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This exciting addition for Moodle, Ally is a toolkit that helps you make course content in Moodle more accessible to all users. It does this by: 1. Automatically scanning course content to provide accessibility scores, easy to follow guidance and feedback on how and why teaching staff should improve the accessibility of the learning resources. Figure 1: Course and content accessibility scores and guidance for Ally. 2. Automatically generating alternative accessible formats for uploaded files that students can download for their personal use e.g. tagged PDFs, audio (mp3), eBook (ePub), electronic braille and beeline reader. This video from Southampton University outlines some of the benefits of alternative formats. Figure 2: Ally alternative formats availability and menu. With Moodle being the primary digital learning environment for the majority of course content and learning materials, teaching staff and students will automatically benefit from being able to use the new accessibility toolkit seamlessly. As educators, the toolkit helps us on the continuous journey of offering a more inclusive curriculum by being proactive rather than reactive with the availability of alternative file formats and the duty to make reasonable adjustments as outlined in the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 which builds on the 2010 Equality Act. In preparation for the launch, a new course, “Accessibility of Online Learning” is available in Evolve, which outlines the main challenges facing students with a disability or learning difficulty with respect to online learning while considering what adjustments can be made when creating and/or evaluating learning materials to ensure they are accessible and usable. This course is highly recommended for teaching staff and can be used as evidence of your professional learning for GTC Scotland. Watch this space for more!

When you now access Moodle you will find lots of new features and improvements to the Question bank. These new features should facilitate you and your team to create and review questions for your Moodle courses. These new features include: Question status and versioning comments in questions, Question usage and more visible statistics. Question custom fields. Question Bank column sort order. Question Bank bulk actions and more. You can now access the improved question bank from the more link on your course. As you create questions, you can now decide whether to keep them as draft for more discussion, or to make them ready for use. You can also view the history of questions, previewing each version and you and your colleagues can add and view comments. Comments are displayed in the question preview and users can see if, and if how many, comments have been made on a specific question directly in the question bank. This feature facilitates reviewing and refining questions. Question statistics are now easier to find and benefit from, the usage column shows which quizzes the questions are used, and how many attempts have been made. Using these statistics you can easily see what questions are working well and which might need amended. You can also see how many times a question (or a specific version) was used in a quiz, in which quizzes and which courses it was used. It is possible to change directly from the usage window to a specific quiz or course. This makes cleaning up old versions and quizzes much easier. Watch this Video for a guided view of these new features To catch up on all the Moodle 4.0 updates check out this playlist

We hope you have been enjoying our weekly Moodle 4.0 Blogs, This week we look at some new features added to Moodle assignments. Assignments in Moodle can now include activity instructions when students begin an assignment, and an assignment timer. Along with other graded activities, assignments can now be marked complete, based on a passing grade. Another great feature included within Moodle 4.0 is that teachers can now notify students of any updated content for all activities and resources. When creating a assignment in Moodle you still have the ability to leave a description, however we now also have a new section called activity instructions - to clearly represent an area to help you guide your students on what they need to do . Students will see these instructions once they've started work on their assignment and not before. There are more new settings when creating an assignment. You now are able to set a time limit on the assignment. You can also now set a pass grade, allowing you to set completion conditions for your students. Lastly this new version of Moodle has a great new feature, which can be used not just on assignments but on any content you add to Moodle. Just select the competences section when adding a resource or in the edit settings for that resource/assignment, select the tick box to send content change notification. Now when you update your assignment or resources the student will be automatically notified that new information is available. Watch this video for a guided tour of these new features. Don't forget you can sign up the Moodle 4.0 webinars on the Digital First page!

Activity completion has been enhanced in Moodle 4.0 with completion requirements now showing on the right of the activity and completion indicators in the course index on the left. Now when a student accesses a course on Moodle, they will see the activities and resources neatly displayed in the central area. It also describes to the student what they need to do to complete the activity. When an item has a completion requirement, this is now shown on the right hand side with a corresponding completion indicator in the course index. Once they have completed an activity it is displayed as 'Done' in the course central area. It also changes colour, to green, on the completion indicator in the course index on the left hand side. This gives students a quick display of their progress in the course. Using activity completions are a great way to guide your students through a course, and they visually remind them of their progress. These new tools allow for a clearer display of completion requirements which help students manage their learning more effectively.

