Tag: ETH Moodle

Moodle 4.1 has arrived – And it looks good

ETH Moodle has a new look and feel. In this blog we will provide an overview of the most important changes. This post is primarily written for teachers. We encourage you to explore the new interface for yourself. If you need more support, ETH Moodle teachers can register for a workshop in this Moodle course. Contact Moodle Support for more assistance: moodle@let.ethz.ch +41 44 632 06 65 (9:00-​17:00)

Log in as usual with moodle-app2.let.ethz.ch

Landing page: your dashboard

You now land directly on your personal dashboard. The dashboard combines the previous site home page and the previous dashboard. All users will notice the new top navigation menu which contains the elements ‘Course search’, ‘Support’ and ‘News’. At the top of the dashboard you may also find dismissible or time-limited announcements. 

By clicking on your profile picture, you will see a new item called ‘My Media’. This is the new personal media repository system for teachers and students alike. 

The dashboard is fully customisable for all Moodle users. Teachers and students can edit the dashboard (by using the editing button on the top right) in order to move sections (called blocks), add new ones or remove the ones currently on display. The new standard dashboard contains:

  • occasional important announcements.  These will be dismissible or time-limited.
  • a timeline displaying upcoming tasks that are due. Teachers are encouraged to use deadlines for assignments and tasks as these will be featured prominently. Read more about the timeline block
  • recently accessed courses. 
  • an overview of all courses where you are enrolled. You can change the appearance so the courses are displayed as a list or as cards for example. You can ‘star’ courses and select to only see future, in-progress or past courses. Note: This requires teachers to set correct start and end dates in the settings of each course. To add a custom image for your course, upload one via your course settings page. Visit this blog entry for detailed instructions
  • a calendar displayed as a slide block. 

Course view

Once you visit a course you’ll notice the new look with more white space. The existing content of your courses has not have changed, however the appearance may differ slightly.

Screenshot of a Moodle course. There are green arrows and circles highlighting various elements which are mentioned in the text.

The new edit button is still found top right. You can choose to view the course navigation (on the left) and the blocks in the course (on the right) or you can hide them. 

The new course menu contains fast access to the course settings, participants, grades, reports and more. Under ‘more’ is where you find ‘course reuse’ which allows you to import content. 

Important: we recommend revisiting your choice of course format. The format ‘collapsed topics’ has few benefits as the format ‘topics’ is now also collapsible. In addition, the side navigation makes moving through the course easier and faster. Please be aware that the format ‘Tiles’ does not allow for the side navigation to be displayed. We no longer recommend the use of ‘Grid’ as it does not meet accessibility expectations.

Activity chooser

Screenshot of the activity chooser in Moodle. Six different activities with different colours are shown.

When adding a new activity or resource, you’ll notice the icons for most activities and resources have changed. They have been loosely grouped in to categories and have been allocated a colour to aid with faster recognition. The categories and colours are: 

Assessment: purpur

Content: blue

Collaboration: green

Communication: grey

Administration: bronze

The resource ‘label’ has now been renamed ‘text and media area’ in order to more accurately describe its function. 

The activities and resources are also more like blocks on the page which makes rearranging them via drag-and-drop much easier. Optically, displaying the activity descriptions on the course page is much more pleasing to the eye. Try it yourself. 

Notification on new content

New! When you edit an activity or resources you have the choice to notify course participants. To do so, check the box at the bottom of the activity/resource settings page before saving. This triggers a notification to all course participants.

Screenshot of the settings of a Moodle activity. The checkbox and words "send content change notification" are circled in green.

For more information about detailed changes please visit the Moodle website: 

https://docs.moodle.org/401/en/New_features

https://docs.moodle.org/400/en/New_features

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A new and improved Moodle – Coming to ETH Zurich this summer

In June of 2023, ETH Zurich Moodle will receive a significant update. Moodle has been the central learning management system (LMS) at ETH Zurich since 2010. With more than 10’000 courses it has become crucial to teaching for ETH Zurich lecturers. As an open-source LMS it enables significant customisation. With the new release, Moodle will be more user-friendly, intuitive to navigate and visually appealing, offering a range of improvements for both educators and students. In this blog post, we will explore some of the key benefits of the new Moodle version coming to our screens this summer. A full list of new features is provided on the Moodle website.

