Our upgrade to Moodle 3.2.3 is complete! I do want to share that plans to update the Dashboard page encountered some technical challenges that we will keep working on. Nothing else in Moodle should be affected by this. The Site Home with the course list will continue to serve as the site entry page until those can be resolved.
- Courses created after the upgrade will display
the new default Course Blocks on the right.
The goal is to highlight the most useful information for
students. In order:
- Course Announcements (formerly “News Forum") are copied to the Latest Announcements block. This can be a useful alternative to using the class email alias as announcements are archived and continually available to students for reference.
- Upcoming Events tracks activities and the class calendar to display things such as assignment deadlines, quiz availability, etc. You can also manually add events to the calendar.
- Recent Activity documents changes to the Moodle
page alerting students to what is new or what has been altered on the page.
Of course, you are welcome to add, delete, and move blocks as you wish, but this is a strong set of core features.
- You’ll notice a different user experience when grading in
Moodle. Where Moodle once invited you to
“View/Grade All Submissions,” you will see an option to Grade (in blue). This will bring you to a new style of page that both
displays the students’ work and allows you to enter grades, according to Moodle
bringing “all elements on one screen.” The relevant section of MoodleDocs can be found here: https://docs.moodle.org/32/en/Assignment_activity#Feedback_types
- Hidden Grades will be handled differently. Now, if an instructor
is using a hidden grade item, the default setting will still display grades
to students while omitting the hidden grade from calculation. This is a change from the previous setting
where a hidden grade hid all calculations involving that assignment. Instructors will be able
to view the students' totals with the hidden grade included, while the students
will see the grade with the hidden item excluded. This can be changed
by going to: Grade administration / ► Setup / ► Course grade settings, and
changing the settings in the Overview Report and User Report.
- Course sections can now be edited on the main
page, speeding up your edits and course creation.
- If you rely on discussion Forums, you can now pin selected forum posts to highlight them.
Looking forward to collaborating on Moodle for a successful Fall Quarter!
Best,
Josh