the content and the content is underneath and again we've got these buttons that allow us to jump back in and out so a lot of people are interested in this grid system so I'm going to point that out to you as well now another thing I want to talk about and this is really big in online courses and that's teacher presence when you run a course it's very easy to be going through the course as a student and not even really knowing who the teacher is so you've really got to do some key thing to make sure that you are in the course and there are certain ways that I do this for example noticed I always have this intro video at the beginning of the course and that actually is an instructional video that shows them how to navigate through the system where all the content is where all the assignments are etc and that's really important so creating an intro video at the top and using Nami uses something like a screen capture to do that and I'm gonna take you through that as well but if you also come down onto any of the units let's just come back into that unit that we were looking at notice actually I have an intro video here but if you come into the content again at the top is an introduction from me and I have these various techniques of just making sure that there is teacher presence on the course and you can see here that I do that through using images where I introduce the course and also where I have these videos at the top of each unit and various ways that we could do that of course so I'm going to take you through those tips there's about five of them in total I will use a bear course so that you can literally see it right from the start let's get into it with the first tip how to set up a grid format now be dead clear about the grid format your administrative team who set your Moodle up have to include the grid format as an option it's not always available to you and they have a problem with Moodle is of course that everyone is a slightly different interface again depending on the settings that are being created by the people who are administering your Moodle but on my site here if I come down to administration and then I come down to the part edit settings so I'm actually in the course already click on edit settings I do have the option here is where I put the title ok and then if I come down here you'll notice that in these settings I do have a few options and the first one is the format and you've got various formats here social format topics weekly format they're all kind of similar they allow you to create blocks and they can work very well and in fact you can even use any of those formats and kind of trick the system to think it's a grid format but if you have got the grid format that is where you click and that allows you then to create this kind of grid way of accessing the content just before I move on to talk about buttons just a couple of things that with a grid format in the grid format again coming down to here to course format okay decide how many sections you want I'm gonna have five so I'm gonna have basically five grids and make sure sorry that you go to the bottom and click on save and display so that everything's saved okay so let's focus now on this kind of idea of being able to jump from one page to the other and to do that the first thing we're going to need to do is to just come down underneath here and we'll do it here just gonna add an activity okay and the type of activity I'm gonna choose for this particular case will be a page just a simple page click on ads okay and I'm just gonna call this we'll call this flip classroom page one and I will be adding some content in a minute but not for now so all I'm going to do for now is just in the content section here I'm just going to put that in okay simple as that and then I'm going to click on save and display in fact save and return to course for now that's all I need to do so now what I've got is an option of actually linking to this so that this page opens up and the first thing I'm going to need to do to do that it's just a right-click over that image and copy link address because what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a link on the opening page that clicked when you click on it it will jump to here okay now how do I do that will I come up to the top and the first thing I'm gonna do now is to click on edit this very top section here not this big section here we can turn it into a big section we can add content to it but this area here we can now create our buttons so if just to remind you if we come back to my course see that's what you see here you see the buttons then you see the logo and then you see my video and that's all been added into that top area so that's what we're gonna do next so what I'm going to do is I'm going to click here remember we've got that link we've already got that link we're gonna give this section naming won't worry about at the moment and we're just simply going to put a link to link to first page now we can't make this more interesting by using an image and we'll come back and look at that in a minute but just going to show you the basics copy that now what I do is I'm going to click on link because I'm going to insert a link and what I'm actually going to link to in this particular case is I'm going to link to another page so I'm going to just press ctrl-v to put in that link and I don't want that to open in this frame in fact probably I do let's leave it like that because it actually will work better yeah we're going to make it open in this frame so or jump to that page and then we need a button on that page that's better jump back okay now I'm going to click on insert and I'm just going to show you the basics of this straightaway so obviously at the moment at the top of the page doesn't look very interesting we haven't put in any kind of banner or any video but now you can see actually at the top of the page you've got a link okay as I said it's not that interest in the moment but you have got a link to some content and if I click on that it's actually going to open up that page now all we need