Tip of the Week

  • TOW: Adding library articles to your Moodle course

    August 22, 2016 /

    Trinity’s Library provides access to a rich collection of online journal articles and other materials you may want to assign to your students. Most of the databases in which these articles are found provide a handy URL that you can easily plug into your Moodle course. This method of providing course readings can eliminate the hassle of uploading pdf files, and it also leads students directly to the journal database where they can browse further. The terms databases commonly use are Stable URL, Permanent URL, or Permalink. The example below is taken from an article record in JSTOR, which uses the first term.  Just copy the URL link, and add it to your Moodle course…

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  • TOW: New Features in Moodle

    August 15, 2016 /

      As is usually the case, we’ve updated Moodle over the summer, and are now offering Moodle 3.0. In addition to a variety of behind-the-scenes updates, there are a few new features that may be relevant to your fall courses: There are four new question types for quizzes, two involving text, and two involving images. The text types are: select missing word (multiple-choice fill-in-the-blank) and drag-and-drop into text (same, but with a drag-and-drop interface rather than selecting from a list). The image types are: drag-and-drop onto an image, which lets students drag text or small images onto larger images, and drag-and-drop markers, which lets students add text markers to predefined locations. If you use…

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  • Copying a Moodle course from a previous semester

    August 8, 2016 /

    If you’re at all like me, you’ve looked at the calendar, and realized that it’s August 8th! That’s right – fall classes start in just a few weeks. Fortunately, there is one task that is easy to get out of the way, and thanks to this summer’s Moodle upgrade, you can copy your Moodle course from a previous semester to this fall’s course instance with just a few clicks. Keep in mind, this process will take a few minutes, depending on the amount of content you have in the course you are copying. It will probably take less time if you do this while on campus (since you will be on…

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  • Using Spotify to create course listening assignments

    July 25, 2016 /

    For those looking to incorporate a music component into classes, Spotify offers a massive library of licensed streaming music that can be easily organized into playlists and shared with students. And, the mobile portability and familiarity of Spotify means students may be more likely to complete listening assignments! You and your students can access Spotify either through a Web browser, or via software downloaded to your desktop or mobile device. There is little difference between these two modes of listening, except that the downloaded software allows you to reorder songs in a playlist. To get started using the browser version, go to play.spotify.com and set up an account. Spotify offers both a free and a paid subscription…

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