The video resource below provides a brief overview of what upgrade LSE Moodle looks like.
We have successfully upgraded to a new version of Moodle and this is what it looks like now: familiar but BETTER.
We have themed it to look as much as possible like good old LSE Moodle. Although you can already see some changes for the better: we have tweaked the top top menu items a bit, and of course, there is, here on the left, a new menu, which you can toggle to expand and to collapse to have more or less screen space. These items get you quickly back to the dashboard, to the site front page, or to your courses.
When you login to Moodle, you will immediately be sent to your dashboard, just as before. It has been set to default settings for all users, but if that’s not right for you, you can make changes. For students, we recommend they keep it this way, as it shows last accessed items, upcoming deadlines, and their courses.
You will notice that there is an EDIT MODE button here at the top right hand corner - if you toggle it to ON, you can add, move and remove blocks to suit your needs on the dashboard.
This Edit button stays in that position (and in on or off mode) in your courses as well. So where that used to be in the course image (and sometimes not very visible), it is now always there in the top right hand corner.
Inside a course you will find that all your “course things”, your activities and resources and the way that you have structured them, are still there, and in a familiar way, but navigation has changed, and very much FOR THE BETTER.
First off: no more admin block. Hurrah! Instead, we have a QUICK NAVIGATION MENU here at the top.
Settings gets you to your Course Settings.
Participants lets you do things with or to people in your course (including enrolments, enrolment methods)
Grades gets you to the Grader Report, Reports to Reports (obviously!) and then, under MORE, you see all the other bits that used to be squirreled away in the admin block menu and submenus: unenrol me, competencies, badges, download centre, recycle bin etc.
And then you click on Course and get back to your front page.
Otherwise, with editing on, you see that everything works pretty much like it always did. You add your activities or resources, you can delete them… basically just edit your course.
But that’s not all!
There is now, also, a real navigation game changer: the COURSE INDEX. It’s collapsed right now, but when I open it, hey presto, there is a textual overview of the entire course for super quick getting to where you or your students want to go.
Evenn better, in EDITING MODE, you can super quickly move whole sections to a different position, or resources from one section to another by very simple drag… and drop!
And if you want more space, you can collapse your course index until you need it again.
And where have your blocks gone? They are now on the right, in their own little expandable/collapsable drawer here. They had to go there because of the amazing course index, but we are sure you will get used to that. Maybe even realise that blocks are not quite as important as all that
And that’s it for the main highlights for now - we have updated our Moodle How 2 guides to reflect these and other changes, so it might be a good idea to (re)visit them. They are on our Eden Digital Wiki https://lse.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MG and you can find the link from within Moodle at the very top! Give it a go, Moodle is open.
Course Index Drawer - simplified editing!
The course index is the collapsible drawer on the left and it will change your (Moodle Editing) life!. It displays course sections and elements. As you move up and down the central course area, your location is highlighted in the Course index. Clicking on an item in the Course index will open it up directly in the course central area. Where items are indented in the main area, they will also be indented in the index.
This means
users can directly go to any section, activity or resource by using this textual menu
editors can drag and drop sections to rearrange their courses, and easily rearrange items from one section to another.
Gradebook access and view - more sensibly arranged!
The gradebook comes with a few improvements: easier access via Grades in the new direct link menu at the top of each course and the large gradebook spreadsheet has a fixed width on the page (no more horizontal scrolling)
The page has a fixed width, i.e. there is no more horizontal scroll bar.
Navigation Menus
Navigation menus are much better in Moodle 4.1. Expand to see how they have been more neatly and “intuitively” assembled. .
The highlighted new menus (administrator mode with editing off) within a course, while expanded.
At the very top, we have a menu of links to other LSE sites, just as before.
On the very left the “hamburger menu” that navigates across the site. In this screenshot it shows the titles as well as the icons, but by clicking on the top left icon it can be made much more narrow, displaying only the icons. We expect most users will narrow it once they have become familiar with the meaning of the icons.
In the middle, which displays the Course Content, we now have a Quick Navigation Menu, which links to frequently used actions. These differ of course for students and staff follow the quick navigation link to read more.
On the very right, we have the new BLOCKS area. These are in a drawer, which can be closed and opened to make the main middle content space bigger. The next screenshot shows what the course page looks like when left and right handed menus have been collapsed.
