Rabat Aug/Sept 2012

Special thanks to Rachel Markowitz from the IES Abroad Rabat Center for submitting these photos!

Moodle Updates from Michael Steinberg

W how many IES instructors are using Moodle actively and creatively. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our RETSs, Stephen McMahon of Dublin, Wolfgang Bialas of Berlin, Laura Vazquez of Barcelona, Jeremiah Jenne of Beijing, and Martin Tessi of Buenos Aires. This fall, with the phasing out of the RETS program, we will rely more on the Faculty Champions at each Center to help us reach the next stage. The sta in Chicago will also be organizing a series of webinars for the faculty champions and other interested faculty member to assist us all in the development of our Moodle activities. We are also delighted to report that some of our Moodle incentive winners will make Center visits to o er workshops on their Moodle initiatives. As I write, we are planning visits by Valentina Follo of Rome to Delhi, Trc Long V Trn of Paris to Rabat, Diego Alonso of Buenos Aires to Santiago, and Thomas Staub of the EU Center to London. Moodle incentive winners Ann Ferster of Freiburg, Natacha Llorente of Buenos Aires, Birgit Glock of Berlin, Michel Berthet of Paris, and Mara Mejas of Barcelona are working on Webinars to demonstrate their interactive Moodle innovations. Our Moodle Chicago specialists, Kattrina Cannon and Erika Quinn are continuously updating the educational resources in Moodle Learn at https://moodlelearn.elearning.iesabroad.org. We welcome your suggestions on wish you all happy Moodling!

Michael Steinberg Executive Vice President for Academic Programs

Rabat Aug/Sept 2012

Featured Moodle Module - Checklist Module

The Moodle Checklist Module is a tool for faculty to create a checklist, to-do list or task list to track student progress. As the students check each item in the list, faculty can monitor their progress. Students can view their progress in a bar indicator showing how far they have advanced through the items. Students can also add their own private items to the Checklist. Other features of the Checklist Module include: Students and faculty, or faculty only, can be given permission to check o items Students can add their own personal items to the checklist An item can be given a due date, which is exported to the Moodle Calendar Faculty can comment on students checklist items Student progress is exported to the Moodle Gradebook Example of a Checklist in Moodle Checklist items can be color coded Checklists can include topic headings or labels Any activities in your course (assignments, quizzes, etc.) can be imported into a Checklist and are automatically checked as they are completed Checklist Progress Bar

Faculty Resources. Thanks to John Schulze (IES Berlin Metro Program) for assisting with testing the Checklist Module!

Moodle Tip of the Month...

Embedding PDF documents in your Moodle course allows them to be viewed within the page by using Scribd or Google Docs. All you need is a Scribd or Gmail account. Copy the web link to your PDF from your Scribd or Google Docs account, click website in Moodle and paste the link. Guides and tutorials for the Moodle modules and blocks featured in the monthly newsletter can be found on the MoodleLearn website: https://moodlelearn.elearning.iesabroad.org Use the following generic log-in: User ID - iesstudent Password - Student1

Faculty Resource Page for Moodle Centers

Faculty can access Moodle resources and instructional guides from the Faculty Resources page located in the MoodleLearn site. The Educational Technology Team can add the Faculty Resource page to your Centers main site for quick and easy access to Moodle guides. You can add additional information or change the theme in your Faculty Resource page if you choose. If your Center would like a copy of the Faculty Resource course page in your Centers site, please email your request to: helpdesk@iesabroad.org.

Center Admins Can Upload Mulitple Users in Moodle!

It is not usually necessary to import students in bulk to Moodle as students are added through the Atlas-to-Moodle synchronization process. If a Center Administrator needs to add multiple users to a Center's Moodle instance, such as audit Site administration > Users > Accounts > Upload users. Only Center Administrators can upload multiple users to Moodle. Further instructions on uploading multiple users to Moodle can be found in the MoodleLearn site under Center Admin Resources.

#CitizenCurators - Everyday Life in London

From the Citizen Curators website:

#CitizenCurators is a research project developed by the University of Westminster for the Museum of London. It recorded the everyday life of Londoners during the Olympics (July 27th-August 12th) through use of social media: Twitter and Instagram. The great moments of the Games were written about and photographed. What was it like to live in London during the Olympics? How was the experience of the residents in London? You can see an edited story of each days tweets here: http://storify.com/citizencurators. For more information about the Citizen Curators project, visit: http://citizencurators.com/
This newsletter was sent to provide the latest information for IES Abroad Moodle. IES Abroad Chicago 33 N. LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60602-2602 Phone: 1.800.995.2300

Moodle for Service Learning in Delhi

Students studying in Delhi have the opportunity to explore culture, interact with local residents and volunteer to help the community through Service Learning. We asked Hemanshu Kumar to enlighten us on the exciting ways he is using the EC 395 Service Learning Course in Moodle! Please tell us a little about your Service Learning course... The Service Learning course is designed to be an experiential learning process about developmental issues facing India. We o er a variety of di erent types of engagements, that run the gamut from cooking and serving food in a Sikh temple, to providing daycare to children of poor construction workers, to helping research schooling quality for a nationally acclaimed NGO. The classroom lectures complement the service learning experience by discussing developmental challenges and providing the context of voluntary action in India, and helping students interpret their experiences here.

