Demo course, Moodle 2.3

What fun to convert a course from 1.9 to 2.3 without too many wrinkles.  To play with new features of Moodle (blocks!).  And to create an image interface to link to each unit (something I've wanted to do for ages).  http://tinyurl.com/demomrslo 

Many thanks to Russ Willis of GlobalClassroom for helping me work out the Moodle 2.3 surprises.  

Moodle 2 Cheat Sheet

Here's a Moodle 2 "cheat sheet" to help users get through the basics of creating course content in Moodle.  If you see errors or something you think I should add, please leave a comment. 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/97460871/Moodle-How-to-Basics-2-x

Thanks!

Menu avoids scroll of death, Moodle 2

    I wanted to stop having my students scroll around to find work - and also wanted to stop having to drag units up and down as we move from one to the next.

    So I used Mary Cooch's lovely idea of making my Moodle courses more like web pages (see her video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtHPUh_BaxM) and expanded on it.

    Create a table with a cell for each unit in the unit summary (this is the first Edit icon you see in a topic - when you have editing turned on).  I first added the text, then added an image.  I had to play around with the image sizes a bit to make them all consistent, so the text would all line up.  I put the table in topic 1, but it would probably have been better to put it in the news forum topic. 

    Create a section links block.  This will give you a list of blocks.  You can make the block invisible later, but it will give you the locations for each topic, which you want to link to the correct picture.  Keep it, since you might want to use it later when you add/change topics.

    In the section links block, right click on the number associated with the first picture.  One of your choices is "Copy link location."  Click on that. 

    Then (with editing turned on), while editing your menu, click on the image you want to associate with the link, then click on the link icon, paste the link in, and click on Insert.  I let the default stand - to stay on the same web page.

    Save your edit, then click on the image to make sure you go to the correct topic (so embarrassing when you go to the wrong one).

    Then, if you don't want your students to see anything but your menu, go into Settings, and change the number of topics to 1.  Your students will still be able to get to all those other topics, but when they enter your course, they'll only see the menu.  Caveat:  at least, that's the way I understand that it's supposed to work - not working that way on my installation of Moodle 2 just yet.