now is a link from that page back okay in a minute I'm gonna make this all much more interesting but hopefully you get the basic idea now obviously we need a link from the this page back to the home page so we need to almost do the opposite now I'm just gonna sort of show you how you would do that now because I haven't actually got a button here what I'm gonna have to do is use this system to get back to the kind of home page and what you want to do basically is copy this link here at the top now you can't actually see it I'm going to pull the screen down a bit just so to show you where I'm talking about I'm gonna copy this link now okay because this is the home page so I'm going to copy that it's going to move that back up again and make that a little bit yeah just so now what we're gonna do is come down and on that page that we created we're just going to edit that page by clicking on here we can edit the settings and we're going to create a link the opposite way so we're going to come down into the content here let's imagine that this is the actual content okay and I'm gonna pick I'm gonna call it home page okay just very simple then copy that and then I'm going to add the link by clicking here pasting in that link and again what I want to do is open in the same window in frame because basically we want it to feel like a website so if we now click on insert and then come down and make sure we click on save and display this time because what you want to see is is it gonna work so can we click now on that page and jump back to the home page and the answer is yes we can suddenly we've got this kind of way of interacting now what we could do instead of simply just putting in a a simple link here is we could add an image which could be a button and then make that clickable what I'm going to quickly show you how to do that now the first thing we need to get some bugs are all ever going to make buttons which I'll be coming back to in a minute or we are going to find some buttons if you right button as graphics into Google I'm sure lots of other search terms that you could use click on the images you're going to get a load of buttons that you could probably make use of if you click on tools and then you click on usage rights then you could use for example images that are made for you reuse so you're allowed to use them freely and therefore you got access now to lots of buttons you could download best thing would probably be to make your own buttons but let me show you then how you would then add a button onto the screen so let's come over to to the other site we're gonna do now is add a button okay so at the moment all we got is a link so what I'm going to do is simply here I'm going to just come on and this time we're going to have a link to a button in fact just let me just remind you one thing you will need to do before you do that apologies is make sure that you've actually got the link to the page you wanna link to so come down here again and you're gonna want a copy link address okay come back up again come to this editing a section at the top of the screen and we've got this link to a buffer to a page but what we're going to do is have a button instead ok I'm not too worried about how it looks at the moment I'm just trying to show you the basics so I'm going to add an image and I'm gonna upload an image and if I think I've got some recent buttons that I've been playing around with love got one here so I'm actually just going to add that button okay and then I clicked on select this file okay overwrite great and then insert now one thing about that button is it's very big but I can and let me just make the screen bigger so you can clearly see it so right here if I click on that if I double click on that I think I can and I have to select I should be able to get resize it all right I'm gonna making a bit button a bit smaller okay so it's like a nice small right so that's just imagining that I'm cool I'm not obvious you would have three or four bottom buttons are top of the screen now all I need to do to that button though is add a link so I'm getting white while it's selected I'm gonna click on it and I'm gonna paste in the link to the actual page remember I've just copied the link address of the page that I want it to take me to click on update okay then click here and save changes now be interesting to see if that works so obviously I'm sorry this doesn't all look good I'm going to tidy all up in a little bit but we know that we've already got a button here that goes straight through to another page but if we click on this button and she looks graphically a bit more interesting that also does the same thing bang we come to another page so we can actually start to have buttons at the top of the page that then go to different pages and of course we would add another button on this page to jump back to the page that's we want to the home book back back to the home page ok what I've done is I've just tidied this up a little bit ok so now what we've got is we've got like a banner here at the top then we got two buttons might want to write underneath what those buttons do or have you actually written on I'm just trying to show you some ideas here so I'm trying to and then what I would also want to do here is have some kind of introductory video so one thing is we need to create a banner at the top and maybe have some text and then underneath it we're so good probably have some introductory text and we have a couple of buttons introductory text and then a video I'm gonna show you how I do all this now I actually use just one technology to do all this and that Snagit I use Snagit to make video content and I also use Snagit to make my banners and I'm going to just show you this technology because it's so useful and just should show you a couple of the things it's going to do so first of all let's sort of start with the idea of doing a banner and we've just made that banner really really quickly so what I can do is I'm gonna go on to snag it you can see here I made a banner and I'm gonna click on new so I'm gonna create a new