Tips about Moodle, wise quotes about facilitation, useful links to resources or How-to’s

 September 27, 2016

What happens in Moodle when – a conversation about what happens when you disable Subscriptions on a Forum, post threads and then turn it back on to Auto-Subscribe

Short answer:  nothing – still sends out to subscribers

gmail from me –> SylviaC

I want to post all the feedback forum starter threads for each week’s mini-session team all at once. I was planning to do it in reverse order so the Week 2 team will appear on top.

I thought, if I disabled the subscriptions for the Forum first, posted the threads and then turned it on again, the posts wouldn’t be sent out to subscribers – only the posts I did after I turned on the auto-subscribe would be emailed out.

That isn’t what happened when I tried that for our Week 1 demo – when I look at the order I received emails from the forum, it was still in the order I posted the 2 Activity threads and the 1 launch thread.

Ideally, what I’d like to do is keep the Feedback forum hidden, until the Week 2 activity launches. Then I’d like to reveal it cuz, hopefully, the new approach of having the team explicitly include the prompting for end of week feedback in their activity will be in place.  Do you get my drift? What do you think ?

Response from SylviaC

Unfortunately you need to post the starter threads before the participants are enrolled. Their subscriptions are set. If you change the forum settings it doesn’t impact the subscriptions of the people currently enrolled.
Not sure I’m understanding the second part — order you receive messages via email. That will always be chronological (they’re time stamped).
Hmmm, how to post thread starters without anyone receiving them via email…
I wonder, if you hide the forum will that be confusing? I mean, because we do refer to it from the handbook, etc?
You could create a second forum, no subscribers, hide it. Create your posts. Then move the posts to the Feedback forum. I think that would work. Not sure if it’s worth the effort though! 🙂

September 23, 2016

Reminder on how to add the Participants list in the Quick Links block in FLO Moodle course shell – (from our Sept 2016 Gdoc Task List)

” Updated the participants link. For next time… The best way to grab the correct link is to add the ‘people’ block, copy the link, then delete the block “

September 19, 2016

gmail from me to SylviaC

Thx for your comments – glad you like it so far.

Was wondering how best to broaden the scope of comments on this topic as it’s so relevant in setting the stage to talk about the facilitation skills that are developed in FLO and to use to support Activities.

Can you confirm that the videos contributed by RRU staff are NOT open licensed? I was hoping to use some quotes from them (as faculty members they have a different level of credibility ?)

If we can’t use quotes from their videos, what do you think of the idea of sharing the draft document with a select list of FLO-FDO participants – I’m thinking of approaching more facilitators that have experience teaching online?

Or would it be better to try posing the question, providing some examples of responses from PMc and BC-B, and seeing what they add to a google doc or Word attached to email?

Does that make sense at all?

SylviaC’s response:

For sure the RRU videos are open licensed. (Why you think they’re not?) I think they’re all in SoLR (https://solr.bccampus.ca/wp/) which reminds me that I should add our new videos + FLO to SoLR as well!
I think approaching more facilitators is a good idea as well. But of course don’t spend more time than you have!

September 18, 2016

My question about her approach to setting links to open in same page or open in new tab

“I generally use ‘open in new tab’ if it takes the reader away from the course site. But if it’s within the course, I use ‘open in same window’.

I can see the value of using ‘open in new tab’ if within a forum, because in most cases the reader would want to continue reading the forum post. But I guess it makes sense to make a rule and stick to it so there are no surprises. Also, on mobile open in new tab/window really sucks. (Not that many are using mobile, as far as I know)
Re forum subscriptions, I prefer auto-subscribe (for myself and I think it helps participants). Do you? I know the RRU folks don’t. “

September 1, 2016

My questions about “How much can I modify”
Haha, I know, and totally agree with your changes. TBH, I didn’t find any of the usability suggestions helpful or valid. I think we’re at a point where we can stop “swapping” courses with RRU. We’ve got the core in place, and it’s ok to make tweaks without approval from everyone. (I mean…they didn’t ask me for approval to make those changes) If we commit to sharing the latest as OER, then we can peak at each others versions to see if there’s anything we want to use or modify.
I just moved the CC license info to a label at the bottom of the hub.

September 1, 2016testaccounts-in-scope

Adding a student test account   (normally it is nobody, nobody but it needs to be added to new course instances?)

Technically you should have access to add students, but I’m not 100% sure. Attached a screen shot to show the how part.

