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Talk:Teacher documentation

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Revision as of 21:30, 21 February 2008 by Apryl Jackson (talk | contribs)

Page graphics

I added some graphics and learned how to float then to the left. It does not add a great deal of length to the article. They come from 1.6.1 . It occured to me that the drop downs provide the list, and the text the links. Notice the text needs to be adjusted to the reality of what is actually there :) I like some visuals to provide context and I think this makes this opening page from the teacher link on the left of just about every MoodleDoc page, more friendly. What do you think Helen and others? --Chris collman 2 19:44, 11 August 2006 (WST)

Hi Chris, please let's not make this page any longer! How about making it into the "jump station" we agreed upon previously? --Helen Foster 08:39, 4 September 2006 (CDT)

What's the point???

I have been doing some work on this page based upon a suggestion I made (and helen agreed) in the docs forum which changes the lists to paragraphs. I feel this has made things better but the page obviously now needs a lot of work. I was wondering what the point / outcome of this page is? What does it hope to achieve? That may sound pretty obvious but it still isn't clear to me. Sure it introduces moodle features to teachers but there are so many ways to do that. Is it just an explanation of the features? Is it a human, friendly explanation of the features? Should it cover application in real life? Should there be a tutorial element to it? All of the above?

Also I was thinking that it is still a long page and will only increase in length. How about splitting it up further into smaller pages so you can navigate like a book. A bit like this site with a TOC for the pages and next links but only clearer and nicer of course :-). Darren Smith 19th March 2006

I think we need different pages for the different purposes you mention. Yes, there should be a tutorial. Yes, there should be a comprehensive explanation of all the features. And yes, there should be a human-friendly explanation of the essentials. This last page is the one that Helen was asking for to replace the current teacher help file in Moodle. It should be distributed with Moodle. It should be a single page, not much longer than the current teacher help file but more up-to-date. --Gustav Delius 16:12, 20 March 2006 (WST)
Darren, a big THANK YOU for your work on the Teacher documentation page - it's looking so much better now. :-)
Gustav, I agree with all your points apart from the human-friendly explanation of the essentials being distributed with Moodle - it should be the Teacher documentation page (see Bug 4803 - Redirect help link in course administration block to Teacher documentation). --Helen Foster 16:54, 23 March 2006 (WST)
Thanks Helen. A big thank you to you for this docs project! I am feeling better about the page now I finally removed the upload section. A lot of this stuff exists elsewhere so I am using the intro page as a jump station - seem fair enough? Also, is it possible to tell a page not to display a TOC as I think it would be more friendly if visiting teachers were presented with the introduction rather then a hyperlink list. --Darren Smith 04:57, 24 March 2006 (WST) (Is it possible to change the time in the sig?
Hi Darren, please note that typing __NOTOC__ removes the TOC. Your "jump station" plan sounds good to me :-) The signature time seems to be a bug. At least it's consistently wrong ;-) --Helen Foster 16:57, 24 March 2006 (WST)
Hey Darren, ditto wonderful work here. I have not looked at this section in a couple of months. While I would like to assume that anyone looking at Moodle undertands links, I would still point out the obvious to teachers that there are links that lead to other pages with more details, right at the top. Just a clue will do.

Gets me thinking about cross linking the Demo Moodle to the appropriate MoodleDoc page(s). For example, if I look at the lesson topic, there is not only the lesson example but also lesson references in the topic that could serve as the overview, which contain links to MoodleDoc pages. That would assist potential new moodlers as well as serving as an example of walking the Moodle walk. Again - thanks for your effort.--Chris collman 2 21:08, 25 April 2006 (WST)

Changed intro

I moved the instructions about logging in and troubleshooting logging in to their own pages so a) they can be expanded and b) it keeps the intro section concise. I have also restored the instructions stating that you need a teaching editing account or admin account as I feel that is an essential starting point. I have tweaked the new introduction but was tempted to remove it. Do we need to explain what moodle is here as it is covered elsewhere in the wiki? --Darren Smith 04:52, 5 April 2006 (WST)

You're doing a great job Darren! Please feel free to remove the Moodle explanation. --Helen Foster 18:16, 10 April 2006 (WST)
As a newbie to this wiki I though it prudent to put a link to the full teacher category at the top of the page, a way of going directly to an article that you may be interested in. --Lindsay Magnus 18:50, 17 July 2006 (WST)
Lindsay thanks for comment, and change. I tweaked it to be even more obvious. I think new users should jump to the page Teacher. From the page teacher, there should be a See Also short list of links, such as the catagory index for teacher, perhaps to this page and links for a new administrator.

Consider that a new teacher might logically from Moodle.org click on "Free documentation", then "Welcome! Are you new, confused Start Here" then "Moodle Documentation" and then "Teacher Documentation". 4 logical clicks for the brand new user and this is where they end up. New users are not dumb and quickly notice this page is about the mechanics of course, not about a teacher or a teacher's approach to Moodle. Yeah my usual new user soapbox which has to be balanced by the user who wants to know the basics of a course from a teacher's perspective.

