What Is It?

Moodle is Carleton’s learning management system (LMS) which is the main vehicle used for offering online courses, and for supplementing in-person courses with online materials. Moodle serves as our online ‘classroom,’ allowing instructors to post lectures, facilitate online discussions, collect and grade assignments digitally, and evaluate student learning through quizzes and tests. Moodle also allows for integration of tools from publishers and other providers. 

Why is this useful?

Learning management systems have become the technological centerpiece of online courses at colleges and universities everywhere. It is increasingly common for every course – including in-person classes – to incorporate a significant online component, and this generally happens inside an LMS. 

Using the LMS is helpful to your students, because it collects all of their courses in one system, and once they learn the basics, they can navigate through each of their course spaces.  Developing online assignments and discussions for your students is also helpful to them, as it provides a way to keep them connected to you and to your course material throughout the days between class meetings.

How do I use it at Carleton?

All faculty and students have access to Moodle at moodle.carleton.edu.  You’ll have access to a course space of each of the courses you’re assigned to teach, and to all of the Moodle functionality.  Students are automatically enrolled in each of their courses as students.

How do I get Moodle help?

Moodle is a powerful and deep system with a lot of functionality, and there are many resources available to help you learn it.

  • Discover written documentation in Carleton’s Knowledge Base.
  • Video tutorials about Moodle tools, along with an overview of best practices in online teaching, are available in a Moodle course called Moodle Micro-Skill Tutorials. You can access this course by self-enrolling, or by contacting the Academic Technology team and requesting access.
  • SkillShop session recordings are also available on the Academic Technology website.
  • You can get quick questions answered during Academic Technology drop-in hours. 
  • You can email at@carleton.edu, or directly submit a help ticket to the Helpdesk. Use the below links to get you to the description page for two different types of helpdesk tickets related to Moodle, and read their descriptions. Once you are ready, click on the blue “Request Service” or “New Moodle Site Request” button in the upper-right of your screen.
    • General Moodle support for course access, configuration assistance, help with assignments and quizzes, and other Moodle activities.
    • Requesting a new Moodle site such as a metacourse, a combined Moodle course with another instructor, or if you course is not included in the list of registered courses.

Poodll is a certified Moodle integration, that focuses on audio and video recordings, and makes use of text-to-to-speech and voice-recognition technologies. With Poodll you can add audio and video recordings to descriptions, forums, and assignments, use the text-to-speech widget that can read aloud text in various languages, design wordcards for vocabulary practice, and many other features. For more information, read the Knowledge Base article on Poodll.

Teaching Tips

  1. If you’re brand new to Moodle or to a learning management system, posting your syllabus and other course documents online is a great first step. This video tutorial can help.
  2. Consider creating online discussion/reflection assignments to be completed in between class meeting periods. This is a good way to keep your students connected and engaged with your course material and your online course site between class meetings. Here’s a quick tutorial. 
  3. Consider keeping your grades in the Moodle gradebook, so that your students always have real-time access to their grades and to their standing in your course. Watch Setting Up the Gradebook and Using the Gradebook for help.

CARE Strategies

Need a quick example or description of how one of our tools can be viewed through CARE?

Not sure what CARE is? Please see this blog post on CARE for more information.

Community: Use a Moodle forum to share information about each other, and introduce yourself to the class.

Agency: You can also use a Moodle forum, or assignment, to give students a choice for how to turn in a reflection piece. They could submit a text, or record a video.

Representation: An option, perhaps after reviewing Gould Library’s Diversifying your course content, would be to upload your diversified materials to your Moodle course. 

Equal Access: A student may have a learning barrier that requires a need to extend their time on an assignment in order to afford them a chance at an equal opportunity to display their knowledge of a course topic. In Moodle assignments, you can grant an extension for individual students.

Want to help others out with CARE strategies and Moodle? Please enter your strategies in the Poll Everywhere section below. As a reminder regarding personal or sensitive information, these will be available to those who visit this site. General content moderation may be on, so your shared strategy responses may be delayed.