Making it all available (12th Jan 2012)

The techniques described below will only work if you are a lecturer at Lewisham College and have been given access to the course/unit you are developing by the relevant curriculum manager.

We now need to get all your good work to the students. In the case of Lewisham College, where I work, this means getting the work up on our version of Moodle, called eME.  You may have a different way of making the work available ... or you can wait a few months until we get O-VL up and running.

The first step is to log in. Click on the link which says Login in the top right-hand corner of the page and enter the username and password you use to log in to the network.

Once in you then have to select the My Courses tab. This should bring up a screen that looks like this:-

The system takes a while to load up your list of courses. When it does you will see the courses to which you have access displayed on the left of the screen, like this:-

Clicking in the name of the course brings up the list of areas and units associated with this course. Find the unit for which you have been creating materials and click on it. In my case I am working with Unit 14 - Event Driven Programming on the BTEC Extended Diploma in IT course. If you are a lecturer then you are able to switch on the editing by clicking on the button towards the top on the right, like this:-

This will change the layout of your screen. Scroll down to the bottom of your page and you will see some drop-down list boxes. The leftmost of these will allow you to load a file:-

Clicking on the File option will open a screen like this:

You have to fill in the Name* box at the top.  This is what the students will see when they come looking.  I have always filled in the description box as well, but I'm not sure why because it is not displayed.  Maybe there is a planned upgrade that will turn it into a tool-tip later.  Having filled in those boxes, you can now click on the Add button (arrowed) which allows you to upload a file.

Clicking on the Choose File button allows you to select a file from any of your local drives.  You should then fill in the Save as: text box.  Author will be filled in automatically, but you can change it if you are, say, using materials created by someone else.  Finally on this screen, select the type of licence you like to use.  This determines how copyright should be applied.  My preference is for creative commons since that allows others to use and copy my work freely as long as my name stays attached.  Pressing the Upload this file button will start copying your file to Moodle.  This takes time - beware.  You should now have:-

... and you can then scroll to the bottom of the page where you will find these buttons:-


Notice the symbols to the right of your file name.  the second symbol along that looks like a wonky Z allows you to move this file to another spot on the page.  It is logical to have a sensible order for these, so the next job is to move this file to the top of the materials.  Clicking the wonky Z icon will freeze your screen for a moment and then show you something like this:-

The dashed oblong boxes are where you can place the file.  In this case, clicking the top of these boxes puts the file at the top of the list of materials:-

As you can see, the Event Driven Programming Handbook is now at the top of the list and I can continue uploading and ordering the other files.  The items that should be uploaded are:-

• The handbook
• The assignment
• A piece of coursework for each criterion
• The MP3 files from each video

Putting these in place will give your students access to materials in any format that works for them.  Should the syllabus change then all you have to do is rework the bits that need changing.  You will never have to re-create the materials.

Finally, the next blog will explore how students use all this to make their lives (and yours) much easier.