Get Going with Groups

Around the Corner (A blog that often posts about Moodle) has a FANTASTIC post about using groups to help simplify course management. Specifically it helps to answer this question:

I've just started using Moodle, and I'm finding it a bit tiresome to backup and restore a course every time I want to setup a new course for learners to participate in. Not only is it time-consuming, but sometimes, the backup of the course doesn't work because the files (e.g. course files including video and audio) are so big that the backup operation times out. What can I do to skip the backup and restore process?

Miguel does a great job of showing how you can set up groups and have users join those groups automatically using group specific enrollment keys.

Access the full post here, it's a great read.

This is a serious time saver if you're using 1 set of resources for many sections of a course (or many iterations of the same course overtime).

(above image from Around the Corner)

A quick note: assignment dates are static for users, so if you want quizzes and homework to be available from X to X and that varies across groups this isn't the best solution. It's best to leave assignments without dates (or change them only after classes have ended if you're scheduling groups that don't overlap). Note that turned in work will be time stamped so seeing who is late and who is not won't be that hard to monitor.

Here are some more posts about groups:

• Managing Multiple Classes from One Online Classroom
• Viewing select groups in the Grade book
• Automatic Assignment of Class Groups (from the Moodleman)
• Introducing Groupings