Moodle Resources for Faculty

The Moodle application and its associated plugins are always changing and improving. This page highlights the most impactful changes for instructors as the tools are updated and new functions are added.

Moodle has deprecated the ATTO toolbar as the default text editor, and it is being discontinued. We are moving from the ATTO text editor to the new default, the TinyMCE text editor. This update brings exciting improvements and is designed to improve the editor experience. 

TinyMCE Text Editor	ATTO Text Editor

Why the change?

This transition ensures that Moodle is using a modern, sustainable, and powerful tool:

• Modern and Supported: TinyMCE is an industry-standard editor, actively developed and maintained by the company Tiny. Moodle has adopted it for long-term sustainability and access to cutting-edge features. 
• Accessibility First: TinyMCE was designed with accessibility and usability in mind from the start, making it an improvement over the older ATTO editor. 
• Familiar Interface: The editor features a modern user interface that provides a smoother, more visual experience. You’ll find that it resembles editors you already use, like those in Microsoft Word or Google Docs. 

Finding Editing Tools

All the options and features you relied on in the ATTO editor are fully available in TinyMCE. The key difference is how the tools are organized.

• Menu Bar: Instead of a single toolbar ribbon, many editing tools are now neatly organized within a Menu Bar with familiar options like Edit, View, Insert, Format, and Tools. 
• Full Screen Mode: A great feature in TinyMCE is the ease of expanding the editor into Full Screen mode. This allows you to eliminate screen distractions and focus on editing content without constantly scrolling. 

Learn more in the Moodle Documentation on TinyMCE Editor.

The Activities page provides a comprehensive list of all course activities, including dates, student submission counts, and direct links to each item.

You can access this page by selecting the Activities link on the course home page.

On this page, instructors view activities organized by type. Note that resources, such as files, folders, pages, and URLs, are grouped together in a Resources section.

The Dates report is a tool that lets you edit all the dates for all the activites on one page. 

1. Access this report by selecting More from the course homepage. 
2. Select Reports.  On the Reports screen, select Dates.
3. Use the Activity type drop down menu to filter the activities to display.  
4. Enter new dates and select Save changes.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page to view a timeline of due dates for activities. 

Watch the following video to see how to access and use the dates report.