 

 

 

July 2016 – my notes of discussions with SylviaC

BCcampus changes to Prof Learning

I have some serious concerns about the lack of support from management? not sure where the lack of serious interest in FLO comes from. Had an honest discussion with SC to let her know my concerns and to try and understand what is changing and why in current structure of Professional Learning – BCcampus

July 4th
Leva Lee is returning from Open assignment and is now FT in Professional Learning.
Tracy Kelly is Senior Manager of Professional Learning – soon to be called “????”
Leval Lee is FT
Clint Lalonde is FT (moved from Open to technology to PL)
Sylvia Currie is 1/2 Time
Professional Learning will be changing it’s “brand” as the perception is that “professional” is for non-faculty and BCcampus (Tracy? Mary?) want to focus on attracting/serving more faculty. I asked if this was related to the scholarship voice – SC uncertain or non-committal. We did agree that this new committee (Teaching and Learning Council) may be the source. Uncertain of their full role – their public face was that they came together to create the Festival of Learning.
Note to me:  would be smart to find out more about this group – but do I really care?
Denise (BCcampus) is taking the current July RRU FLO (as they had to cancel the other one from lack of interest. Partly due to lack of promotional assistance from social media/website people! Story of that is a clear example of the ghettoization of FLO (my perception).
SC mentioned that a recent email mentioned that ETUG was going to become “independent”! Yet more free work required!  Wonder what that will mean for their efforts at keeping us “at the learning edge”
Professional Learning only offers special interest events like Liberating Structures (doesn’t seem to have an organized way to figure out how/what to offer?  SylviaC says, in the past, they had yearly gatherings of what they called “Online Community Enthusiasts” – they dealt with a whole range of topics.
Curious as to why 2016 was a major face-to-face learning effort and then the online exploration of the topic was left to RRU to fund?

April 24, 2016

 Response to question about badge awards (completion tracking)

Re: Badge awards seem a little awry?  by Sylvia Currie – Sunday, 24 April 2016, 1:24 PM

Here’s the activity completion overview:  (Access through course admin menu > reports)

Each activity/resource is set up with criteria. To view that go into edit view for the activity, then ‘activity completion’ at the bottom.

The journal forum requires 3 posts (can be replies)

The handbook is set to “student must view…” which really just means they need to click on the link.

I checked the course completion report (where you can select who has done what by activity) to see if everyone has posted 3 times to the journal share forum. Some are still showing as 2x.

April 9

April 9, 2009

Answer to my question about her past project with the indigenization issues – she sent a link to their Elluminate session – see link to the website in the message – it is still maintained by June?

Date: April 14, 2009 2:17:17 PM PDT (CA)
Subject: First Nations Pedagogy Online Project – Live Session April 15 @ 11:00 PDT

You are invited to a presentation and open discussion about the First Nations Pedagogy Online project, a website and online community for advancing our knowledge about effectively implementing learning opportunities for Aboriginal learners. (http://firstnationspedagogy.ca/)

When: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 11:00 PDT

Where: Online via Elluminate. Follow this link approximately 15 minutes before the start time: http://tinyurl.com/9m668l

Who: This session is facilitated by June Kaminski and Sylvia Currie. All are welcome so please invite your colleagues!

 

April 8 and 6 – SylviaC post to Railcar

Here’s what I know, and just double checked over in the Sandbox using the STUDENT test account. (Remember, it is a likely a security protection issue, affecting activities and resources that students have access to edit. Teachers have different access privileges.)

Using the Tiny MCE editor:

  • Students can hyperlink to a YouTube video, and the video will appear.
  • Students cannot embed YouTube videos

Using the ATTO editor:

  • Students can hyperlink to a YouTube video, but it just appears as a hyperlink. The ‘media embed’ feature does not kick in
  • Students cannot embed YouTube videos

So yes, it works, but only under certain conditions.

It’s still better (and easier) for students to hyperlink to a YouTube video, rather than go to <> view and use embed code.

Solution: I changed the default editor to Tiny MCE. I’m not 100% sure that will mean that editor will show up for all participants, but at least we know that suggesting they change to Tiny MCE in profile > preferences, and using hyperlinks rather than embed code, will solve the problem.

————–Issue, adding Youtube iframe- see further post in April 8 above

Myra, I think you might be in the wrong course?

Here’s the Sandbox link again: https://scope.bccampus.ca/course/view.php?id=6

The test account (username: nobody password: nobody), is what we need to be using to test the embedding issue from a student pt of view in the Sandbox. There is no ‘editing button’ if you use that login.

There are several forums in the Sandbox, plus the glossary where I’ve been testing.

TIP: In subject heading put the role and the editor you are using. In body put whether you posted YouTube link or embed code. Don’t delete. That way I can check before and after for any changes I make in admin settings.

I just gave you (Myra account) ‘teacher’ access in the Sandbox in case you want more access. Maybe we should set up a forum there so we can trouble shoot separately from the railcar.

Only if you have time, of course! This stuff can gobble us up if we let it!

April 6, 2016

————Question about how she has her PowerPoint ratio set (sharing slides resulted in skewed text blocks and distorted pics

Re ratio, my PowerPoint is set to 16:9 by default. The only other option I have is 4:3 and I don’t think I’ve ever used that.

————–Issue of how to find the recordings of our Collaborate sessions in SCoPe Moodle

Each Blackboard Collaborate room has a list of recordings. Here’s the link for the FLO room (A)  (There’s a second room (B) in case we have a concurrent FLO running)

https://sas.elluminate.com/mrtbl?suid=M.FBCCBC516995BABCCBA6F1B4BDB7A7&sid=727

You need to right click on the icon beside the correct date to copy the recording link. I’ll start the conversion to MP4 after the session. It will show up on that list when it’s finished processing.