Fall 2021 Moodle Tips for Faculty

Accessing Purchase College Moodle

Activate your Purchase College account (or to reset your password), if needed. Visit Online Account Activation/Password Reset and choose the appropriate “Activate” or “Reset” option.

Once your Purchase College account is active and working, you will have access to Moodle as well as Purchase College email, MyHeliotrope, Library resources, etc.

Login to Moodle with your Purchase College username (usually firstname.lastname) and your Purchase College account password. Detailed login directions are available at our Moodle Basics help guide.

If you are not yet associated with any course spaces on Moodle, please contact the Office of the Registrar to confirm that you are properly tagged as the instructor of record on your course(s).

Consult the COVID-19 Remote Teaching Resources Guide for information specific to remote instruction.

Review the Remote Teaching Workshop playlist at our TLTC YouTube channel.

Working with Content & Documents in Moodle

• Get to know the new and improved Moodle Activity Chooser
• Upload files into your Moodle course
  
• Improve accessibility of course documents using Ally
• Link to Library resources using EZproxy
• Reuse (import) previous content into another Moodle space
  • If you inadvertently imported the wrong course into your Fall 2021 course shell, don’t worry! You can quickly bulk delete content from the space!
• Embed YouTube videos in your course

Moodle Course Views

• Set your course availability (show/hide)
• Add the ‘Activities’ and ‘People’ blocks to your course to improve navigation
• Combine Moodle course sections into one “meta course”
• View your course from the student perspective (switch role to Student)
• Make your Gradebook visible to enrolled students in your course
• Use Moodle on your mobile device (Moodle Mobile app)

Managing Course Participants

If you notice inconsistencies between your schedule / class lists in MyHeliotrope and enrollments in Moodle, you will need to create a ticket using the CTS Helpdesk Work Order System (WOT) to request that data be synced between the two systems.
Please note that the TLTC cannot resolve enrollment issues.

• Add a learning assistant, course librarian, faculty member, senior auditor to your course
• Set up and take attendance in your course using the Attendance activity

Moodle Course Communication Tools

• Send an email (course announcement) to your entire class
• Use Moodle Messaging to communicate with individual or groups of students
• Manage your Moodle Notification preferences (when/how frequently you get Moodle-generated emails)

Creating Moodle Activities & Assignments

• Schedule and start Zoom sessions from within your Moodle course
  • Make sure your Zoom account is using your Purchase College login
  • Review the Using the Zoom Integration in Moodle video tutorial on YouTube
• Set up a basic Moodle assignment to collect work from students
• Set up an Annotate PDF assignment that you can markup
• Set up a Turnitin assignment to foster academic integrity
• Create quiz questions and build a Quiz using the Quiz activity
  • Effective quiz practices
• Create a discussion forum to encourage conversation among students
• Use Perusall in your course to encourage social reading and annotation
  
  • Review the Perusall Quick Start tutorial on YouTube
• Create a VoiceThread activity in your course
  • Learn more about how to use new assignment features in VoiceThread
  • Watch recent VoiceThread workshop recording about New Assignment Features
  • Review the Using VoiceThread for Asynchronous, Interactive Lectures workshop recording and Building a VoiceThread Presentation tutorial on YouTube
  • Check out how to use new assignment features in VoiceThread
• Add ThinkingStorm to connect your students with available tutoring services

Moodle Gradebook

• • Set up your Moodle Gradebook with weighted categories
  • Make your Gradebook visible to enrolled students in your course
    • Review the Moodle Basics: Grading, Assessments, and Using the Gradebook workshop recording on YouTube

  EmTech Wiki Essential Toolbox
  If you’re looking for inspiration, SUNY Buffalo’s “EmTechWIKI Essential Toolbox” highlights commonly used resources to move online quickly and efficiently. Discover additional tools and applications based on your specific objectives in the following categories:
  Lifelong Learning Communication & Collaboration
  Creativity Critical Thinking

2021 Academic Calendar

Summer Session 2021

Session I: Monday, June 7 - Friday, July 2
Session II: Monday, June 7 - Friday, July 30
Session III: Monday, July 5 - Friday, July 30

Fall 2021

• Classes begin: Mon., Aug. 30
• Labor Day: Mon., Sept. 6 (no classes)
• Rosh Hashanah (begins at sundown on Mon., Sept. 6): Classes in session
• Yom Kippur (begins at sundown on Wed., Sept. 15): Classes in session
• Tues., Nov. 2: Election Day–no classes
• Thanksgiving Recess: Wed., Nov. 24 through Sun., Nov. 28 (no classes)
• Final exam week: Dec. 13–17
• Classes end: Fri., Dec. 17