It will not have escaped anyone’s notice that Lapinkampus Moodle was upgraded last year to a new version of Moodle 3 and that this has had consequences for the look of the courses. AO Lappia and Lapland UAS have had to abandon the old look of their courses for something more modern. The look of a course is largely determined by the so-called course theme, which can be set in the Course settings by any teacher in the course.
The default theme for a course is detemined by the theme set for the category in which the course is located. Thus, the default theme for all AO Lappia courses is Academi, which is set on the Lappia category. If a course in the Lappia category does not force another course theme, the course will display the Academi theme. Likewise, the theme set for the LapinAMK category is the new LapinAMK theme, a neutral blue theme that works well with the popular collapsed topics course format. The temporary blue Roshnilite theme will revert to LapinAMK Orange (a colour which better fits this theme).
It is understandable that Moodle users are surprised by these “sudden” changes, but should rest assured that the eLearning services have carried out these interventions in the interest of safeguarding the (new) functionality of Moodle. Nonetheless, as implied above, teachers are not bound by the default theme for their category. They are free to choose another theme that better fits the their topic and teaching plan, just as teachers can choose a course format that supports their teaching, such as the above-mentioned colapsed topics (tiivistetty aiheet), or the grid (ruudukko) format, for example. The eLearning Services will happily advise you in this matter. Below you will find screenshots of a few Moodle 3 themes that were recently added, so as to give you an idea of the choice you have.
The Adaptable theme is a green/grey theme which has as its defining characteristic that it uses all screenspace that it can get and it has a button to hide side blocks so as to get the full width of the page at the teacher’s disposal. This is helpful on small screens and on pages with wide tables.
The Cerulean theme is a light blue/grey/white theme that saves screen space by using small blocks and small fonts.
The Elegance theme is a grey/white theme that looks appealing, but it is rather wasteful of screen real estate, as it creates big margins on the course page. This is not so useful in large courses.
Flexibase is a dark blue/white theme that has a lot going on. It was designed for courses that use the more advanced functions of Course Completion.
Snap was added already last year, but needs a bit of exposure. It is definitely out there as the most drastic departure from the default Moodle course look. You will hardly recognise your course after you have set Snap as your course theme and the same may go for your students. Therefore, if you intend to apply this theme, make a plan and perhaps enlist the help of the eLearning Services.
