Moodle upgrade to version 4.4

5 November 2024
By Em Palencia, Carly Born

It’s that time of year again, time for a Moodle upgrade — this year to version 4.4!

Moodle will be offline and unavailable on Thursday, December 5th, 2024 during this upgrade.


Older versions of Moodle fall out of security support over time so we push these upgrades to ensure our data in Moodle is kept safe and secure.

This upgrade will introduce some new features and improvements, including a new text editor and a new quiz question type. Read on for new Moodle capabilities and training and support opportunities, including a workshop on Dec 6th.

The Moodle/Panopto integration will also see a small change.


New features

NEW! Text Editor: TinyMCE

TinyMCE is now the default editor for Moodle. This editor can create formatted content within a user-friendly interface. See the screenshots below for more information.

Screenshot of the topbar in the TinyMCE Editor
TinyMCE Editor

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Button

Undo and Redo

Bold and Italic

Insert image

Insert audio/video

Record audio

Record video

Insert H5P

Link

Unlink

No auto-link

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Button

Full screen

Align left

Align center

Align right

L/R and R/L directionality

Decrease/increase indent

Bullets list

Numbered list

Equation editor

Toggle second toolbar

Explore the top menu bar to insert other formulas, tables, special characters and more!

Screenshot of the first row in the TinyMCE Editor
First row of the TinyMCE Editor

NEW! ‘Ordering’ Question Type

Teachers can now make a quiz using ‘Ordering’ question type, which uses items such as words, phrases, images or other media. The items are displayed in a random order which must then be dragged into the correct sequential order. See the screenshots below for example uses of this question type.

Screenshot of the ordering quiz question type in Moodle
Ordering question type with phrases
Screenshot of the ordering quiz question type in Moodle
Ordering question type with images

NEW! Quiz Section Grading

When a quiz is created, teachers have the option to assign grade items to specific questions. This will then display not only the overall final grade of the quiz but grades for individual groups of questions. See the screenshots below for example uses of section grading.

Screenshot of the section grading feature within the results of a Moodle Quiz
Quiz results without sections
Screenshot of the section grading feature within the results of a Moodle Quiz
Quiz results with sections

Course Page Improvements

Screenshot of different file icons in Moodle
File icons with specific file depictions

NEW! File Type Icons

File types can be easily identified now from the course page.


UPDATE! ‘View’ option

With edit mode enabled, teachers can now click the 3-dots (⋮) then View to edit a single section. (Before, edit mode needed to be disabled to view a single section then turn edit mode on again to make changes.)

Screenshot of a course section is Edit mode enabled
View individual course sections with Edit mode enabled

UPDATE! Topics Name Change

The “Topics” course format in Moodle will now be called “Custom sections.”


Training and Support

Both synchronous and asynchronous training opportunities will become available as we draw closer to the upgrade date. Here are some resources you can check out right now:

If you have any questions about this upgrade, please reach out to the Academic Technology team at AT@carleton.edu