Benefits for students

  1. Improved user experience
  2. Improved accessibility
  3. Self-tracking of tasks

Improved user experience.

The LMS has undergone a complete redesign, with a fresh and modern look and feel. Learners can more easily navigate the platform and find the information they need. 

Improved accessibility

Moodle was officially certified as WCAG 2.1 AA compliant in December 2020. The new design includes support for screen readers, improved keyboard navigation, and better contrast, making it easier for learners with visual impairments to access content. The new accessibility features ensure that all learners can access and engage with the learning content, regardless of their ability.

Self-tracking of task

If enabled by course teachers, students will be able to see which tasks still need to be completed in the course navigation index.

Benefits for educators

  1. Improved Course Design
  2. Enhanced Learning Analytics
  3. Significant improvements to handling quiz questions
  4. (Optional) notifications on changes in course
  5. New and improved video handling

Improved course design

The course design as been improved making it easier for educators to create and deliver engaging and effective online courses. The new course format includes an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, allowing educators to build courses quickly and easily.

Enhanced Learning Analytics

Moodle has also improved its learning analytics capabilities, making it easier for educators to track learners’ progress and identify areas where they need additional support. Teachers can build customised reports in order to gain an overview of student progress.  

Significant improvements to handling quiz questions

Teachers will be able to work collaboratively with other teachers to manage different versions of questions and add comments.

(Optional) notifications on changes in the course

Teachers can choose to send a push-notification to let students know when something has been changed on the course page. 

New and improved video handling. 

Kaltura will replace OpenCast as video management tool for Moodle. All previously uploaded videos will be automatically migrated to Kaltura. Teachers will be able to upload and manage their course videos directly over the text editor.

Timeline

A link to the preview version has been sent to all current teachers of the ETH Zurich Moodle system. It includes all content from the live system as of 3 April 2023. This is a valuable opportunity to see what existing courses look like in the new version, explore the new look and to identify important changes that may be necessary once the live system is active.

There will be no notifications on this preview system, so educators can experiment without triggering notifications for students. It will be valid until 6 June 2023 at which point the entire preview system will be deleted. This system may not be used for any actual teaching or learning activities as there may be unannounced updates and downtime.

If you already want to start preparing your HS 2023 course before 7 June, you have 2 options:

  1. Create your course via eDoz and start working on the course on the current live 3.11 course Moodle system. Any content you prepare on the current course Moodle system before 7 June will automatically be upgraded to the new Moodle version and its new design.
  2. If you already want to prepare content in the new Moodle 4.1 version, please use one of your already existing pre HS2023 courses on the preview server, create a mzb-backup (“course backup”) before 6 June. After 7 June, create a course via eDoz on the (updated) live course Moodle and then import the backup file into your live course.

On 7 June 2023 the live system will be updated to the new Moodle version. Detailed information regarding the changes will be available at this point. Educators can then set up their HS23 courses via eDoz and make necessary adjustments to their courses prior to the semester start on 18 September 2023.

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Retrieval practice – Newest option in Moodle

Testing students’ recall of recent learning is often done by creating Moodle quizzes with a range of different complex questions. Now teachers can embed previously created questions in any HTML text area without packaging them in a quiz. This includes on the main course page, inside a Moodle book, even in a block on the side.* 

Why it’s a good idea

The pedagogical principle behind this function is called “retrieval practice”. The essence of this idea is that the more you practice recalling specific memories, the stronger the memory becomes. The very act of bringing information to mind strengthens the students’ ability to do so. However, test anxiety can really get in the way of fluid and competent performance. Therefore it is a good idea to provide frequent opportunities where students can quiz themselves without worrying that their performance will impact on their grade. Viewed this way, quizzing can be understood as a learning strategy, not an assessment strategy. Best practices include having frequent opportunities, spacing them out and using different kinds of questions. (Read more about retrieval practice at www.retrievalpractice.org.)

