Watch the video here: http://vimeo.com/32160183 or embedded below. The video was created by Willard High School and was recently used in an Opensource.com post authored by Janetta Garton.

Use Labels to Create Menus in Moodle from Willard High School on Vimeo.

1. First things first you’ll want to construct your course and have it all ready to work (or as close to it as possible).  If you’re using Moodle 1.9 or 2.x you can add the “Section Links” block which will use to copy some URLs.
2. Copy the URLs to each Topic section and paste them to a text document for quick reference.  The Topic link URLs will help student navigate to an individual section.  They generally look like this:

   http://yourmoodle.com/course/view.php?id=2&topic=1

   The first part of the URL is your domain, then the course ID then the topic number.

3. Next we’re going to add a new label to each topic area (not including the Summary of the Topic Outline, this will always be visible).  The new label will include a snippet of HTML to create a single row, double column table.  In the left cell you can have just text or an image arrow which will be linked to the previous topic link, in the right cell you’ll have text or an image arrow linked to the next topic link.  This is the snippet for text only which you should add as plain text in the html editor (the HTML or <> buttons depending on your Moodle version):

   <table border="0" width="100%">
   <tbody>
   <tr>
   <td><strong><a href="http://yourmoodle.com/course/view.php?id=2&topic=0">&lt; Previous</a></strong></td>
   <td style="text-align: right;"><strong><a href="http://yourmoodle.com/course/view.php?id=2&topic=2">Next &gt;</a></strong></td>
   </tr>
   </tbody>
   </table>

   This includes the HTML for the table, links and text (“< Previous” and “Next >”) and the URL of the topic link.  This is important: for every previous and next just edit the topic number to represent the previous (if this is topic 1 you can just delete the “previous” text).

4. Continue adding labels to each of your topics and edit the HTML accordingly.

Once you’ve added all the labels the individual topics should look something like this:

As long as you’re not constantly reordering your course topics this is a simple and effective way to provide an easier navigation with no scroll of death to students without adding any new course formats or hacking the topics format with invisible resources and activities.  Here’s a quick video of it in action:

Give courses a little more depth in structure and organize resources/activities a click away from the main page.

Github: https://github.com/moodleou/moodle-mod_subpage
Mary’s original post: http://www.moodleblog.net/2012/01/14/sub-page-module
Youtube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3lynb89BeY

8 Site for Storytell-ing

7 mobile Moodl-ing

6 Course-for-matting

5 a course about Jiiing

4 pretty themes

3 [awesome] plugins

2 Cheery images

and A freebie Christmas themed Glossary!

If it’s one thing the Moodle community is good at it’s creating video tutorials and screencasts to highlight Moodle’s features, how to tweak settings and how to navigate or do something novel with the software.  Nary a day goes by that I don’t have a new video in the queue of my Google Reader RSS for “Moodle Videos”.

At Moodlenews there are at least 370 posts with a (or many) video as the focus [http://www.moodlenews.com/?s=video].  Videos are so abundant that I even created a “video” category as one of the first tasks in setting up this site [http://www.moodlenews.com/category/resources/videos/].  Some of my favorite sites and sources for video tutorials are listed below.  If you get snowed in this holiday break, at least there’s something to watch!

1. UsingMoodle (@Moodlefairy) Mary Cooch’s wonderfully helpful Moodle video channel (53 videos)
2. @sbrandt’s Screenr page (at last count Shawn had over 50 Moodle related videos and tutorials listed)
3. http://moodletuts.com/ also hosted at http://www.screenr.com/user/moodletuts
4. 5 Minute Moodles by @lasic (great videos showcasing all sorts of Moodle features and tricks)
5. Professor Moodle on Youtube (16 Moodle videos)
6. Mount Orange School Moodle 2.0 videos (http://school.demo.moodle.net/)
7. A 26 video Moodle playlist by Youtube user Peliikt
8. KRegan’s Screencast library all about Moodle (11 videos)
9. Titan Tech Training (Moodle 2 videos made for Cal State Moodle integration)
10. http://moodle.drupalgardens.com/ (Gavin Henrick‘s Moodle site and videos, a full playlist is available here)
11. @BBCS_eLearning‘s Moodle channel on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/BBCSeLearning#g/u (27 videos)
12. Moot UK 11 presentation videos (longer form but definitely worth the watch)
13. http://www.letslearnit.org/en/moodle (26 videos)
14. Cannedmushroom’s video collection at Veoh: http://www.veoh.com/list/c/moodle-
15. Paul Treadwell’s Moodle tutorial collection: http://treadwell.cce.cornell.edu/moodle_doc/
16. NJIT’s Moodle tutorials for faculty: http://moodle.njit.edu/tutorials/faculty/index.php
17. Linn Benton Community College’s Moodle Playlist
18. Kim Hampton’s “Make Me Moodle” collection (20 videos)

Stay-tuned for more #Moodlemas.

I’ve put them all in a playlist, you can read more about them here or view them below.

Direct playlist link: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA99AFC9CB5BCCD3F

I really like the fewer page loads and how the resources and activities are automatically paired with a quick description highlighting the tools.  It is definitely a step in the right direction as far as usability is concerned (though I’d like fewer still page loads and a sharper looking aesthetic).

In Moodle 1.9 Meta course management was at the course settings level where courses were either Meta courses or not.  Child courses were then managed through the administration block.  In Moodle 2.x Meta course links are managed through the enrollment plugins for a course (as long as this feature is enabled).

Thankfully Mary Cooch has a great video that highlights the Meta course link/enrollment plugin which can be indispensable to a Moodle.  Not that some roles may need to be changed in order to give teachers the ability to create their own course meta links once the plugin is enabled.

One of the best takeaways? If you’re trying to “gamify” Moodle remember that all games have a specific goal.  To use an example from the presentation, if you’re trying to make a game of staff learning Moodle the goal is not “100% of staff learn Moodle” the goal is “all staff earn 80 points in Moodle”.  From one of the videos, “learning is never the explicit goal”.

Presentation link: http://www.slideshare.net/moodlefan/level-up-slideshare

If your Moodle was available to your personal assistant (like Siri) what would you ask it?

Direct link to Dan Poltawski’s blog: http://blog.danpoltawski.co.uk/archives/2011-11-siri-interface-to-the-moodle-tracker.html (he’s even made the code available).

The video: http://youtu.be/iLB1sTMr0iM

Of course, the major difference is that OpenClass is displaying your email, not system messages.  When watching the video it struck me how these were some of the exact innovations that OpenClass was touting as being totally unique.  The real difference is price and control.

Direct video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueJIxooABv4