How This Book Is Organized

Moodle For Dummies is split into five parts and has a companion Web site. You don't have to read the book sequentially, and you don't even have to read all the sections in any particular chapter. You can use the Table of Contents and the index to find the information you need and quickly get your answer. In this section, I briefly describe what you find in each part.

Part I: Getting Started with Moodle

This part is a great place to find out everything there is to know about Moodle. Here you get a bird's-eye view that helps you understand the Moodle world and explain what's what to get started. You find many things you can do with Moodle, understand what it takes to design a great online course, and get clued in on terms like Digital Native, Generation X, and Generation Z. This part also gets you ready to begin building your very first Moodle front page, the first step in creating your online course. When you're through with this section, you can impress your friends and colleagues with your eLearning skills and Moodle knowledge.

The first and most important part of creating your online class is to not get carried away. Don't let the cool modules (such as RSS, embedded videos, and links to outside resources) compromise your teaching methods by trying to impress learners and colleagues. Identify your objectives and use Moodle to enhance your teaching methods, not alter or worse, hinder them.

Part II: Creating and Managing Course Content

I know you want to start putting your content, your know-how, and your expertise online ASAP. This part shows you how. You'll have something up in no time. You find out how to add resources, such as uploading your files to your course, creating Web pages, and linking to resources on the Internet. I also shed light on adding video and sound files to create a multimedia-rich teaching environment, and show you how to embed YouTube or TeacherTube videos in your Moodle Web pages. You also figure out how to use the grade book and assessment tools to evaluate your learners' progress and knowledge.

Part III: Adding Activities to Your Moodle Course

Here's where the fun begins. You read how to use forums, chats, messages, and blogs to engage your learners in communicating and expressing themselves in Moodle. Moodlers believe that in a true collaborative environment, everyone is a learner and teacher. This is where you can set up activities and let your learners create projects, share them, and learn from each other. Wikis, glossaries, and database tools are ideal for creating and sharing knowledge. I also introduce you to the powerful Quiz module, which enables instructors to create any type of quiz, worksheet, or test using multiple choice, true/false, matching, short answer, and essay questions. You can add comments, and then Moodle automatically grades the questions and adds the score to the grade book. You also find out how to create assignments that learners can upload to Moodle for you to grade and record.

This section also shows you how to set up news feeds to push Web content to your Moodle class. For example, you can bring up top stories on any topic from the BBC or CNN, or you can push any journal or e-zine publications right to your course front page, wiki, glossary, or database. Only your imagination can stop the possibilities.

Part IV: Moodle Management

This part is all about managing your content, optimizing your files for smooth running, and backing up your data. The chapters show you how to replicate your course, rename it, and use it again. Put in the work once and replicate from then on. I know how important it is to collect user reports to keep on top of your learners or show impressive statistics to your department head, so I reveal all this knowledge. This part also covers all the techie administrative aspects of Moodle and how to keep it running smoothly. Not for the faint hearted, but with fabulous hand-holding explanations and direct references to Moodle online documentation and links to wealth of information in Moodle forums, you find your way even if you don't have a technical background.

Part V: The Part of Tens

People love For Dummies books for all the extra tips, hints, and advice the authors share. This part gives you things to think about before you jump into building your first Moodle course, and it gives you useful, creative ways to keep your learners involved in your Moodle course.

The companion Web site

Although I get very excited about the companion Web site (located at www.dummies.com/go/moodlefd), you aren't required to visit it to be able to create a Moodle course — everything you need is contained in this lovely book. On the site, however, I include a few extras that you may find useful. So, if you're feeling adventurous, you can browse for templates, an online course checklist, good practice and Moodle chat, forum, and blog etiquette tips, and more.

I encourage you to visit the companion site and to contact me ([email protected]) if I need to add anything else to make your life just a bit easier. Of course, if you think it is absolutely brilliant just as it is, let me know that, too. I will pass on credit where it's due.