How to do it

First, your Moodle course must already contain the questions you want to embed. You may want to create a category just for this purpose. If you haven’t already, make sure both your category and your questions have an ID number. This is essential. Also wherever possible, make sure your questions provide students with useful and specific feedback for both correct and incorrect answer options. 

Then, decide where to embed the questions. You can select any area where you can enter HTML text. Turn editing on. Use the “Show more buttons” button to expand the toolbar (shown in blue). Select the “Embed questions” button (shown in green). Select the category and then the question you would like to embed.

Moodle editor. The "show more buttons" and "embed questions" buttons are highlighted.

Finally, save and admire your work! Always remember to test your work and check it in the mobile view before you release the course to students. 

Additionally, you can see an overview of how students have progressed in the reports section of the course. Via the gearwheel, go to “more” and in the “reports” section you can see wether students have answered the questions and where they may have struggled. 

Contact LET support via phone (044 632-0665) or email if you need additional support.

*Not available in Polybook.

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Moodle forums – Now with anonymous posting

Next to the course catalogue, Moodle is the most used system at ETH Zurich when it comes to supporting active online teaching and learning. However a common complaint from both students and teachers was the lack of anonymity when it comes to forum discussions. As of September 2022, this has changed.

The Moodle update in September brought in a new plug-in called «Moodle Overflow» (inspired by Stack Overflow) which enables additional functionality not available in the regular Moodle forum. The Overflow forum is particularly suitable for courses which have a high number of forums and a high amount of activity in the forums due to the improved overview. The regular Moodle forum provides a different set of settings.

Overflow advantages

  • Better overview. When entering an Overflow forum, both teachers and students can see which threads are new (unread) and which have not yet had an answer marked as «correct» and «helpful». The overview also shows votes and the number of replies.
  • Anonymity. Overflow enables teachers to choose between two types of anonymity, questioners only or questioners and answerers. These settings are irreversable.
  • Rating. All course participants can «rate» a thread in the Overflow forums. Highly rated posts move towards the top. Teachers can use this feature to ask students to “vote” for best answers. This is a fast way to strengthen the visibility of a particular response and means students don’t have to post answers in order agree with an existing answer, they can just upvote.
  • Reputation. If teachers enable it, Overflow can track the reputation of participants either in a single overflow forum or across all Overflow forums in the course. Answers by students or Teaching Assistants with higher reputations will be more credible.
  • Mark as correct/helpful. Answers can be marked das «correct» by teachers or as «helpful» by the questioner. It does not have to be the same answer. This means that a teacher can overrule any discussions by labelling a specific answer as the correct answer and prevents students from accepting incorrect answers.
  • Moderation. Posts by students will only be published once a teacher has approved it.

Is it perfect? No. One complaint is that the question is no longer displayed when participants begin writing their own comment or answer. In addition only answers (not answers to answers) can be marked as helpful or correct.

Things to consider when creating an Overflow Forum:

  • Should students be automatically subscribed to this overflow?
  • Which answer should be displayed first, helpful or solved?
  • Should the reputation (rating) be aggregated over several MoodleOverflows?
  • Should negative ratings be allowed?

If you need further information, we recommend this help (in German only): https://www.uni-leipzig.de/fileadmin/ul/Dokumente/2020_Lehre-digital_Moodle_Overflow.pdf

Moodle Forum advantages

The default Moodle forum has many additional features, even experienced Moodle users might find something new in this list. 

