Searching for Orphans
There was a fun/annoying/sometimes useful/but probably not, bug in FLO. To make sites look a bit cleaner to students it was possible to hide items like quizzes and other activities in a hidden module at the bottom of a page (the module calls it an orphaned object) and then link to it from a boom or label. While the site could look a bit better, but was really confusing for anyone editing the site.
The latest version of Moodle stops the orphaning of activities, and replaces it with a much clearer status. Instead of ‘show’ or ‘hidden’, we leave the binary world and add a third option – ‘hidden, active’. Yep, you can tell a committee of computer programmers came up with this one.
So it you do have activities you are using in an orphaned module – the best option is to move it to the module (week) it is being taught in and change the status under edit settings ‘hidden’. Then from the Actions menu select “make available”. The status will now show as “Available but not shown on topic page”.
If you have any trouble or would like to think about how this could be used in your topic please speak to your eLearning team who can walk you through the steps. Find the details at https://flo.flinders.edu.au/mod/page/view.php?id=1600
For further information on improvements included in the new version of FLO a series of 1 hour presentations have been scheduled during February. See times, locations and register your interest at https://www.flinders.edu.au/staffdev/index.php/course/WNIF
Contributed by James King
eLearning Services Manager – CILT