An update to Moodle version 3.0 was completed yesterday evening. While most of the site is the same, there are some elements I wanted to mention.
First, we have taken steps to improve the support for language classes in Moodle. Now, instructors in advanced level courses may “force” the Moodle language so that their course’s menus, headings, and interface appear in the language of instruction. Please note that translations are provided by Moodle users and are constantly being updated. Some languages have a higher ratio of completion than others. French, German, Japanese, and Spanish are near 100%. Progress on other available languages is as follows:
Chinese – 92%
Greek – 56%
Arabic – 50%
Latin – 3%
In addition, instructors and students should be able to upload and access documents using non-ASCII characters (tildes, umlauts, etc.) in their filenames without receiving broken links in return. This should reduce occurrences of other random failed files as well.
The transition to Moodle 3.0 from 2.8 also includes these updates:
- “My Home” has been revised as the Dashboard. Functionality is very similar.
- A new “Grades” page is available under the User Menu in the upper right. Students can see an overview of their grades across Moodle and instructors can navigate directly to their courses gradebooks.
- There is improved support for dragging and dropping images directly into the text editor. This should work more reliably.
- Quizzes can now include section headings and questions can be shuffled within specific sections. For example, an instructor could require students to answer 25 shuffled multiple choice questions then complete an essay.
- “Grade to Pass” can be added during set up instead of retroactively via the gradebook.
- New types of quiz questions have been added including “select the missing word” and “drag and drop to image.” An example of the latter would be dragging country names onto a map image.
- There is streamlined course section editing.
Full explanation of new features can be found here:
https://docs.moodle.org/29/en/New_features
https://docs.moodle.org/30/en/New_features
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at josh.moon@kzoo.edu
Thanks!
Josh