1. Shaelynn Long-KishShaelynn Long-Kish, Instructional Designer Mid Michigan Community College Building Beautiful Courses: Layouts, Lessons, Blocks, & Books

2. Workshop Goals When you leave here today, you’ll be able to: ●Use visual elements to enhance the course experience. ●Utilize best practices for visuals and Moodle elements. ●Use headings & colors to designate and organize. ●Enhance/re-envision content with images, graphics, color schemes, etc. ●Use Moodle elements in new ways.

3. Layouts Single ActivityOne activity/resource per shell.Useful for: Courses with a single, major project. SocialDiscussion forums only.Useful for: Courses with a significant focus on discussions. Great for sharing projects (because students can attach files or share URLs)! Not useful for: Online courses or courses where assignments need to be uploaded. Topics - All Sections On One Page Shows the entire, topic-based shell on a single page. Useful for: Courses with just a few units, activities, resources, and/or text-based summary boxes. Topics - One Section Per Page Shows the outline of the course with the topics hyperlinked (which show up on a new page when selected). Useful for: Courses with lots of activities, resources, and/or text-based summary boxes. Weekly - All Sections On One Page Shows the outline of the course with the entire weekly calendar. Useful for: Courses with a few activities, resources, text- based summaries within the weeks. Weekly - One Section Per Page Shows the general outline of the course with a hyperlinked calendar listing. Useful for: Courses with lots of activities, resources, text-based summaries within the weeks.

4. Social Format Example

5. Topic Format Example

6. Weekly Format Example

7. Layout: All Sections on One Page

8. Layout: One Section Per Page

9. Find free photographs online that you can incorporate within your Moodle shell. Randomizes three colors once you click “spin” and gives inspiration for color themes and provides a hex-color code. One of the most powerful icon websites currently online. join for free and be sure to give attribution for the artists’ work. Upload an image to Color Palette Generator and it will randomly select prominent colors within said image and conjure up a cohesive color theme. Course & Design Elements

10. Quick Guide to Making an Image 1.Download & save your image. (i.e. from The Noun Project) 2.Open up Google Presentations, MS Word, or Keynote. (Try to avoid MS Paint, if you can. It doesn’t seem to work well with the.png Noun Project images.) 3.Make a shape and fill it in with some color. (I like circles and squares.) 4.Take the image you saved (from Noun Project) and layer it on top of the colored-in shape. 5.Use a snipping tool to “cut” out just the colored shape with the image layered. 6.Save that new image. Several people asked me about how I make my images. In no way is this the “proper” way to make an image, but it’s quick & easy.

11. Lessons Benefits: ●Organized ●Streamlined ●Interactive ●Engaging Parts of the Lesson: Adding a Content Page Useful for: ●Sharing videos ●Linking to external or internal sites ●Composing text Adding a Question Useful for: ●Checking for understanding ●Getting feedback ●Polling

12. Lessons First: Name your lesson Options: You can choose to use a progress bar ●Students know their progress while completing the lesson. ●Instructors can see how much of a lesson a student completed.

13. Lessons Content Page: Used to embed videos, link to external/internal sites, compose text, house a reading. Question Page: Used to check for understanding, get feedback, quiz, or poll students on a video, reading, notes, etc. Import Question: Import questions from a file on your computer to use on a question.

14. Blocks ●Text-Based Information ●Resources/Hyperlinks ●Instructor Information ●Image-Based Hyperlinks to External Content ●Image-Based Links to Internal Content

15. Blocks Explained Blocks can utilize hyperlinks that are: ●text-based ●image-based 1.Start by creating an HTML Block. 2.Use the summary box to upload images or text, then hyperlink said content. 3.Finish by entering a relevant Block Title. Create a new HTML box: An example of image-based hyperlinks.

16. Orphaning Activities Related to Image-Based Hyperlinks Note: This tutorial will only be helpful if you require users to access your content via image-based hyperlinks. If you want users to be able to access items via image OR the item itself, you don’t need to do this. Link to Video Tutorial (YouTube)

17. Books Course SyllabusKeeps information organized and easy-to-locate, particularly if chapters are used to break information down. *Can Break up the text with videos or use the book as a hypertext of sorts. Video WarehouseUses the Book feature to house videos in an organized fashion. Project “Folder”Uses the feature to house all information relating to a particular project. etc.Get creative!

18. Books Continued To create a book: 1.Under add an activity/resource, choose Book from the Resources portion. 2.Enter a Name/Description of the Book. 3.Click the created Book to add content via chapters. This content can include text, images, videos, etc. 4.Incorporating different chapters can break up content well and keep the student engaged throughout. add chapters using this button

19. Distance Learning & Instructional Design (DLmid) Mid Michigan Community College