There have been a lot of excellent changes to this page that really help our community get what they need faster. Best to all --Chris collman 2 23:23, 30 July 2006 (WST)

Major changes?

Does Teacher documentation require major changes? The last major change, made by Darren mostly, was to move away from a page simply listing links https://docs.moodle.org/en/index.php?title=Teacher_documentation&oldid=6986 Do we really want to return to this? --Helen Foster 04:51, 5 September 2006 (CDT)

Sigh. Thought we wanted a format like developer documentation and administrator documentation (lists organized by tasks), which I took to be jumping off places (blush). WIP notices not good even if for a day on the major Teacher link (double blush). In the cold light of the morning, my self assessment is that I am clearly confused about this page.

I myself like this page better than the other two. I do favor the format of text with embedded links to pages and some pictures. I have to stay with that thesis on this page, keep verbal and visually interesting and moving right along (letting links do the talking). Thanks for correction, hope I did not create a spike in blood pressure on that one. --Chris collman 06:52, 5 September 2006 (CDT)



Adminstration block changes

Note, the MoodleDoc page Administration block has most of this material built into with links as was suggested in this section of page comments. Thanks for assistance. --Chris collman 09:12, 26 May 2007 (CDT)

Below is for example. I would delete Administration block sub heading and make the course techer tools the same as Block et al. Will work on words below and weave more links into discussion.

Course teacher tools

Maybe we don't need this heading, just jump to the below.

Teacher's people tools

Features in the administration block allow teachers to manage student and teacher enrollments and their groups/cohorts and access the private Teacher forum.

Grades

Teachers can view the course gradebook, create custom grading scales by the administration block links.

Presentation settings

You can change the way students (and other teachers) access and view your course by exploring the Settings option in the administration block. This page has over 30 different parameters to select. It is a place to select the section format, when the course is visible, more....

Virtual handouts & resources

Another much used feature of the adminstration block is the Files link. From here you can upload any digital content for inclusion in an activity, resource, course section or for a direct download. These files can be moved, renamed, edited directly on the server (if they are HTML or text) or deleted. You can also create a directory and display the whole contents of that directory to course students using the add resource drop down in any course section. Of course if your content resides out on the web then you don't need to upload the files at all - you can link directly to them from inside the course using the link to file or website option.

Student tools

All of the links in the administration block are only available to teachers of the course. Students will receive their own version of the block which will display a link to their own gradebook and, if enabled, their own course logs. Need links for teachers about student's in Moodle.

Where to mention Blogs?

There was no mention of Blogs in Moodle on the article page. The Blogs page belongs to Teacher category. I added a link to it to the See also section, but it might deserve a more prominent link somewhere? It's not a resource or module... maybe something mentioning "other" pedagogical tools in Moodle than the activity modules? --Samuli Karevaara 02:40, 30 October 2006 (CST)

Good points. Blogs are part of blocks. Having been gently reminded :) to not add to the length of this page, I thought a picture of the block menu was worth 1,000 words. What I just did was use your link Blogs(Thank you), and updated Block (teacher) which was also Blog link-less. I also added more links to the Block section on the teacher documentation page so the reader might get the idea that there was more to learn about blocks.
The block type section has a pretty impressive list and actually none are "more important" than another. I guess we could string every block feature in a sentence under Blocks on this page and put links there as well. Subject to the ultimate approval of those who watch over page lengths. However, these are just my thoughts and this is a collaborative effort. Thanks for the comment and putting in the Blog link --Chris collman 12:22, 31 October 2006 (CST)

How about this template for just Teacher documentation page

Rather than make the experienced teacher dig in the text, why not have this template. I would only put it on the teacher documentation page, because once they pick an activity, that will have it's own template of sub catagories. I have not looked at this template in a couple of months and it may need some corrections/additions. --Chris collman 07:36, 23 June 2007 (CDT)

Hi Chris, thanks for your suggestion. I guess what you're wanting to do is to provide an easy way of navigating to other pages of interest for teachers. If you've not done so already, you may be interested in browsing the long history of the Teacher documentation page and seeing how it changed from being a list of links (similar to your Teacher doc template) to being paragraphs of text. --Helen Foster 06:22, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

I am new to Moodle. I am a graduate student in technical communication. As part of a group project for a knowledge management class, I and two other students would like to contribute to Moodle's documentation and/or other types of help. We noticed that teachers cannot easily come to MoodleDocs and find information to give to students who have questions about Moodle. For example, the Student FAQ is short and related to only technical issues. Also, both the Student tutorials page and the idea of creating more student documentation pages seem to have been abandoned. From what I have gathered from different discussions and pages on MoodleDocs and Moodle.org, it seems like most student help is created by individual teachers and universities. If my assumption is true, would teachers like a page that links to different handouts and tutorials that others have created for students? Then teachers could easily find existing documentation to modify instead of starting from scratch when they need helpful resources for their students. Thanks for your feedback on our idea!--Apryl Jackson 15:30, 21 February 2008 (CST)