The relaunch of the Scottish Moodle User Group (SMUG) was held on 22 April, and was attended by over 40 members of the Moodle community. There were five 15-minute presentations covering a variety of topics and a great deal of networking over coffee and Twinkies.

We managed to capture some of the proceedings via a ‘Swivl’ that was generously donated for the purpose by Kevan Scade from Ayrshire College; an interesting automated platform that uses a phone/tablet to record proceedings and tracks the presenter via a wireless mic fob that s/he wears. Slides can be uploaded in advance and automatically synchronised in the recording. An example of this is demonstrated in the ‘Managing Courses’ presentation below.

If you didn’t manage to join us this time, then please sign up to the SMUG jiscmail list here, where we will be posting notices of future meetings/workshops (you’ll need to register if you haven’t used Jiscmail before). Anyone who has an interest in Moodle is welcome to join the group.

Moodle at Ayrshire
Russell Wilson, Ayrshire College

An overview of how learners and staff are using Moodle at Ayrshire College. Russell also mentioned the use of Microsoft’s free Powerpoint plug-in Office Mix which was used to create help guides.

All tiled up
Marcello Crolla, Fife College

As Moodle themes evolve, the options for displaying content grow and more imaginative layouts become possible. Marcello demonstrates effective course design using tiles.

Book, chapter and verse
Stephen Baxter, Dumfries & Galloway College

Stephen demonstrates a modification of the Moodle Book requested by teaching staff, which allows for the contents of a book to be displayed on a single page, even if the book is located within a separate course. You can download a copy of the bookdisplay (note that this isn’t officially supported).

Dine Alfresco style
John Edmonstone and Dominic Crowson, Glasgow Clyde College

Glasgow Clyde College are developing a Learning & Teaching Repository embedded within Moodle using the open source Alfresco content management system.

Managing courses at the end of the year
Michael Aherne, University of Strathclyde

The annual issue of what to do with courses at the end of year is one that every institution faces; Michael presented the University’s solution which uses a block with a series of options for academic staff to decide how they want their content to be handled. View Managing courses at the end of the year presentation below: