We are getting close to end of the semester!
We are in the final stretch of the semester. This Moodle news include information about our Summer workshops, Summer and Fall Moodle course requests, Echo360 course requests, Moodle tip of the month, What’s new in Moodle and Moodle help and resources.
Summer 2019 Workshops!
Our Summer 2019 workshop series are coming. We’re offering options for working with Moodle and Echo360, creating and editing media in Camtasia, Getting started on how to use blogs for your teaching and learning, how to use Qualtrics in the classroom and more. Innovation Events page.
Can’t decide which workshops to take? Have questions? Contact the Instructional Media Lab for help in deciding which workshops are right for you. Call us at 413-545-2823 or email instruct@umass.edu
Request your Summer & Fall Moodle Courses in SPIRE
Summer and Fall Moodle course requests are now available on SPIRE. Don’t forget that each semester you will need to request Moodle for the courses you are teaching.
For details, see:
Request your Summer and Fall Echo360 courses
Echo360 course requests for the Summer and Fall 2019 semesters are now available in SPIRE. Just like Moodle, each semester you will need to request Echo360 for the courses you want to use it in. While making your request you can specify that you’d like to:
- Automatically record in-person class meetings in Classrooms Equipped with Lecture Capture.
- Re-use recordings from a previous semester.
- Create screencasts and record custom lessons for students to watch outside of class with Echo360 Personal Capture.
For step by step instructions, see Request Lecture Capture. Once your Echo360 courses are ready, it’s easy to give students access to Echo360 recordings through Moodle.
Moodle Tip of the Month: Peer Review Using Workshop Activities
Do you have students work in pairs or groups to review each other’s work?The Workshop activity can be useful for giving students experience with the process of blind reviewing. Students can submit reviews as numeric grades and comments using forms and rubrics, or as text in overall feedback. The Workshop activity enables the collection, review, and peer assessment of students’ work thought 3 phases: Submission, Assessment, and Grading. For more detail information about what Workshops activities can do please see our An Overview of the Workshop Activity in Moodle.
What’s new in Moodle?
On July 11, 2019, UMass Amherst will be upgrading to Moodle 3.5 to maintain security and accessibility requirements. Moodle 3.5 comes with an updated, mobile-friendly interface and a host of user-requested improvements. Check out our Highlights of Moodle 3.5 for more information about this upgrade.
To help instructors through this transition we will be offering a number of workshops to preview coming changes as well as hands-on workshops after the upgrade is complete. Register for the workshops on Instructional Innovation’s Event page.
Moodle Help and Resources for Instructors
To learn more about Moodle or to get help, you can:
- Review our Moodle Support Articles.
- Contact the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@umass.edu | 413-545-2823) with a question, or to set up a time for a one-on-one consultation.