ED TECH UPDATES
Davidson Davie Community College
About Ed Tech Updates
I created this page as a commitment to transparency and better communication. Rest assured you will still get any important email updates. Expand the sections on this page to learn more about the current status of educational technologies at Davidson-Davie.
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🕒 Upcoming Updates/Maintenance
See full Open LMS EDU Release Schedule
Maintenance Pack Updates
Moodle 4.1 MP 3 - Thursday, December 28th 12:30 AM - 4:30 AM
Moodle 4.1 MP 4 - Spring (date to be announced)
Moodle 4.1 MP 5 - Summer (date to be announced)
Moodle 4.2 and 4.3 Update - July 2024
Check out details about the upcoming updates below:
Moodle 4.2 New Features - bulk editing, gradebook, hierarchy (indent items for better visual navigation), group membership improvements, and more!
Moodle 4.3 New Features - slimmer activity cards, access activity restrictions and availability faster, gradebook, question bank, and navigation improvements, etc.
🔧 December 2023 - Moodle Maintenance (Version 4.1 MP3)
Moodle Down for Maintenance Thursday, December 28th 12:30 AM - 4:30 AM
Expect Moodle to be unavailable during maintenance scheduled for Wednesday night/early Thursday morning - Thursday, December 28th 12:30 AM - 4:30 AM.
This maintenance pack should address the following issues:
Question Statistics not loading/missing information
MathType/ChemType Wiris buttons missing from the Atto text editor
⭐ August 2023 - Moodle 4.1 Upgrade + Zoom & Introduction to Moodle News
Moodle 4.1 Upgrade
We upgraded to Moodle version 4.1 on August 10, 2023. This upgrade does not change how you generally navigate around and use Moodle, so please refer to our existing resources about how to use Moodle. However there are some smaller updates you may want to be aware of listed below.
What's new
For teachers (Opens in new tab)
For students (Opens in new tab)
Summary of Changes
The 'Label' activity is now called 'Text and Media Area'
The Database Activity has been improved! You can now use premade template to create quick and easy Journal, Image Gallery, Proposal, and Resource sharing activities.
The Grades area has been improved! You can now use the new Grade Summary report, search easier in Single View, collapse topics in the User Report, and add more letters to your grading scales.
The Question Bank has been improved! You can now edit question titles inline and view/use new 'Modified by' and 'Last used' columns.
The Zoom plugin has been deprecated and removed from Moodle as of June 30, 2023. You can use the Zoom LTI Pro tool instead.
Safe Assign has been removed from our Moodle site. Over the summer term our Moodle host (OpenLMS) stopped providing the tool as a part of our contract and replaced it with Copyleaks instead. Use Copyleaks or Turnitin for plagiarism detection.
To reduce clutter, tools only used by specific departments were moved out of the Activity Chooser menu. These tools are still available by adding 'External Tool'. To add this turn on 'Edit Mode', click 'Add and Activity or Resource', choose 'External Tool', and then choose your tool from the Preconfigured tool drop down menu. Tools that we moved include: ALEKS LTIA, Electude LTI, Elsevier Evolve Link, Follett Discover, and VHLCentral.
Other News
Faculty Introduction to Moodle had been updated for the 2023-24 school year! Check it out on Moodle and email edtech@davidsondavie.edu if you need access.
🆕 July 2023 - New Moodle Tools - Copyleaks, Grade Me, Brickfield and Yuja
These tools are available effective July 1, 2023. Some of these tools have replaced other tools! See the full PowerPoint presentation on these features.
Grade Me (block)
The Grade Me block is new in our Moodle site. This tool that allows you to see everything that you need to grade in one convenient location! Add the Grade Me block to a course or your dashboard to see all items that need grading in your courses. This tool will be a game changer, saving you time and effort in your grading processes!
Copyleaks
This service will replace Safe Assign starting July 1, 2023! Copyleaks is a plagiarism detection tool instructors can use to scan student assignments. The tool compares the submission text with other sources to flag potential plagiarism and use of artificial intelligence (AI). You can edit your Assignment settings to enable Copyleaks.
Brickfield Accessibility+
This service will replace the Ally accessibility checker! This tool allows users to convert documents into new formats (and soon will allow your to scan your course, bulk fix issues, and run accessibility reports). The tool also provides helpful links about remediating inaccessible content. Learn more about accessibility in Moodle.
Yuja
This service has replaced Vidgrid! Vidgrid videos may still function for now, but they will eventually stop playing. All VidGrid videos have been migrated to Yuja. Vidgrid users should start using Yuja as soon as possible. Contact amy_holmes@davidsondavie.edu for assistance. You will need to update any VidGrid links and embed code to the Yuja versions. Otherwise, students will encounter broken links later this fall.
⭐ May 2023 - Moodle 4.0 Upgrade - New Navigation, Homepage, and more!
We upgraded to Moodle 4.0 on May 15, 2023.
Tutorials:
Faculty: View the recorded Getting Started with Moodle workshop
Student: View the recorded Getting Started with Moodle workshop
Faculty and staff, please share this recording with your classes/students.
🙏 Wish List / Long Term Projects
There are no guarantee these tools/projects will work out or work for us, but we are hopeful and looking forward to meaningful improvement to our platforms and transparency.
Intelliboard - Intelliboard is a data visualization tool provided to us for free by the NCCCS. We have been having issues onboarding the tool due to technical difficulties within Moodle, but hope to find a solution soon. Onboarding this tool could be a great step in capturing valuable data that could support more informed decision making for all: administrators, teachers, and students.
Brickfield - Brickfield is an accessibility tool inside of Moodle, provided in our NCCCS negotiated contract. Currently it's Alternative Formats (document conversion) features are functioning properly, however the course scan tools are not. This issue should be fixed in a future Moodle upgrade.
Course Supervisors - We have a goal to improve Moodle course and course evaluation access for supervisors and leadership. Our current processes to provide supervisor access is inefficient and we believe there are multiple ways it can be improved.