It's not long until Moodle 4.0 goes live for the students and staff for WCS. This new version has a contemporary, clean look that feels more intuitive, tabbed navigation and a more fluid course layout. This will enable a much better learning experience for staff and students both in creating and completing courses online. Simplified navigation, dashboard and calendar. Moodle 4.0 has a much cleaner login page which has a customisable background image. Once logged in you will notice a much cleaner and modern version of Moodle for easier navigation. The students will still have quick access to their courses on the updated dashboard, which now has a searchable timeline and an updated calendar tool. User tour Once a student logs into a course on Moodle for the first time it will start an interactive guided tour will begin to help students explore the new settings, this can be turned off or on by using the question mark in the lower right corner. Collapsible course index within courses. The course index on the left can be collapsed to free up more space if needed. It also now scrolls independently from the main central area, this should allow quicker and more intuitive navigation especially on larger courses. Students can now with a glance can see what parts of a course they have completed and what they still have to do with activity completion indicators in the course index. Expandable block draw and collapsible course sections. If blocks have been added to a course they can now be expanded to access them with ease. Any activity completion conditions are now located to the right of the activity instead of taking up valuable space underneath. All sections may now be collapsed and expanded giving students more control of their course space, this function is especially useful when using Moodle 4.0 on a tablet or phone. We look forward to bringing you more of Moodles new features in our next Blog! If you have any questions or need additional support please sign up to our Moodle 4.0 webinars below. MOODLE 4.0 WEBINAR In anticipation of this new version of Moodle we are offering dedicated webinars to all staff, To help learn more about Moodle 4.0. This will give staff opportunity to engage with the Learning Technology team to get the best out of these new features. You can sign up the Moodle 4.0 webinars on the Digital First page

You may have already seen the Moodle update announcements that WCS Moodle is being upgraded to Moodle 4.0. In this series of blogs, we will look at what this means for you and your students. We will cover the basics and also go into more detail about Moodles new features. This first video will give you some insights from the creators and developers of Moodle on what this new version of Moodle has to offer and why we are very excited to deliver it to you. Insights into Moodle 4.0 from Moodle HQ Our upcoming blogs will cover some new and updated Moodle features: Week 1: Find your way around Want to know how to navigate Moodle 4.0 read this blog! Week 2: Course editing New features that have been introduced to help you editing a course. Week 3: Activity completion Learn how to setup completion triggers when students complete tasks. Week 4: Assignments New features in Moodle assignments. Week 5: Question bank Sharing and re-using questions on multiple courses. Week 6: Moodle 4.0 Custom reports Create your own student participation reports easily. MOODLE 4.0 WEBINAR In anticipation of this new version of Moodle we are offering dedicated webinars to all staff, To help learn more about Moodle 4.0. This will give staff opportunity to engage with the Learning Technology team to get the best out of these new features. You can sign up the Moodle 4.0 webinars on the Digital First page

Are you unsure on how to create accessible hyperlinks when creating content? Then why not have a look at NC State University's resource on creating accessible hyperlinks. You will learn a few simple concepts to keep in mind that will help you write descriptive hyperlinks. You can find more accessibility information on our Centre of Learning Technologies accessibility page.

ClickView is the leading video content resource for primary schools, secondary schools and further education settings. Access visually stunning, curriculum-aligned video content and teacher resources, plus contextual on-demand TV, your own video library and interactive question layers for formative assessment. ClickView have added 199 new videos to our Library of resources. Some of the new videos include: · ENGLISH: LANGUAGE STRUCTURE - Grammar and Adjectives · ENGLISH: LANGUAGE STRUCTURE - Verbs and Adverbs · ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING - Adjustments to Manufacturing Operations · ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING - Allocating Roles Have a look at the new February content releases by downloading the file below. Or browse all of the 199 new videos added to our library of resources.

We have made some new and exciting changes to our E-Learning enhancement units, have you seen them? We have added personalisation into each course by using html tags. All graphics are accessible via the use of ALT text. All SCORMS open within the same browser window eliminating problems with pop ups. Every topic has a meaningful heading. Course progress can be tracked by the introduction of a course progress bar at the top of each course. Graphics have been added to every topic so that the units are more visually pleasing for staff and students. If you would like to download our eLearning units recent updates poster, please visit the Posters section on our Cheer Your Peer Website.

Now that everyone has got over the shock of returning to work after the festive break, I thought it would be a good time to give you a quick recap of the “Cheer your Peer” week-long event, that we held last year (13th to 17th December), before we start promoting the next round of WITs webinars. We had 6 live sessions delivered by our colleagues, covering a wide range of topics including Richard Tullett sharing his experience on making his teaching Hybrid and Amanda Ford showing us how to use Microsoft Sway for learning, teaching and assessment. We even had Kenji Lamb from the College Development Network (CDN) warning us about his lack of filter (which is always amusing), sharing his school experiences, and why you should keep things simple during his session: Education for all, breaking down and giving tips on accessibility using the SCULPT Method. All the sessions have been recorded and are now available via Stream on the Cheer Your Peer Website which is available to all staff. You may need to log into Microsoft Stream using your college Office 365 account to watch the sessions. Not only that, but we also included the recordings of all the WITs Webinars that we delivered last year for anyone that missed them. Plus, information on the Moodle Academy, Virtual Bridge Sessions and some posters and pdf’s that you may find useful, as we begin to be a bit more confident at using online resources and teaching online. Keep an eye out for the next programme of WITs webinars which we will be promoting in the next few weeks. Until then please take a few minutes (to watch) a video that, you never know, might blow your mind!