October 2019 Moodle News

caw with a skeleton mask (dia de los muertos) with a boat on a lake background with fall leaves.

Greetings Moodle Instructors!

This month’s Moodle News includes information about our Fall 2019 Faculty workshops continue, You can still request your Moodle and Echo360 course in SPIRE, Moodle tip of the month: Restrict file types on Assignments, What’s new in Moodle: Moodle schedule downtime, and Moodle help and resources.

Fall 2019 Workshops Continue

Don’t miss out on our Fall 2019 Faculty workshops. They go from working with Moodle and Echo360, creating and editing media in Camtasia, Getting started on how to use blogs for your teaching and learning, Creating an accessible Podcast, Groups work with Google, Games and Game-Based Learning Meetup, Understanding Algorithmic Bias in Learning Technologies, and more. Check out our Innovation Events page to see more Workshops and register.

Can’t decide which workshops to take? Have questions? Contact the Instructional Media Lab for help in deciding which workshops are right for you. Call us at 413-545-2823 or email instruct@umass.edu

Request Your Moodle Course in SPIRE

If you haven’t yet, don’t worry! You can still request your Moodle course in SPIRE for your Fall 2019 semester.

Request Your Echo360 Course in SPIRE

You can still request your Echo360 course in SPIRE. While making your request you can specify that you’d like to:

  • Automatically record in-person class meetings in Classrooms Equipped with Lecture Capture.
  • Re-use recordings from a previous semester.
  • Create screencasts and record custom lessons for students to watch outside of class with Echo360 Universal Capture.

For step by step instructions, see Request Lecture Capture. Once your Echo360 courses are ready, it’s easy to give students access to Echo360 recordings through Moodle.

Moodle tip of the month: Restrict File Type on Assignments

How often do you get a submission with a format you haven’t requested? Many? a few? We have great news for you. Assignments in Moodle allows you to restrict the file type for your student’s submissions. By doing this, students will only be able to submit what you specify on Accepted file types on your Assignment settings.

What’s new in Moodle: Moodle Scheduled Downtime

UMass IT on Saturday, October 19th will be performing an infrastructure upgrade. Moodle and SPIRE will be down from 7:00 AM to 1:30 PM. Other campus services may also be temporarily unavailable, including Microsoft Exchange, campus websites, and more. Please plan accordingly.

Moodle Help and Resources for Instructors

To learn more about Moodle or to get help, you can:

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