How does Moodle work?

1. What is Moodle?

Moodle is a learning management system used to facilitate studies. Here you will find information, access study materials, communicate with teachers and collaborate with other students in your course. 

2. Log in to Moodle

Even if you received account information from the university, you can't log into Moodle until you are registered on your course the start of the semester. However, you can see much of Moodle without logging in.

Many courses are open to guests, which means that without logging in, you can see public contents.

Discussions, submissions and other sensitive courseware is hidden and is not visible until you log in. This opens for more information in the course.

You log in with your student account at the top of the page.

3. Find your way in Moodle

• The main menu is always at the top.
• To change language click on Svenska (SV) and then English (En) (1)
  

•  You find your course rooms in a link list under My Moodle (2)

• In a course room:

- Under the main menu there is a breadcrumb menu. It tells you where you are when you clicked on to some of Moodle's resources. Go back and forth by clicking the breadcrumb menu (3).

- Teachers have great opportunities to design their courses which means that links and information can be found at different locations in different course rooms.

- Course menu is in a Block, and these brown blocks may contain different types of information, and can be on either side of the middle sections (4).

- In the middle you will always find the course's main content is usually divided into different sections (5).

- In the Course menu (or named Navigation) you will find shortcuts to the content sections in the middle (6).

4. My Moodle

My Moodle (1) is your home page when you log in to Moodle. You

• find direct links to get on to all of your course room (2)
  By enabling Customise this page (5) you can e.g. hide or sort the course links  after your wishes.
  
• find notices about events such as new assignments, announcements of new or unread messages in forums (3)
• can edit settings for your profile (4)
•  find private files (6)
• find your classmates who are currently logged into the system (7)
  
  

By taking hold of the moving icon, you can drag the course links up or down in the list

You can also choose how many course links to view

4.1. Administration - My profile

You can find My profile at the upper right corner

You can see your public profile, and find Edit profile through the  Administration menu.

My profile settings 

Here you can:

• manage information about yourself you want to display
  
• edit settings for automatic notifications about events in your courses
• edit settings for personal messages from other students and teachers
  

You can also reach the Administration menu from My Moodle

Some explanations to the forms:

General

• Username, password, first and surname: you cannot change this, it will be overwritten. Ask your course administrator if you want help with this.
• Email address: you should not change your email address here. Instead, forward all your student email to the desired email address
• City / town / country: if these do not match, you can change them yourself
  
• Description: Here you can present yourself. Keep in mind that this will be visible to your classes and teachers.
  

Preferences  (E-mail settings)

•  Email digest type

There are three choices:

1. 1. 1. 1. No digest
            you get a new e-mail every time someone writes a new post (or answers an old one) in a forum you subscribe to.
         2. Complete
            that you once a day will receive an e-mail with all the comments made during the day, from forums you subscribe to. (Recommended)
         3. Subjects
            you receive once a day an e-mail with only the titles of the posts made during the day, from forums you subscribe to

The latter two provide a more or less detailed newsletter from the forums in your courses. If you find that you get too many e-mails from Moodle, one of these options is a smooth solution.

• Forum Auto-subscribe

"Yes" means that you will automatically be subscribed to forums where you post.
Note that you can also select this when you write a post, setting in the profile is just a default.

• Forum tracking

"Yes: highlight new posts for me" shows new messages you have not read.

• User picture
  

The photo you upload appears when you write in forums, send messages or perform other activities in Moodle. Remember that your face should be centered in the picture as the system automatically crops images that are not square. An appropriate image size is 100x100 pixels. You can also write a short description of yourself.

A picture makes it easier to follow discussions and to get to know your classmates and teachers.

Keep in mind that the image will appear in all your course rooms and be visible to both teachers and students..

• Interests

Here you can enter keywords for things you are interested in and that other students might want to know. In this way you can make connections globally within Moodle. When you click on any of the key words in your profile, you get a list of others who have entered the same keyword.

Example: The Marine 2 Student has stated "Photo" as one of her interests, as she wants to find someone else who shares her interest in photography.

4.2. Administration - Messaging

Here you can configure notification methods for messages

OBS! Mobile notifications  are not available

4.3. My private files

Here you can:

• Upload files
• Create folders
• Rename, move, and delete files and folders
• Download all private files as zip files
• Use custom files such as forums

5. The course room

In a course room, you will see all the content that teachers have put there and you'll have access to, such as

• Documents
• Study material
• Assignments
• Tests
• Discussion Forum
• Links
• Video
• Surveys
• Schedule

When you answer e.g. in a forum, you write in an Editor. You can see more features in the editor if you click on the small box (1).

You can also enlarge the window if you are going to write much (2).

5.1. A Moodle Book

This manual is built in a Moodle Book. A Moodle Book consists of several pages with a table of contents. 

You can navigate between chapters using the links in the table of contents, or the arrows on the book's pages.

You can print just a chapter or the whole Book. Just noticeif the Book contains video and big pictures.

5.2. Assignment

The icon for Assignment is usually accompanied by a text with the name of the task

To upload your document, click Add submission

You can choose to drag the file from your desktop or go to the file manager

 


Then select Upload  a File and select file (Välj fil). You will then see your computer's file manager and can select the file.

Make sure you select the correct file to upload.

Click on Upload this file

Now you can see the file and save changes

NOTE! Your teacher may have settings that allow you now only have a draft. So you have not sent the final work yet.

To submit your assignment, click Submit assignment.

Teachers may use a setting that asks you to confirm that you are the author and have used refereces correctly.

Grading status shows you when the task is graded and under Feedback

 you find your grade and teacher comments.

You can also see your grade directly in the course room in the block Administration -> Grades

5.3. Forum

There are different types of forum in Moodle. These are used for communication and discussions within a group of students or between students and teachers.

There's Forums in which

• all course participants can read and write
  
• only one specific group can write, but everyone can read
• only one specific group can read and write
• only specifik group can see that the forum exists
  

If you are uncertain ask your teacher what type of forum your group has.

NOTE! Teachers can always read and write in all forums.

The discussions are called discussion threads the questions and answers are linked as on a thread for a topic.

The icon for creating a new discussion thread about a particular topic looks like this

The subject line is empty and you need to find an adequate name for your discussion

If there is already a name in the subject line, then you are participating in that particular discussion.

NOTE! Make sure that you participate in the correct discussion. Do not start a new thread in an ongoing discussion.

Do not forget to publish your post


You can also subscribe to a discussion  the block Administration and get e-mail when someone replies (see also the message settings under "My Moodle")

5.4. Calendar

You find the calandar in a brown block 

If you click on the name of the month you will get a larger monthly summary

Monthly summary

Click on the individual events to possibly find more information.

At the bottom you will find links to export calendar events to another calendar or subscribe to Moodle from an external calendar.
If you have the Moodle app, you do not need to export your calendar, see the user guide for Moodle Mobile.

     Export calendar: Here you can choose what you want to include.

ICal: A quick file, without making any choice
Manage subscriptions: Download events from another calendar to Moodle