Book: How to use Moodle

1. What is Moodle?

This may be the first time you have done an online course. We are using a Learning Management System called Moodle. Moodle has many advantages for providers like The Alzheimer Society of Ireland. It allows us to:

• build flexible education and training courses that can be utilised by students at a time that best suits them
• place video and text on a website to share with our students
• communicate in various ways through Forums, Live Chat and through the use of interactive activities like polls and surveys
• set short Quiz assignments for our students

Moodle has the great advantage in that you the student can access the course at a time that suits you best.

It is confidential and private - only people that we have enrolled can see the Moodle pages.

2. Finding your way around

Take a little time to explore the Moodle Workplace site for this course, and watch the video below for some tips and insights.

3. Some quick Moodle tips

Some quick tips - watch the short video below for help Bookmarking the Moodle page (this will save you time), and setting your preferences for the course.

Don't forget your Moodle username and password!

• Your username is always your first name and family name, all lowercase and no spaces
• Your password is unique to you - don't share it, but write it down somewhere safe

4. Task: Edit Your Profile

Here is a little exercise for you to do to help you all to get to know each other.

We'd like you to Edit Your Profile on Moodle. There are two things you could do:

1. You can write up a little about yourself, so that your colleagues get to know you a little better

2. You can post a photo of yourself, so that your fellow course participants 'can put a face to a name'.

Take a look at the video below, which will show you how to do these tasks.

Many thanks!

5. How to access the BigBlueButton Video Meetings and Tutorials

Every week we will be holding a video meeting using our video conferencing system called BigBlueButton. You can find more information here about BigBlueButton. BigBlueButton is very similar to Zoom or Google Meet, but it is more secure as it is only accessible once you log into your Moodle account.

And please watch the instructional video below which shows you how to log in for the first time to BigBlueButton. It contains important instructions on how to log on successfully.

6. A note on Activity Completion

You will see tick boxes to the right of each element of the course.

This allows you to see your progress as you complete each week's activities.

Solid boxes mean you the user can tick when you have completed this activity. So, when you have read the Course Announcement, just move your mouse over to the box and click. For the Live Online Video Meeting, you can just click on the box to the right hand side of this activity to mark it as complete.

Dotted boxes mean that the course coordinator has specified some conditions you must satisfy to complete the activity. So, for books (blue icons) you must click and read them. Once you do so, you will notice that the box is ticked automatically.

For forums, you need to click to enter them and then post one reply, for this activity to be marked complete.

For Feedback activities such as 'How have you settled in?', you must click and submit your answers for this activity to be marked complete.