Show me the Moodle An orientation to the RETA Moodle Virtual Learning Environment Just as you will want to orient your students to the Moodle environment, we want to make sure everyone knows the key stops on the tour. Paying attention now will help you get your basic Moodle driver license. If you’ve already used Moodle, you might be thinking about how this site differs from your own or is similar. Consider also how you can orient your students to Moodle.

An example of a Moodle site What is RETA Moodle? RETA’s learning environment for workshop communities and online courses An example of a Moodle site A site for educators (not able to host K12 students) We will be able to RETA Moodle course for our workshop communication if we choose to. It would allow us to share a calendar, discussion boards, and other tools. Currently the URL for RETA Moodle is…. http://reta.mrooms.org

Log in or Create Account When you get to the RETA Moodle site, you will either log in or create an account. [This will depend on what instructors have done in advance, see instructor guide]

Click here and find our course Site Orientation Your Profile Online Users Site News Let’s look at a screenshot of the RETA Moodle site. You’ll notice your choice of course categories. Click on workshops, then our course name [Introduction to Online Learning with Moodle]. Here’s what we can access on the main page. Click here and find our course Messages

Course Orientation Here is a Moodle course like the one we’ll be using. Now we’re going to look at the aspects of this and talk about how they will help us participate in the course.

Click on the level of the site you want to visit Breadcrumbs Click on the level of the site you want to visit You’ll see throughout the site in any course that the navigation will be shown through breadcrumbs. Click on RETA to go back to the main site area. Pay attention to this as you navigate through the site and you will find helpful organization in a sea of links!

Your Account & Profile Click here You’ll still be able to tell you’re logged in by looking in the upper right hand corner. Just click on your name to go to your profile where you can access your messages and edit your account settings.

All of your course content and activities appear in Topics Down the middle of the course is where you’ll find all of the activities and course content. You can see here we have topic 1 and topic 2.

Blocks The areas you see highlighted here are all different types of Blocks. These are elements you really want your students to know about because they can contain all kinds of useful tools and information. Let’s look at all of the different blocks highlighted here.

Profiles Here’s an example of my profile. You’ll see that I can list various kinds of contact information. Moodle administrators can determine which fields are available, so if you’re using Moodle in your class, you wouldn’t necessarily have all of this available for your students to share on their profiles.

Profiles Notice that when you’re logged in and you go to your own profile, you have an edit and a blog tab. You can also access the change password and the messages button.

Click on the people block to find course users and send them a message Course Communication Click on the people block to find course users and send them a message In addition to your profile, you can also go to the messages block to access your messages So there are several ways to communicate with people in your course. Noticing these two blocks (PEOPLE and MESSAGES) will make sure you con the person you are looking for.

Now it’s your turn to practice! Log in to RETA Moodle Access our Course Go to Topic 1 Follow the Quick Start Guide to set up your profile and send a message in the course So what we’re going to do is this list of things here. This is your first learning task now that you know a few things about navigating Moodle. Those who have used Moodle before are your local experts so reach out!