Book Image

History Teaching with Moodle 2

Book Image

History Teaching with Moodle 2

Overview of this book

Moodle is an open source virtual learning environment that is coming to be used in more and more schools worldwide. History and Moodle complement each other perfectly in terms of content and delivery. This book will show you how to set up tasks and activities that will enable your students to forge a greater understanding of complex issues, bringing History into the 21st century.History Teaching with Moodle 2 presents new and exciting ideas for the delivery of History content making use of tried-and-trusted methods of teaching the subject. By following a sample course, you will find it easy to transform your existing lesson plans into a Moodle course that will become even more efficient, attractive, and useful over time. Make the past come to life using a range of tasks and activities that can consolidate learning for some, enhance understanding for others, and enthuse all. Learn how to add an RSS feed to your home page to display daily 'On this day in history' posts. Create a one-minute quiz about how the Second World War began. Post video footage of a trip to a castle and set some questions for students in anticipation of their next visit. Set up a wiki so that student groups can create their own story about 'murder at a monastery'. Moodle's built-in features allow students to get a better grasp of historical concepts and will rejuvenate their interest in the subject.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

Adding topic labels


The first thing we are going to do is to add the eight questions as headings in topic labels. In the following chapter, we will return to the labels and look at how to add images and use the labels more effectively to signpost to students what will be covered in each section.

  1. 1. Log in to your moodle with your username and password.

  2. 2. Click on the link to Year 7 History, which should be clearly visible if you have been assigned as a teacher to this course.

  3. 3. Click the Turn editing on button.

  4. 4. Click the Edit Summary symbol in the section for Topic 1.

  5. 5. Uncheck the box headed 'Use default section name'.

  6. 6. This activates the Section name textbox where you can type the first of the topic headings 'Why did William win the Battle of Hastings?'.

  7. 7. Leave the Description box blank for now.

  8. 8. Click Save Changes.

Topic 1 should appear as in the following screenshot:

Exercise: Add labels to topics
  1. 1. Repeat steps 4 to 8 for the remaining topics, ensuring that each question is assigned its own topic section.

  2. 2. Turn off the Editing button.

  3. 3. Click the Switch role to link.

  4. 4. Select the Student option.

The course should now appear as in the following screenshot. This is what a student would see if he or she went into the course as it stands at present. Note the reference in the top right-hand corner to my role as a student in this view.

  • Before starting the next task, you need to ensure that you have clicked on the link to Return to my normal role.