Moodle at SUNY Plattsburgh

Teaching and Learning with Moodle at SUNY Plattsburgh

What is Moodle?

Moodle is the system that SUNY Plattsburgh uses to create and deliver online courses. Moodle is guided by a social constructionist pedagogy.

• Overview of Moodle log-on basics
• Log-in to Moodle

Moodle updates for faculty and staffDo you have a question or comment about Moodle? Please share! Drop us a note via our online comment form.

View and register for Moodle and other important workshops, including session covering Microsoft Office workshops that will help you make the most of Word, Excel, and Windows.

• View and download our Moodle 2.4 Fact Sheet
• View Moodle workshops 
• View the full list of Instructional Technology and Center for Teaching Excellence workshops
• View just the Microsoft Office workshops 
• View our scheduled office hours 

Creating Moodle Courses

Faculty Moodle users have the convenience of creating new courses without having to contact the Helpdesk with a request to have their content copied over from the Moodle development category or other areas. The new self-service procedure involves simply selecting the course needing to be copied and the new course intended as the destination. The newly created course will have the Banner roster already connected with it, just as it was in the previous version. The option still exists to create an empty course with a roster attached.

Faculty have two options to create new Moodle course sites, as follows:

• Option 1: Re-use a course site's content for a subsequent semester. Start by filing a trouble report and selecting the "Move My Course Please" option, making sure to identify both the course site you would like to move and the site to which you would like it to move. The content transfer usually happens within a day or so after the receipt of the request.
• Option 2: Create a new course site. Follow the import instructions posted in the Moodle Site Developers Area, in a document called "Backup/Restore/Import Notes."

Tweaking Your Gradebook Views

If you've used Moodle's gradebook, you've probably discovered that the "Grader Report" view tends to involve a whole lot of left-to-right scrolling as it draws a rather large table in a very small frame. There are some things you can do both to reduce the amount of scrolling and to adjust just how much information the Grader Report should be showing you at any given time.

To cut down on the amount of scrolling you'll end up doing, you should consider that Moodle will size each column in that grader report view to fit the length of the assignment title. You don't want to compromise clarity in shortening those titles, but if you can shorten them, doing so helps show more information (with less scrolling) in the Grader Report view. You can also adjust the Grader Report view to toggle between several views of any given category. The default view ("Full View") will show the category fully expanded, listing all item grades and showing the category total. Details and step by step images are located on the Moodle Developers Forum.

Removing students from your course roster

Students who do not appear as active enrollments in Banner can now be removed from your course roster in Moodle. View the procedure online by going to your Moodle home page and following the links:

• Moodle @ SUNY Plattsburgh: My home
• My courses
• Moodle Developers
• Removing Withdrawn/Dropped Students from Rosters

If you are logged into Moodle, you can link directly to the page.

Moodle Tip

When you have an “advanced uploading of files” assignment, be aware that, if your students only add their papers as attachments and fail to click on the save changes button right below it, then when you look at submitted assignments it will say draft, followed by the date the student uploaded it. However, nothing will be there. Solution: remind them to click that save changes button, and you’ll get the submission. 

Requirements for Faculty Teaching Online

All faculty teaching fully online courses or hybrid courses are required to complete Moodle training before their courses begin.

• Faculty who have previously completed ANGEL training may take a one-day Moodle workshop to update their certification.
• Faculty who were not previously trained to teach online are required to take the full three-day workshop (schedule to be announced).

View a schedule of and register for faculty workshops

Supplemental Moodle Training Through CTE

Center for Teaching Excellence workshops are offered as supplemental, in-depth treatment of various resources and activities in Moodle. They are not mandatory for teaching online with Moodle, but they are strongly recommended.

Getting Moodle Help

Our Helpdesk staff are now preparing to assist you with technical issues. For expert pedagogy support, contact our Center for Teaching Excellence.

Contact Information

For more information about Moodle and Online Learning at SUNY Plattsburgh, please contact us:

Linda Carpenter, Online Learning Coordinator 
Phone: (518) 564-5185
Helpdesk Phone: (800) 787-8773
Fax: (518) 564-4236
E-mail: online-learning@plattsburgh.edu