Sunday, 8 December 2024, 1:30 AM
Site: Unitec Online
Course: Guide to Moodle (Guide to Moodle)
Glossary: Guide to Moodle
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Reduce image file sizes

Sometimes you get a message that you need to change an image size when trying to upload a picture. You may need to resize images to make them smaller without affecting the quality

Free tools for reducing image size:

The best and easiest from Google: https://squoosh.app/

Reduce Microsoft Word and PowerPoint Document File Size

If you created a Microsoft Word or PowerPoint documents but have realized that it is too large to be shared by email; or you’re low on disk space; or even can’t upload it to Moodle, don't fret! Follow this guide to get your document file size compressed.

Use compressed graphics file formats

If you have images in graphic formats like bitmap (.bmp) in your documents, you should convert them into one of the following graphic file formats: .jpg(jpeg); .gif or .png.

Insert graphics instead of copying and pasting

People like to use copy and paste to add graphics into a document. The feature is effortless, but it’s not efficient as the pasted image is a bitmap file. The differences in file sizes can be astounding especially if you’re using a file format such as JPG as your source.

Choose E-mail (96 ppi) output

Inside your document, click one of your picture, you will see a tab “Format Picture” appears at the toolbar area. Click the “Compress” button on the “Format Picture” tab; select the “Best for sending in e-mail (96 ppi) from the “Picture Quality” dropdown menu; tick the “Remove cropped picture regions” checkbox; and select the “(Apply to) All picture in this file” radio button. Then, click “OK”. This would change all the pictures used in your document to an optimal size.

If you are using the latest version of Word or PowerPoint, you can simply go to File > Reduce File Size

Insert a hyperlink instead of inserting an object

When you insert an image or a media file, you have the option to insert it either as an embedded object or as a linked file. Insert > Photo/Audio/Movie > Photo/Audio/Movie from File.. > Select the file you want to insert; tick the “Link to File” checkbox. 

By inserting it as a linked file means it will not become a part of the final document file. But you should always make sure that the linked file is with you and in the computer where you will open the document. Otherwise, the hyperlink won’t work.

Turn off Preview Picture

The preview picture is the thumbnail of the document’s first page. This thumbnail shows in the Details section of Windows Explorer when you highlight the file. Usually, this isn’t an issue unless your first page displays a graphic.

To turn off Preview Picture in Microsoft document, go to File > Properties, Select the “Summary” tab, then deselect the check box for ‘Save preview picture with this document’, click OK.

Save your document a second time

Open your document, go to File > Save As… and give it another name. Then click “Save”.

Doing this you will have a second document that often is smaller than the original copy. This is because Microsoft Document usually stores lots of redundant information such as earlier drafts and previous used images. Once you save it as another file, the unnecessary redundant information would be purged.

Remove manually enrolled students

Manually enrolment has no effect on student accessibility to Unitec Moodle. Student enrollment is controlled by PeopleSoft only.

As an Editing Teacher role, you can manually enrol a user, it looks fine from your teacher’s view. But, it only works for Staff. Even a student's name appears in your participant list, they still can’t access your course, because their account is not activated yet. Even worse, the inactivated manually enrolled account will cause unpredict issues which will incur complaints to Unitec.  

Please remove all manually enrolled students to avoid any further issues.

Remove users

As a teacher, you can remove multiple manually enrolled users quickly. (You can't remove PeopleSoft enrolled students)

remove


save 

Request a new course

This is for teachers only.

If the course you are teaching is not already on Moodle you can use the "Request a Course" button that is visible at the bottom of any category in Moodle.

You can get to "Request a course" in 2 ways:

To go to the categories view, click "All courses" at the bottom of the "My Courses" block on the front page.

My Courses

This takes you to the category view. At the bottom of any of these categories, you will see a "Request a Course" button (note: You do not need to be in the correct category to request the course, you will get to choose the category for your course in the request form)

Request a course

(Clicking the button above will also go to the request form)

Follow the "Request a course" link in the drop down menu at the top.


You can then fill out the form.

Request form

Reset a course

Resetting your course can be useful between lots of students to purge out old user data so that the course is fresh. Of course there are times when you wish to keep old user data (like previous forum posts for students to build on) so be careful using this feature.

You'll be taken to a settings page where you can choose what you wish to reset in the course.

Reset

If you're using weekly format (rather than topics format) this can be a good place to change the course start date so that the weeks display properly for the new semester. Be careful deleting anything else in this section unless you're really sure.

