This document provides guidance for teachers preparing their Moodle courses for the new school year. It includes checklists for tech directors and teachers to ensure proper setup and organization of courses. Tips are provided on course formats, creating the first assignment, using the calendar, and planning ahead to incorporate higher level skills and activities later in the year. The goal is to help teachers get their courses organized and ready to go for the first day of school.

1. Moodle – Starting the Year August 2011 Drew Mortensen

2. Moodle Upgrades Version: 2.1+ Course Formats: Tabs (onetopic) Collapsed Weeks Collapsed Topics Activity: Questionnaire Resource: Book

4. Student/Staff Account Creation

5. LDAP

6. CSV

7. Other

8. SMTP Information InsertedPlugins > Message Outputs > Email

11. Students Enrolled

12. Syllabus Posted(Resource: File)

13. “Getting to Know You” Activity Created (Activity: Questionnaire or Forum)

14. Textbook Link Published (Resource: URL)

15. 1st Graded Assignment Created (Activity: Assignment)

16. Calendar Created

17. Layout Determined

18. Tabs, Topics, Weeks, Social

19. Units, Themes, Etc..

20. Clear Organization

21. Unit 1 Activity Mapped Out

22. Future Moodle Trainings

24. Course Creation Request Link on Main Page (To Be Removed Before School Starts) http://yoursite/course/request.php

26. Teachers must manually enroll students.

28. Student Work: What is the Point? How will the information provided by the students be used? Who will be using the information provided? What is the value of the information provided? How will the information guide my teaching? Choose the Activity/Resource based on the goal!

29. Getting to Know You(Questionnaire) Anonymous or Identifiable? Public or Private Results? What is the point of the activity?

30. All About You… (Forum) Do you need to make it an assignment? How does this compare to a questionnaire? How will the posts be used? Where does this fall on Bloom’s taxonomy?

31. Make a Graded Assignment In the first week, have your students complete an assignment. Perhaps you use it as a diagnostic tool, or maybe you do it just to get them exposed to the process.

32. Set the Due Date At the beginning of the year you may need to make the point that the due date is firm.

34. Refer Students to the Calendar

35. Embed Pictures / Videos in Events

36. Create Reminders for Important Events or Assignments.

37. Course Formats Tabs, Topics, Social, Weeks, Collapsed -- To Each Their Own Avoid the Scroll of Death: A long Moodle course page with a lot of items.

39. Indent

41. Higher Level Skill Activities

42. Community Connections and Assistance