Now that Moodle 2.8 is on its third minor release (Moodle 2.8.3)—we’ve had a solid quarter to review the features and see what’s jiving for our corporate, healthcare and education-based clients. Moodle 2.8 is hands-down the best version of Moodle yet and we couldn’t be more excited to share how you will benefit from the new and improved features. With Moodle 2.8, users are reaping the benefits of significant enhancements to gradebook, forums, analytics and the overall usability across all devices. Continue reading for the additional 6 features that have been approved by our team of Moodle developers.
1. Usability
The following four features have made a world of difference in Moodle’s interface for day-to-day use: the text autosave function, the new user menu, the ‘like’ rating system and the ability to conveniently save files from emails.
- With the text autosave function, you can now create content worry-free. Whether you are writing a message, creating a course or an important document—the text autosave automatically saves your text as you type.
- With the new user menu, users can now customize the navigation panel to gain quick access to the pages of their choosing.
- With the ‘like rating system’ discussions can now be rated with metrics popular to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Discussion threads that are most ‘liked’ can now be easily distinguished with ratings on the bottom left hand side of the comment.
- With the ‘my private files’ function, users have the ability to automatically save email attachments to their private file folders for later use.
2. Gradebook
The enhancements in Moodle’s gradebook plugin have clients raving about the improved functionality across all devices. With simple scrolling functionality, users can now quickly edit grades without the tedious process of reloading and uploading one’s browser. With Moodle’s new single view mode in Gradebook, administrators and teachers have the option to view all grades of a single student, or hand pick a list of grades from chosen students for a specific assignment. Teachers have found this functionality specifically efficient when they need to assign the same grade to students for group projects. The final function that has teachers and trainers buzzing is the new grade history report which allows them to select specific students or employees to view grading history for specified dates.
3. Analytics and Reporting
Analytics and reporting of events in Moodle 2.8 is now easier to track and automate. Teachers, administrators, and managers have found it particularly helpful to be able to keep up to date with activities within Moodle by subscribing to events. For example, managers can now subscribe to notifications that alert them when employees have completed certain activities or initiated discussions.
4. Forum
We can all relate to the overwhelming amount of emails received on a daily basis. The updates to the Moodle Forum module help to customize the amount of emails received from forum discussions. For example, instead of getting emails from all discussion threads you respond to—you can now subscribe to the individual forum discussions you want to receive replies from. Better yet, once receiving the reply to your email, you can respond directly from any mobile device! Within the Moodle interface, one also benefits from improved navigation which makes it easier to hop between important discussions.
5. Quiz, Choice and Assignment
With the changes to Quiz, it is now easier to add and manage questions! Teachers, administrators and managers have the option to add a new question, choose from a question bank of questions or select a random question. Popular changes to Choice include the option to now allow users to select more than once choice when scheduling meeting times! This is a great function in a blended learning approach when teachers or managers are looking to schedule face-to-face sessions. With a count of how many people are available, it makes it easy to choose a date and time when the majority of people can attend!
6. Cohorts
The interface and usability enhancements to Cohorts provide administrators and managers with a clear overview of all system and category cohorts making easy to get a full-picture of the groups of learners in your system. Better yet, administrators and managers can now upload cohorts in a single go using a csv file and teachers can enroll cohorts visible to them into active courses!
For more information on how you can benefit from all the helpful plugins that Moodle has to offer, download the Moodle Plugins Guide below.