Then, depending on which activities you have in your course, you may see some other settings areas:

Other reset items

These allow you to delete the data from any of these activities. Your activities themselves remain, ready to be used by the next lot of students.

Note that you will still need to go through assignments and other items that have due dates set to make sure that the due dates are updated for the new lot of students!

Reset Turnitin assignment



Option 1:  (Copy) says Create Duplicates, New Turnitin Class....
This one looks at the current course to find which Turntin class it links to and creates a new class in Turnitin to link to, then for each Moodle Direct activity, creates a new version of each Turnitin assignment in the newly created class with the exact same assignment options. (This is generally the one most folks will choose). It is not destructive and will keep copies of the previous class and assignments containing submissions in Turnitin but will create new activities linked to brand new empty replicas of the Turnitin assignments

Option 2:  (Replace) Replace Assignment Parts, Reuse Turnitin Class
This one is similar to the above but instead of creating a brand new class it will reuse the previously linked class and create brand new replicas of the assignments in it rather than use a new class. Downside to this method is you keep the previous Turnitin cohort of students. This option is pretty specific to certain use cases and is generally not used very often.

Option 3: Untouched
As you say, leaves the class and assignment linkage the same and basically does nothing to the Moodle Direct activities.

Resizing images before uploading to Moodle

It is often best to resize images before you upload them to Moodle. This makes their file size smaller, and means less data your students have to download every time they view the image.

Here is a quick instructional video on resizing an image using a free browser-based tool called Pixlr Editor. You don't have to install something, just go to the Pixlr website and start using it!

Instructions:

  1. Go to Pixlr.com
  2. Launch the "Pixlr Editor" web app (under the big banner)
  3. Choose to open a file from your computer
  4. Find the file and open it
  5. Go to Image > Resize
  6. Choose a smaller size (recommended maximum 800 x 600 for uploading to Moodle) by typing values into the boxes or using the sliders
  7. Click ok
  8. Go to File > Save
  9. Choose a new name for your image (recommend putting _resized after the image name so you know it's the resized one)
  10. Click ok
  11. Choose where to save it on your computer and click save

It is now ready to upload to Moodle!

Resizing images in Moodle

You can do this using free software such as Gimp or Paint.NET. On a Windows machine, you can use the inbuilt Paint software to resize images. On Macs, you can use iPhoto.

If you need to tweak an image size slightly after uploading, it's easy.

  1. Make sure you are editing the label or page where the image is.
  2. Select the image by clicking on it (it should highlight blue).
  3. You can drag the little corner boxes to resize the image...
    OR...
  4. Click the "Insert/edit image" button.
  5. In the second tab "Appearance" change the image dimensions manually (this is more accurate)

NB: Super hint! If you wish an image to resize automatically to the size available on the screen, then remove the height property in the image dimensions, and add 100% (or whatever percentage) to the width property! The image will then scale / resize automatically!

Dimensions 1

Dimensions 2

Resize this window and see the difference between these two pictures. One will resize, the other will not:

Bunnies

Bunnies resizing!

Resources

These are items containing information/knowledge that a teacher offers to support learning.

To add a new resource to your course you must first turn editing on

Turn editing on

Note: There are now two methods for adding activities and resources to course pages, you may either use the traditional Add activity or resource link or the new Activity chooser

Check the Administration block to see if you have the Activity chooser turned on or off. You may turn the chooser on or off by clicking on the entry within the Administration block.

Activity chooser admin


Add an resource using the Add activity or resource link

Note: To use this method the Activity chooser must be turned offActivity chooser off

Scroll to the bottom of the section where you wish to add the resource and click the Add activity or resource link near the bottom.

add an activity or resource (link)

The Add an activity or resource window will appear. Scroll past the list of activities to select the type of resource you wish to add and click the Add button, otherwise click Cancel to return to your course page.

Resource picker


Add a resource using the Activity chooser

Note: To use this method the Activity chooser must be turned onActivity chooser on

When enabled the Activity chooser replaces the Add activity or resource link described above with two drop down boxes one for resources and one for activities.

Activity chooser

Scroll to the bottom of the section where you wish to add the resource and click the Add a resource drop-down menu. Click on the resource type you wish to add from the list that appears.

resource drop

This page describes the process of adding resources to your course page, however, the process of adding activities is essentially the same.