  1. Different types: There are four types of forums to choose from. The standard forum is the one most people are familiar with. The single discussion only allows one discussion to be posted by the lecturer and students can only post replies. The Q&A forum requires students to post an answer before they can see the replies of others. The final type is much like the standard forum but it displays the content more like a blog. 
  2. Time settings: Teachers can post in advance and delay the publication of their entry. They can also choose to have their post only visible for a particular time frame or create a due date by when students have to have responded. 
  3. RSS: An alternative to subscribing, when enabled this feature means new forum discussions (or posts) will be sent via RSS feed.  
  4. Locking Discussion: Teachers can lock the discussion at any point preventing further posts by students. 
  5. Post threshold: In order to restrict individuals from flooding a forum, teachers can set a maximum post threshold which automatically blocks users once they reach it. Teachers can also choose to have the word count displayed (but not set a limit). 
  6. Better completion setting options: The Moodle forum has more completion setting options in cases where lecturers want to track completion. 
  7. App compatible: The Moodle forum is fully compatible with the ETH Moodle App. The Overflow forum will redirect you to a browser. 

For more information about the Moodle forum please visit: https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Forum_activity 

How about you?

Which forum are you planning on using? Please share your scenarios in the comments so we can collect examples in action. If you are interested in chatting with other lecturers at ETH Zurich who are using Overflow you are welcome to join the (ETH only) Moodle course https://moodle-app2.let.ethz.ch/course/view.php?id=15312 . 

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Link your Moodle with MS Teams

Microsoft Teams and eDoz can now be linked and synchronized via Moodle. Until now, to create a team in MS Teams for a course, ETH lecturers had to manually assign and manage the participants. If a student were to enroll late, he would need to be added to the team at a later point. The same is true, if a student unenrolls from the course, she would need to be removed from MS Teams manually. This is manageable for small classes, however for lectures with several hundred students, this is not an acceptable solution. With the new integration between Moodle and MS Teams this process is automated.

The main feature of this new plug-in is, that ETH students enrolled in eDoz are synced automatically in MS Teams. Because the link works over Moodle, one is required to have a Moodle course. The Moodle course offers easy options for course layout, advanced content structuring possibilities, activity completion tracking, a grade book, quizzes and many more features to foster student learning. Read more about Moodle. However, the Moodle course can be set to be hidden and MS Teams can be accessed directly and used on its own while the automatic synchronisation works in the background.

Advantages of using this plug-in are that students will have access to the entire MS Teams portfolio, which can be used to work collaboratively on different types of files and to chat.

Benefits of MS Teams

  • Create “channels” for group work
  • Work collaboratively with Word, Excel and Powerpoint
  • Extensive chat function: direct message and groups
  • Easy file sharing
  • Task lists, team notebooks 
  • File storage can be mounted as an external drive to the personal computer
  • Integrated video conference

How does it compare to existing tools?

ETH Zurich already offers file sharing (Polybox) and collaborative writing (Collabora), however MS Teams offers advanced functions and is better suited for large numbers of people.

How to create a Microsoft Teams?

  1. Write an email to the LET support, they will create and activate the team
  2. Manually add a link in Moodle to directly access MS Teams

With this, you are already set up and ready to go! Contact us at support@let.ethz.ch for more information and to activate MS Teams for your course.

How can you use Microsoft Teams for your course?

As an example you can create an assignment in Moodle requiring students to submit a document (e.g. Excel, Word or PowerPoint). With just a link, you can send your Students to MS Teams, there you can create private channels for each group. Students can then work together in MS Teams to share files, edit the same file and chat together while completing this assignment. And all these files are only visible to members of their group. (The channels are also hidden from teachers if they are not a member of this private channel). This way students can solve the assignment and then upload the final document in Moodle where it is graded.

Would you like a preview?

You can check out the integration by logging in to this Moodle course so that you can get some insights how Teams and Moodle work together.

We are always interested in finding out more about how people are using MS Teams in their teaching. Please consider sharing your ideas (and question in the course forum in Moodle). We are looking forward to connecting with new lecturers across all departments who want to use MS Teams in addition to their Moodle course.

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Tips for Moodle courses

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to make your Moodle course both more effective and visually appealing. The following tips are a quick and fun way to introduce ideas for improving your Moodle course using principles of good website design. Lecturers at ETH Zürich can learn more using Moodle in the self-paced online course “Building an effective Moodle course”. Read more about the course.

What are your essential tips for making Moodle course more visually appealing and effective for learning? We would love to read your comments on this topic.