banner and I'm gonna show you how I can create banners and how I can create videos using Snagit which we can then put into Moodle so when I'm working in the production of the content I'm often using Moodle plus Snagit or Moodle plus Camtasia or Moodle plus some kind of screen capture technology and you'll see why in a minute let's just start with a couple of the things that we can do so the easiest way to do this is I'm simply going to click on file I'm going to click on new so we're gonna make a new image ok and it's going to ask me what kind of size I want that image to be and I'm doing a banner so I'm probably gonna want it something like about 600 pixels wide and maybe about a hundred and fifty pixels so I'm gonna just click on that so it's gonna now the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have to just have a black background so I'm gonna click on up on here I'm going to click on up on a button that's fuels that it fills this I'm gonna choose black and I'm just gonna paint that in now what I want to do is I'm going to bring a picture in so what I can do is I can open up some pictures so I'm going to click on open and I'm gonna grab a picture from my computer let's see if we can get something really easy to work with so if I just come down to here just in terms of tax in terms of saving time I've got some different pictures of me that are fairly small okay so we'll use one of these because it's we're gonna be quickly so let's click on that one there alright so I'm gonna open that picture comes in now what we can do is just click back here onto this one I'm going to drag this picture on into the system you're going to see is going to make it a lot bigger but what I can do now is I'm going to drag that picture down to the right size move it into place and then I'm gonna pull it out there and suddenly and better do it this way a little bit as well so now I've got my picture and then what I'm going to do is click on text I'm gonna mark on the screen here and I'm gonna write flipped classroom and that's it I've created a kind of bait banner now I didn't done that really really quickly just wanted to show you how I made that banner that you can see there okay that's exactly how I made it and you can see that it's really really simple to make a banner save it and then you put that into your screen now what I tend to do is actually have a banner on every single page of my course so if we jump back to the course so at the moment obviously we've only got a banner on this page here so what I would actually do in this case is I'd also on any pages I'm creating I would also add the banner at the top there as well so every page that I would go to on my course would have a banner and luckily we've already done a home button so we can click back again okay you can see how powerful this is almost immediately in fact you know you could even build a whole course just from the front page without even bothering with the the grid alone because you could have you know that could be page 1 page 2 unit 1 unit 2 unit 3 you could do it like that you can see how how powerful this is there's a method now I'm going to get to some of my top secrets now one of the things that I do is I always have an intro video showing someone how to use the site and I'm going to show you how I do that so let's have a video that takes them through the site ok why I do this example I need to turn the webcam off I'm going to open up Snagit and I'm going to show you a couple of lovely things that we can do we're gonna click on screen capture and what we're going to do is we're going to imagine that we're making a video that shows the users how to use the website that we produce so the very first thing I normally have on the screen when the students open up and you can see here an example is that they can watch a video where I quickly stand horse to them and have a little chat with them etc so I'm going to make that video for you and I'm going to make that video using Snagit which isn't normally the way that I I do it so I'm gonna got Snagit here on the screen so what I do is I'm gonna mark the area around the course of it because I'm going to demo this course to my students so that when they come on straight away they understand I'm gonna start with me on the screen as you can see and I can do that with Snagit I can first of all start with me and then I can jump over to the actual screen that I want to talk about so I'm going to make a video here with me first so click on this button here hi welcome to the flipped classroom course my name's Russell stand out I'm your tutor on this course and what I'm going to do because to start with is I'm going to take you through the course so you completely understand the navigation and can understand where all the buttons are etc so let's get started I'm just gonna pause that button now and I'm gonna click on here and it'll jump over so I'm going to carry on the video so you've got here at the top all the different buttons and if you click on any of these buttons it will take you to specific pages this is where you're going to find the general discussion for example and if you click on that all the discussion questions are below when you want to come back to the main content just click here and that will bring you back onto the main content now the actual content for each of the units is below so if we just scroll down you'll see here all of the units all of the units kind of work in the same way this course is all about flipping your classes and it shows you how to flip your classes and also gives you some theory behind the flipped classroom if you click on any of the courses or unit sorry no click you'll come through it always starts with an introduction video if you click you'll come through to the main content and the content is always organized in the same way you can always click to go back to the home page from here you can always move to the next unit from here or you can always go to the unit before from here there's always an introductory video at the top to play and then there are specific sections