If this is your first Wilmette Institute course, please make sure to complete the Moodle Orientation, which is the first section of Wilmette Institutes free “First Look: A Course on the Wilmette Institute’s Approach to Learning” self-study module. Click on “My Courses” when you log in to our Online Learning Center to find the First Look study materials.
1. Will I have to participate in the course at a specific time?
No. Learners live in so many time zones and work at such different hours that it is impossible to get everyone together at once. All work is designed to be completed “asynchronously,” meaning that you do not have to do any thing at the same time as other learners.
One exception is OPTIONAL conference calls, chats, or video webinars, which obviously have to occur at a specific time.
Another exception is a small number of our courses that have intentionally been built around live web video presentations. But those courses are prominently marked as such, and even then people can watch the recording later.
2. I tried to add an attachment to a posting, but it was too large. What do I do?
Contact us at Support@wilmetteinstitute.org. Our first version of Moodle limited postings to 1 attachment and a maximum size of 500 kilobytes (half a megabyte). That setting is still in a few courses, but the new upper limit will allow as many as 50 attachments, each up to 20 megabytes in size.
3. How do I see all my postings?
Open your profile (click the down arrow beside your profile picture at the top right and choose “Profile”). In the “Miscellaneous” box on the right, click on “Forum posts.”
4. How do I change my Email address?
Because your email address also serves as your username, you cannot change it yourself in the Moodle course management system. Please email learn@wilmetteinstitute.org and we will be happy to change it for you.
5. How do I find the name of my mentor?
Click on “Participants” at the top of the Classroom page (beside “Course”). Your mentor’s name will be automatically selected in the participant search filter at the top of the page. See screenshot below.
6. How do I contact my mentor?
First, find your instructor/mentor in the Participants list, and click on their name to get to their profile. The screenshot below shows the messaging icon at the top of an instructor’s profile (top of graphic), and below, a view of the open “messaging drawer” indicating the area where you will type your message and the paper plane icon which you should click to send the message. You may also email your mentor directly. His or her email address should be listed at the top of the Classroom page.
7. I just typed a lot of text into a forum and lost it somehow. Can I get it back?
Moodle backs up your typing periodically, but on rare occasions you may lose typing on all sorts of forums, not just in the Wilmette Institute online learning center. Two ways this can happen are:
1. A combination of key strokes can close the page.
2. You can “time out” — that is, if you take too long to compose a page, the copy cannot be saved. The Moodle software is set to let you remain logged into a page for 2 ½ hours, but sometimes individual computers have shorter timeout deadlines.
There are two simple solutions to the problem of losing copy:
1. Compose your text in Microsoft Word or another word-processing program, and paste it into the forum. Copying and pasting has one drawback: the formatting can be lost.
NOTE: Ctrl + c will copy, and Ctrl + v will paste (if you cannot find any copy and paste icons). “Ctrl” is the “control” key on the lower left side of your keyboard. For Macs, use Command + c for copy and Command + v for paste.
2. Compose the text in the text box, BUT every five minutes or so (and right before you add the posting to the forum), highlight the entire text, and copy it into your “paste” buffer.
8. How do I subscribe to (or unsubscribe from) course forums?
a) Log in to your Classroom Page
b) Click on the down arrow at top right (beside your profile picture–if you don’t have a profile pic yet you will see your initials there)
c) In the pop-up box, click on Preferences.
d) In the User Account box click Forum Preferences.
At the top, you’ll see that the default Email Digest type is: No Digest (single email per forum post): You will receive an email every time a new post is created.
e) To change your default Email digest setting, click the double arrow on the right side and choose from the other options, which are:
Complete (daily email with full posts). This means you will receive one email per day, containing all of the posts created in the previous 24-hour period.
Subjects (daily email with subjects only): You will receive one email per day containing only the subjects or topics of the posts for the day.
f) To save your choice, click Update profile at bottom of page.
Note: This procedure will change your preferences for every course** in which you are a participant.
**You can also subscribe and/or unsubscribe from all forums in a particular course by clicking on the Forums link in the Activities box iat the top of the collapsible right side column of the course’s Classroom Page.
Whichever choice you make, you can still visit and post in any forum in any of your courses including the “Course Lounge” forum.
Didn’t find an answer to your question? Visit the Moodle Tutorials page, or email learn@wilmetteinstitute.org.