Be welcoming. Introduce yourself. Use friendly, gender-neutral and approachable language.
Add visual elements. Insert banners to create a course identity. Icons and pictures make your course page easier to digest. Add course images in the settings for easy dashboard navigation.
Choose the right course format. "Topics format" ist he default and creates a list of content. "Collapsed topics" voids endless scrolling. "Tiles" provides a great visual overview.
Establish hierarchy and consistency. Use different heading sizes to signal hierarchy. Align things vertically to imply similar properties. Use consistent layout to create familiarity fast.
Provide assistance. Add a forum for asking questions of peers or teaching staff. Be responsive and friendly when students ask questions. Make sure your contact details are available.
Create an overview. Use visuals to provide an overview of your course structure. Create an advance organiser that shows your course content. This helps build up a mental framework for organising information.
Make it accessible. Add image descriptions for screenreader. Add closed captions in videos. Use descriptive link text like "chapter three" and not "read more".
Manage text volume. Display a paragraph or less on the main course page. Place multiple paragraphs in an HTML page. Put multiple pages in a Moodle book or Polybook.
Check quality across platforms. Always check your course appearance in the App. Blocks disappear in the mobile view. Course formats are simplified.

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Going paperless: The revised portal page in Online Examinations at ETH Zurich introduced in Spring Semester 2020

In online examinations at ETH Zurich, the portal page is the website students see first when they face the exam computer and is thus the entry point for every online examination with Moodle. A revised portal page was introduced in September 2020, focusing on improvements in several key areas: 1) going paperless, 2) exam administration, 3) visual redesign and 4) technical infrastructure.

Figure of the revised portal page used in online examination with Moodle at ETH Zurich.
Figure 1. Left side: Portal page with filled out form and confirmation dialogue. Right side: Manual with general information about online examinations and Moodle, opened by clicking on the blue i-icon on the bottom left.

Going paperless

Before the revision, students writing an online examination always found a piece of paper at their workspace. The piece of paper contained general information about online examinations and Moodle, served to track the specific computers used by students (students noted their name and computer number on it) and had to be signed (to confirm knowledge that technical problems are to be reported immediately and that screens are recorded).

The preparation and distribution of the paper sheets was time-consuming both on part of the LET staff and examiners. Therefore, the goal  was to provide all required information to students digitally, at the same time ensuring availability not only during, but also before and after an examination, as it is the case with paper. Fortunately, SafeExamBrowser, which is used at ETH Zurich to provide a safe and intuitive exam environment in online examinations with Moodle, includes functionality to easily give students access to specific additional resources. We thus designed a “manual” webpage containing all relevant information that can be viewed by students at all times simply by clicking on the respective icon in the taskbar (see Figure 1, right side).

Instead of noting their name and used computers on the paper, the revised portal page allows students to enter their personal information directly on the webpage using a simple form. The information, including the used computer, is automatically and cleanly stored in a database. In addition, as a replacement for the signature on paper, the portal page was extended by a dialogue presenting information that must be confirmed to be able to proceed to the actual examination (see Figure 1, left side).

Exam Administration

Due to the growing number of online examinations at ETH Zurich, it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain the previous portal page and store the papers in a way to provide quick access to the required information when needed (i.e., association of computers and students). The revised portal page therefore includes a separate space for LET to administer the examinations that are available for students and search used computers on an exam-by-exam basis.

Visual redesign

Finally, while Moodle has undergone a visual overhaul in recent years, the design of the old portal page was lagging behind. In addition to updating the design in general, the theme of the revised portal page is now based on the Moodle theme to also provide a more consistent and streamlined exam environment.

Technical Infrastructure

Similarly, it was also time to update the technical infrastructure of the portal page. It was a plain HTML site that could only be updated by one person at a time to prevent that no changes were accidentally overwritten. In contrast, the revised portal page is a state-of-the-art application with a separate administration space that can be used by multiple users at once. Two load-balanced frontend servers ensure that all requests from the examination clients are reliably processed and all data are stored in a central database on a separate server.