Hemanshu Kumar
IES Abroad Faculty Delhi Center

What kinds of activities are you using in the Service Learning course? include: The Forum Module -- the students will write a weekly blog entry about their volunteering experience, and I wanted students to be able to see each others' blogs and comment on them. The "forum" activity with the option of each person starting a single discussion is a very natural way to do this. The Attendance Module of course, to track weekly class participation grades. "O ine Activity" Modules to track grades for forums, but also for genuinely o ine activities (the coming weekend, we will be taking students for a guided walk through a poor neighborhood for a "poverty audit", and their grades for that assignment will be posted on Moodle). and/or modules for other I will also be using the take-home assignments I give my students through the semester. This allows students to write an assignment response on their computers and upload it at the end to Moodle -- in a country where the internet connection can be i y and power failures are not uncommon, this is a good way to do assignment submissions compared to having the students write text online. There is a cool Google Map of partner institutions in the course. How did you create and add the area Google Map to your course and in what way does it help your students? their Service Learning NGO. Delhi is a massive city, and the IES Delhi program with its hybrid structure means students must commute long distances between the IES Centre as well as university campuses where they take classes, and the NGO where they are volunteering, and of course their residence. All of this in a city where the streets are not laid out in grids, where street names are often not marked, and where the man in the street often doesn't speak English. That can be tremendously daunting and confusing for the best of us! This is what makes the Google Map priceless.

Service Learning...(continued)
I created the Google Map using the "My Places" -> "Create Map" option on the Google Maps site -- it's really very intuitive and easy! To add a little eye candy, I picked out di erent icons for the di erent sorts of places I wanted to mark -- the Service Learning partner institutions of course, but also the various places they take classes as well as several of the homestay and groupstay options we o er. I show the students this Google map during the Orientation period, and have it up on Moodle as soon as classes begin. Using Google's abilities to provide directions, and also to map metro (subway) and bus routes, students are quickly able to get a very accurate picture of how to get around in their new city. They use the map to help structure their timetable and their NGO choices into a fun yet workable timetable, and have a much abroad. And the map is available on Moodle throughout the semester, for those days when they suddenly feel lost or just want to explore a new part of town! Service Learning gives students an opportunity to volunteer and perform activities outside of the classroom. What are your thoughts about using Moodle as an instructional/resource tool to complement or enhance your Service Learning course? I think there are two substantial ways in which Moodle is qualitatively changing the courses I teach. First, my plan is to try and completely invert the teaching experience using Moodle. My course includes a weekly lecture session, and in past semesters a lot of that time was spent in a monologue, with me going over the assigned reading material. This is hard on the students, because they all have di erent speeds at which they can process a lecture. Now I'm shifting to having most reading material available online, whether that be assigned book chapters, or powerpoint lectures prepared by me. The students can take their time learning and processing that material at their own pace, and class time can be devoted much more to discussions. Second, while earlier too I tried to foster discussions in the classroom, they tended to be monopolized by some students who were more assertive or extroverted or just garrulous, leaving little space for the quieter students to shine. Now I'm actively using Moodle forums to host online discussions, which is a more equitable space for everyone to express their opinions.

Service Learning...(continued)
Any Moodle tips or advice you have for other faculty who may be new to using Moodle? to get to know the possibilities are to check out other Centers where Moodle is being actively used -- often by pestering Kattrina (Education Technology Systems Manager) to give you guest access! :) And another thing -- there's no need to rush into Moodle, take it slow! My use of Moodle last semester was very elementary (just posting the syllabus, and using it for assignment submission and attendance), but in hindsight I

International Technology Terms!

The technology term of the month is:

Printer - A printer is a device that prints paper documents. This includes text documents, images, or a combination of both. The two most common types of printers are inkjet and laser printers. Inkjet printers are commonly used by consumers, while laser printers are a typical choice for businesses.

In this months IES Abroad Moodle Newsletter, we take at look at how technology terms are written in various languages!
Japanese German drucker

PDF Conversion Tool Widget for Moodle!

Need to convert Word documents and other formats to PDF? Try this new PDF Conversion Tool Widget for Moodle. Post the widget to your Moodle course for your students to convert their The PDF Conversion Tool Widget can be found here: http://en.pdf24.org/doc2pdfForm.html Copy the embedded code for the widget in the Form Code. Add an HTML block to your course. Click the <> toggle HTML button in the editor. Paste the widget embed code and save. Special thanks to John Schulze, Program Coordinator at the IES Berlin Metro Program for sharing this neat widget!

Copying and Pasting from Word to Moodle

When editing and posting information in Moodle please avoid copying text from Microsoft Word and pasting it to a Moodle course. Microsoft Word is known to add extra formatting code, which can potentially cause issues such as disabling the editing button, and wrapping or distorting the text on your Moodle page. To prevent issues, it is best to copy your text from the Word document and paste it into a plain text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit. Copying from Word to a plain text editor will remove any extra formatting code from Word. From the plain text editor, you can copy and paste the text into Moodle for your assignments, sections, forums, etc. Once you have pasted your text to Moodle, you can format it to change the font type, size and color.

5 Tips to Enhance Your Moodle Course!

1. Provide a framework for your documents - Adding a label with information on what the readings or assignments are helps students identify items posted on the course page. 2. Use images to improve visual learning - How do students perceive your course? Do visual images work well with instructional text to engage the student? 3. Add a heading for your topics - Helps to organize and identify key sections in your course. 4. PDFs or web pages instead of Word docs - Not all students have access to Word and some could encounter problems viewing Word docs on certain devices. Convert your Word document to PDF format or copy the text from Word to a plain text editor. From there, copy and paste it into a web page resource. 5. Use the Choice Module for immediate feedback from your students - Find out what your students think!