Fall of 2014:

At Pine Palooza, we found that more and more people are accessing Moodle using their mobile devices.  Both phones and tablets account for large numbers of how students access Moodle.  We have even heard rumors that instructors use their phones to access Moodle too.  Our current Moodle theme is not designed to work with mobile devices.

Pine Palooza Chart: How Students Access Moodle

Fall 2014 Continued…

A theme from Moodlethemes.com was purchased to meet our needs.  The theme that was purchased is responsive.  It will adjust how Moodle is displayed depending on what type of device is being used to visit Moodle.

We presented the theme to both the Academic Technology Task Force (Faculty Group) and the Student Government Association to receive feedback.  Adjustments were made to the theme according to the feedback.

Spring 2015

The theme has gone through the first round of testing in the Educational Media Technologies Department.  We are reviewing the issues that we identified in testing and correcting them.

During mid-March, new courses for Summer 2015 and Fall 2015 will have the new theme applied to them.  The theme will then be used by all courses beginning with this summer’s courses.

Screenshot of New Moodle Theme

Mobile View of Theme

 Spring 2015 Continued…

The Moodle theme update for this summer will also coincide with an update to Moodle.  New features and updates to be included:

• Gradebook improvements (New aggregation method, ability to update a single student or single assignment, ability to copy and paste from Excel)

• Forum improvements (ability to respond to student posts privately, respond to forums via e-mail)

• Quiz building page improvements

• Editor can be set to automatically save your data/content so you do not lose anything

• Security fixes

• Outcomes features that could include hierarchy of outcomes (Gen Ed, Program level, Course level)