The revised portal page was developed alongside the regular operations of the online examinations service and was planned to be tested in Spring Semester 2020 in a few select examinations. However, when it became apparent that on-site examinations in 2020 were to be conducted under special circumstances due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we decided early on to introduce it more broadly to facilitate the implementation of the hygienic measures by going paperless. Extensive security measures were taken and an organizational as well as a technical fallback was in place at all times, which – as expected – was not needed in the end. After the positive and smooth experience of the first examination session, slight improvements were added for Autumn Semester 2020 and analogous functionalities were developed for setups not using Moodle such as Linux examinations. In the future, the plan is to implement a functionality that allows easy pre-assignment of students to computers by displaying the corresponding name directly on the screen.

If you want to know more about online examinations at ETH Zurich, please do not hesitate to contact online-pruefungen@let.ethz.ch.  

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Pharmaceutical Case Studies: The Power of Moodle Quizzes

By Dominik Stämpfli, D-CHAB

The lecture series «Pharmazeutische Fallbeispiele» [Pharmaceutical Case Studies] is a compilation of seven 2-hour sessions for around 75 students of the BSc Pharmaceutical Sciences. Surrounded by lectures and lab work on basic science and pharmacotherapy in the third year of studies, our autumn series aims to showcase the complexity of and our fascination for later pharmacy practice issues, giving the students a new perspective on all the other courses’ material as well.

One of our primary learning objectives states that students should be able to analyse simple case studies from pharmacy practice and present, explain, and discuss them in plenary, based on their current pharmaceutical knowledge. To let students achieve this objective, we had already included group work and presentations, where they discuss their thoughts on a given case study with our and their own literature resources (e.g., which drug class is most appropriate for which kind of nausea).

In 2019, we realized that student participation dropped towards the end of the semester when the big exams of the other courses approached. The sessions were mainly visited by the presenting student groups, whilst their peers focused on learning for ECTS.

2020 challenged us to go digital. This simultaneously provided the opportunity to have Moodle supporting us in our different teaching elements. The Moodle group selection allowed our students to choose their own peers. Folders, surrounded by explanatory text, helped us in embedding the asynchronous learning material (i.e., preparatory reading).

Most importantly, however, we created a simple quiz with four questions for each of the seven 2-hour sessions, focusing on the day’s learning objectives. We specifically aimed to include questions on the preparatory reading, our frontal inputs, the presentations by their peers, and one additional pharmacy practice issue. Moodle badges allowed for a simple gamification of the quiz. We shortened our lessons and offered the time to complete the quizzes during the two hours to not increase the overall student workload.

Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive: They appreciated our efforts concerning the Moodle course, liked the variation with peer presentations, stated having fun completing our quizzes, and were happy about the interactive segments. There were still fewer students present live towards the end of the semester, but the completed quizzes suggest a shift towards asynchronous learning by watching the recordings when taking a break from learning for ECTS.

We will most certainly keep our Moodle course even when going back to physically present teaching. The students seemed to be engaged in the course material by asking us interested follow-up questions concerning the preparatory reading and even our quizzes. The administrative work for setting up the course was hefty, but well worth it. One advise to my previous self: Cramped shoulders won’t help you in troubleshooting issues in the Moodle group selector faster.

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Moodle is more interactive than ever with H5P

Task: Mark the security measures for this aircraft

H5P is a special toolset that enables teachers to enrich their Moodle courses. Teachers can firstly add interactive elements in Moodle content and secondly adjust the visual appearance of Moodle course pages. Both can enhance the learning process.

Research shows that digital learning is most effective when students interact with content, answer questions and most importantly, get immediate feedback. The critically important feedback loop that is naturally present in face-to-face learning is often missing in digital learning environments. Students want to find out immediately if their answer was correct or not. By providing performance feedback during digital learning, teachers can provide learners with a sense of the real-world consequences of decisions students make. Therefor the vast array of available interactive elements is especially important, since it offers options for almost every learning situation.

