Tips for Getting Started Editing in Moodle

Here are a few tips to help you get started editing in Moodle.

Tip 1 - Turn editing on, and look for what appears

Do this one first! This is the button that you see at the top right of your sandbox. Click on it and turn editing on by clicking it once. Notice what happens next...all sorts of editing icons and drop down menus appear. Try turning the editing button on and off a few times, noticing what shows up and then disappears when you turn editing on and off.

Tip 2 - Explore the "Add an Activity or Resource" option

You'll see this "+ Add an activity or resource" clickable item at the bottom of every topic in the course, after you turn editing on. Click in there and look at the following things:

• What items are under the Activities section
• What items are under the Resources section
• What information shows up in the right hand side of the box when you select one of the items
• What happens when you click on the in-line Moodle help - it looks like this:
  
  Note: please don't spend a lot of time exploring the external Moodle docs site at this point unless you really want to
• Notice the "Add" button at the bottom of the box

Tip 3 - Use the Edit Drop Down Menu

You'll see many of these Edit drop down menus after you turn editing on. Each one sits beside an activity or resource in your course. When you click on the blue "Edit" word, the drop down menu appears. Notice the following things:

• The "Edit settings" item is really important. This opens up that resource or activity for editing so you will use this a lot.
• What else is in the drop down menu? Particularly you may want to pay attention to "Move right", "Hide", "Duplicate", and "Delete"

Tip 4 - Notice the Administration Menu

Once you click into an activity or resource (for example, a forum), you'll notice the Administration block on the left hand side of the course page has a bunch of information in it. In fact, the Administration block changes what is inside it depending on what resource or activity you are in. (Tip: we call this contextual).

The screenshot above is within the Forum administration block. Notice the following things:

• There is also an "Edit settings" option here. This does the exact same thing as the "Edit settings" option that is available to you in the Edit dropdown menu we told you about above.
• Most of the things in this menu you don't have to worry about but take a look around for what might be interesting. In this forum administration menu you will notice that you can subscribe and unsubscribe (i.e. receive emails from, or not) to the particular forum here, for example.