Moodle User QuickStart Guide

What do I need to know how to do?

A user on the RETA Moodle site (or a student in your class) needs to be able to update their profile, access their courses, locate classmates, and send messages.

Accessing your course

1. Set your cache settings on your Internet Browser to refresh every time you visit a page. This is important because pages on Moodle are changing all of the time. See here for information on how to change the cache settings for your particular browser.
2. Log in to the RETA Moodle site [reta.mrooms.org] using the account you created or the instructions provided by your RETA Instructor.
3. Click on the course category called 'Workshops.' Find the name of your group and click on your course. If you have any problems getting in, contact your RETA Instructor.

Update your profile

1. Locate your username in the upper right hand corner of the site. Click on your name to go there.
2. Click on the edit profile tab.
3. Notice required fields in red. You change these at any time, but they must contain information.
4. Notice the Show Advanced button reveals these additional preferences. You can always come back and change these later, so feel free to leave them on the default setting at this time.

• Advanced Options
  • Email display - Who should be able to see your email address?
  • Email activated - Let the site know if your email is active
  • Email format - Do you like HTML or plain text?
  • Email digest type - Moodle can send you emails of posts made to discussion forums you participate in. Do you want to get emails of discussion forums you are subscribed to? You can receive them individually or saved into a digest by day or by subject.
  • Forum auto subscribe - Do you want to automatically be subscribed to forums you post to?
  • Forum tracking - Do you want to see an indicator next to discussion forums telling you numbers of unread posts?
  • When editing text - We recommend that you indicate that you like the HTML editor because it gives you more options on formatting.
  • AJAX and Javascript - Mark yes to be able to use advanced page editing features.
  • Screen Reader - Indicate yes if you are using a Screen Reading technology.

  5.  Complete the boxes to indicate the rest of your general settings. For New Mexico, you may wish to select UTC-6 (Universal Time - 6 hrs = MST) and the preferred langauge of (en_us) US English.

  6.  Add your profile information to the Description box. Notice that you can use the HTML formatting toolbar to format your profile.

  7. Upload a picture by clicking on Browse and pointing to the image file you want to use. Add a picture description below.

  8. Add your interests to the List of interests box. Separate them by comma. This will help you to find out which users share your interests on the site. For example, my interests could be entered like this: smartboards, social networking, technology, Moodle, language arts.

  9. Click on Show Advanced under the Optional section to input any contact information you wish to share with other uers on the RETA site. This will only be seen by registered users, but you should not list information unless you expect others to use it to contact you.

  10. If you already have a PBWiki ID, please enter it here. If you do not, you can always add it here later.

  11. Click on Update Profile to save your settings.

Locate user profiles

Being able to communicate within Moodle is very important. Find your instructor and classmates through the participants link.

1. Make sure you are logged in.
2. Go to your course.
3. Look on the left hand sidebar of the course for the People block.
4. Click on Participants.
5. Notice you can click on a person's name to view their profile.

Send messages

Moodle messages can be forwarded to your email.  To access your message preferences:

1. Go to your profile by clicking on your name in the upper right hand corner of the screen (must be logged in to see profiles).
2. Look for the Messages button under your profile.
3. You will see three tabs

• Access Contacts to see incoming messages or users you have added to your contact list.
• Click on Search to look for users or previously sent messages.
• Choose Settings to configure your message settings, including having your messags forwarded to your email.

You can send messages in several ways.

• Clicking on the Message button when viewing a user profile will allow you to send a message to that user.
• Use the selction boxes on the Participants link (under the People block in your course) to select multiple users. Notice at the bottom of the page you can send a message to the users you have just selected.

Putting it all together

• Create your profile.
• Send your RETA Instructor a message.
• Send a message to at least one other person in the group.