Starting a Tiles course

To switch an existing course into Tiles format, under Course Administration > Edit Settings > Course Format, pick “Tiles format”. A number of options will then appear as shown here. Make your choices and click save.

You should not need to restructure any course content, and can easily switch back again if you need to.

You can return to this form and change the settings at any time. If creating a new course, again pick “Tiles” for “Format” and you will see the same options. If you need help when using the form, click the ? icons (shown blue in the screen shot above), and explanations will pop up

Course settings example

Course format settings

This section describes the course format settings shown in the section above in more detail.

Use this drop down to switch from one format to another (e.g. Topics to Tiles or back again).

Format choice example

When switching away from Tiles, your settings for tile icons and all photos will be deleted.

Click this button to choose the default icon for the course tiles. The existing selection is shown to the left of the button.

Icon button example

The icon picker window will launch (a screen shot appears in the “Changing a tile icon” section below). Click the icon you want.

Click the colour you want the course tiles to have.

The available colours are determined by the Site Administrator. They can easily be changed using the Site Administration menu (any such change will apply site wide).

Colour picker example

If you set this to “yes”, course activities will appear as sub-tiles instead of in a list.

Sub-tile format
Sub-tile example
Standard format
Non sub-tile example

If you are using completion tracking, choose whether to display a percentage or a fraction:

Percent example
Fraction example

If you have numbered tiles (e.g. “1 Introduction”, “2 Saying Hello” etc), or are using Course Outcomes, you can use this control to create a filter bar above the Tiles. Users can press the filter button to hide all tiles except those listed

. Filter bar example

If you set this control to “yes”, every time you format a line of text in a Label as “Heading”, the heading will have a coloured tab to the left of it.

Editing content

Editing controls in general will behave as in other formats. This includes the ability to show and hide content and to set restrictions by group, time and so on.

Tiles will appear long and thin (i.e. 100% width) as a list when in editing mode, and can be expanded one by one. This is to that it is easy for teachers to drag content between sections (in the same way that they do in “Topics” format) and/or to drag sections around.

To add more tiles, click the + button at the bottom right of the screen (after the list of tiles). To delete a tile, use the tile’s “Edit” menu on the right.

Changing a tile icon, adding a photo to a tile, removing a photo

With editing mode on, click the icon or photo you want to change. The icon / photo picker window will launch.

Icon picker example 1

In the icon picker window, click the icon you want.

If you want to use a photo for the tile click Photo Library or Upload new photo at the top of the icon picker window.

If you want to remove a photo from a tile, simply pick an icon for that tile instead.

Icon picker example 2

Converting from Grid format to Photo Tiles

This is easy. Just switch the format to “Tiles” under Course Administration > Edit Settings > Course format. All photos used for sections in Grid format will be copied on to the corresponding tile.

Displaying YouTube or Vimeo videos

Post the video as a URL activity and, when displayed to students, it will be listed as a “Video” activity. To make the activity launch in an animated pop up window (i.e. a modal window) set the activity to “Display: embed”.

Video subtile example

Highlight tile

If you click “highlight” in a tile’s editing menu, that tile alone will show with a red bar at the top.

Highlight section example

Convert Label to Page

This additional edit control enables labels in a course to be converted easily to “Page” resources with the same content. To use it, click the edit menu next to the label and select “Convert to page”. The label will disappear and page resource will appear in its place. (This is an experimental feature which may be disabled by the Site Administrator and is disabled by default).

Convert to page example