Effective digital learning should also provide learners with realistic practice opportunities; for example, simulations, scenario-based decision making, case-based evaluations, and authentic exercises.

Use H5P’s interactive elements to support reflection, application, rehearsal, elaboration, contextualisation, debate, evaluation, synthesisation, and so on. Focus on using H5P to add interaction and attractive graphic elements. H5P is not recommended for graded activities as tech savvy students can download and analyse the resulting XML file.

Example elements to increase interactivity

Select interactive elements, such as “Agamotto” which compares images as shown below.

“Find multiple hotspots” invites students to point out important aspects in images. Example: Find all the vegetables in this picture.

Or you can add a structural element to your course by adding the element “Accordion” which enables you to create collapsable paragraphs.

How to add H5P to your Moodle course

This must happen in two distinct steps. First you must create the content and save it. Secondly you embed the new content to your course.

To create the H5P content, access the “Content bank”. There is a shortcut in the navigation to the left of your screen.

Click on the “add” button and select the type of element you would like to create.

To help you decide which H5P element is best for your needs, we have created several exemplars to help you choose. You can view these exemplars in the “Building an effective Moodle course” in the section “Using special features“. (No enrollment key necessary).

In addition you can visit the H5P website to see more detailed examples, instructions and tutorials. Important note: There are more elements listed on the H5P website than are available on the ETH Moodle system. 

After you have created H5P element, make sure you save it with a clear name so you can recognise it later. 

Now you have two options for using the H5P element.

The first option is to add it as a separate activity. Simply add a new activity and select H5P. Then choose your pre-made element. This scenario make sense when you want to focus on the element as a stand alone activity and don’t want to embed it within additional text.

The second option is to add H5P as part of a text. Navigate to the exact spot where you would like to add the element (for example in a Moodle book or in a label on the course page) and begin editing.

In the editing toolbar, first expand the view of editing tools.

Then select H5P.

This will prompt you to “browse repositories”. The H5P content bank is shown as one of the repositories. All the elements you have already created are shown here. Select the one you need. 

We recommend selecting the option “Create an alias/shortcut to the file”. This ensures that when you make a change to the original element in the content bank, it is automatically updated on your course page or wherever it has been embedded. 

Preview how it looks by assuming the student role. (Switch roles by clicking on your profile picture.) We also recommend checking out it appears in the Moodle app. To make any changes to the element, you will need to go back to the content bank using your computer (not your mobile device), edit and save. It will update automatically if you have embedded it as an alias.  

Enjoy!

More information in the “Building an effective Moodle course” in the section “Using special features“. (No enrollment key necessary).

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ETH Moodle App

We are proud to announce the brand new ETH Moodle App for Android and iOS available today! This app has been developed by the core developers of Moodle and is a specially branded version of the official Moodle App.

Please click on the link below to download the app:

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1521806822

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.ethz.ethmoodle

Easy access, work offline and much more

Students and lecturers can access all their courses directly from their smartphone or tablet. This access has several advantages:

  • You only have to login once for days and weeks at a time.
  • You can download courses and access them offline.
  • If you post an answer in a forum or solve a quiz while offline, the course will be synchronised when you are online again.
  • You can include audio, video and pictures from your phone easily into your forum answers, messages and even assignment responses.
  • The app uses GDPR-compliant push notifications for important dates (yes the Moodle calendar is placed directly on the start screen), messages and forum posts.

Similar but not equal

Although your course looks similar in the ETH Moodle App, there are some important differences (especially important for lecturers to know):

  • There is no edit possibility to the course via app. So, if you want to edit your course, please use the web browser.
  • The app doesn’t display any blocks (which you can add to your course individually).
  • Some activities are not Moodle App ready yet (or not meant to work with the app). In those cases students (and lecturers) are forwarded to a web browser. At the moment the following activities are not app ready:
    • Interactive Video Suite
    • Student Quiz
    • OU Blog
    • Fair Allocation
    • Scheduler
    • Collaborative Folder

If you have any feedback on the ETH Moodle App, please contact us at moodle@let.ethz.ch.

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