first of all Russell introduces the unit secondly there's always some theory around the flipped classroom and then after that you'll come down to the reading section there's normally only one article to read and then finally there's a section called called food for thought now at the end of each unit there's also a task to do all of the units work the same way if we click through to the next unit you will see ok I won't do any more you get the idea that I can make these videos look how easy that look at look at the quality of the video as well hi welcome to the flipped classroom course my name's Russell standing started with me on screen capture and then it jumps over to me actually showing that all these actually download use the site come back explain and that's a great video to put on the opening page now what what I can do now is simply save that so I'm going to click over here is to slightly outside of your screen I'm just going to click on save as ok here file save as I'm gonna save that video onto my screen so I'm going to call this opening video screen capture ok and I'm gonna save that onto my desktop ok and that's now been saved now all I would need to do is to upload that video into my Moodle course ok now that we use not using Snagit I can bring myself back onto the screen you can see why I had to use a tourniquet webcam off because I was already using the webcam to do the video now all I need to do is to push that video into my course so I'm gonna click on this back button here ok and what I would normally do is obviously I would add some text first so I'm likely to have some text here before the video just kind of introducing the course of giving some information ok and then at some point underneath I'm going to add the video in now to add a video I'm going to click on this button here insert Moodle media and then we're going to click on upload sound video and we're going to upload from our computer and you know the great thing about using Snagit is that the videos that you create are immediately available to you so I'm just going to click on that there ok and then click on open and I'm gonna click on upload this file so now all I'm waiting for is that video to be uploaded into the screen there's the video I'm going to insert it into the page don't worry about that that's only because it's in editing view if I click here I'm gonna click on Save Changes we've now got a course that's I know it's not looking very good because I'm doing everything in a rush I'm not using quality graphics but you can see the basic idea we've got a lovely banner at the top were not lovely but we've got a banner at the top we got some buttons that's going to take us to the content and we got this introductory video on the screen which we can apply welcome to the hands my loans now that introductory video is really important as well because it's to do with teacher presence is to doing making sure Yeller I'm the teacher I'm one of course I'm gonna be the one who's taking you through this course and that's one of the reasons why I always have videos at the beginning of every unit so we've looked how to create buttons who looked at how to create buttons to jump back from a unit to come back to the homepage we've looked to add in a banner to the top of the screen we've looked to even bringing her video in onto the screen and how to use that I've given you lots of tips here of the sorts of things that I do to try to make my courses as professional as possible I've also suggested that you might want to use the grid view in the future I will do some videos about the the grid view I really hope you liked that video if you do please as always liked it and please share it with other teachers and please if you've got any comments or any questions about Moodle I will do my best to answer them and thank you very much if you're looking for any more free content please come to teacher training videos com if you go to the top there is a special section on Moodle I've got various videos on different aspects of Moodle including how to do wiki's which is quite tricky and setting assignments and creating quizzes if you want to follow my work there's really two things to do one sign up to the newsletter that way you'll be updated with all the webinars and all the online courses I ran and the neat blogs post I've written etc so well worth signing up to the newsletter and you also get all the new videos that I upload and the other way to follow my work especially if you want to get some of the backdated material and there's masses of it is to subscribe to my youtube channel don't forget to click on the bell that way you'll be updated when all the new videos are uploaded onto YouTube finally if you are looking to I ever asked me to come do a presentation in your country or convening and of course as well but wherever you want me to do a presentation or a talk then please contact me but also if you're looking for some online training I have a webinar system which is absolutely brilliant for training especially things like Moodle and Camtasia where I can train you and see what you're doing on your screen and you can see what I'm doing on my screen I can even intervene on your screen and help you and I run quite a lot of courses sometimes just with individuals sometimes with groups training them to use things like Camtasia Ramudu Lynette more than one Google etc thank you very much you

Channel: Russell Stannard (Teacher Training Videos)

Views: 15,478

Rating: 4.9497485 out of 5

Keywords: Learn Moodle, 5 great tips when working with Moodle, Learn Moodle Video Tutorial, Now to add better navigation to Moodle, Real examples of Moodle projects, Learn to use Moodle, Moodle Advanced Ideas, russell stannard, russell stannard teacher training videos, russell stannard moodle, russell stannard youtube, moodle tutorial for teachers, moodle tutorial for beginners, moodle lesson activity, good design in moodle, moodle lesson example, moodle lesson activity example

Id: sqJCoudrdEI

Length: 24min 22sec (1462 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 24 2019