A Product Description for the Moodle Pioneer theme by Dearborn Public Schools.

Moodle and Mahara Overview with Pioneer

Pioneer theme for Moodle

Pioneer is a beautiful, responsive theme loaded with great features from custom tabs and a course gradebook slider to the ability for teachers to upload their own header image in course summary files! Each of the main elements in the theme can be customized from the theme settings page. Pioneer is Made in Michigan at Dearborn Public Schools (K-12).

Download the Pioneer theme for Moodle

Taking cues from it's predecessor, evolve-D, the Pioneer theme utilizes a large, full-width image with a custom login form on the frontpage.  The effect is beautiful.  Unlike it's predecessor, Pioneer also allows you to add some additional elements to the frontpage such as featured courses, a custom HTML textbox, marketing spots, and we also included the default Moodle blocks and frontpage elements as set in Frontpage settings within Moodle.  You can set the default Moodle frontpage settings to “none” or choose to use them if desired.  Either way, Pioneer works with Moodle to provide an amazing frontpage for your LMS.  

Getting to the course is just as important as how it looks and Pioneer provides some intuitive navigation to help learners along.  The top navigation bar is stuck to the top of the screen.  This navigation bar contains - My Courses drop down, This Course drop down, a custom Tools drop down, as well as an optional Icon navigation and course search box.  If this all sounds like too much, don't worry.  You can control what options you want to enable.  Additionally, on the frontpage in the main content area you can enable a custom textbox.  Within the custom textbox you can provide instructions and a welcome message.  This textbox can also contain the Icon navigation and course searchbox.  This can be useful for first-time users as they tend to be looking at the main content first and may overlook the icons in the top menu.  

To further enhance navigation and make key courses more visible to learners we have added a “Featured Courses” area on the Frontpage.  You can add as many courses as you'd like and they are displayed with a beautiful photo and title.  Up to six courses are added per row and then a new row is started.  

Students will appreciate the course gradebook slider.  A button appears in the middle of the course page which provides a quick overview for the student.  The assignments and grades are listed and slide down just below the main course header image.  Click the button again and the grades slide back up and disappear.  If a teacher decides to hide the gradebook from students in course settings then the theme will also hide this gradebook slider.  

Check out Pioneer and explore the possibilities!

Top Features of Pioneer

  • Beautiful Custom Frontpage with Login Form
  • Custom Header Image - Teachers can upload a photo into course summary files and the theme will use it as the full-width header image
  • Intuitive Top Menu Navigation - My Courses, This Course, Tools, and unique Icon Quicklink Navigation 
  • Course Gradebook Slider - Let students click a button in the course and the gradebook with grades slides down below the header image
  • Frontpage Custom Tabs Slider - Add up to six tabs that slide down below the header image when a button is clicked.  Great for getting started tutorials or instructions. 
  • Featured Courses - Display a group of courses with a custom image on the frontpage
  • Marketing Spots - Show three custom styled boxes on the frontpage where you can highlight items of interest
  • Social Icons - Add links to popular social networks and they will display at the bottom of the page
  • Custom Footer - Several options are built in to create a nice footer at the bottom of each page complete with copyright notice. Utilize a full-width textbox layout or a 4 column textbox layout.  You can also choose to use both! 
  • Block Alignment - Toggle between left or right aligned blocks from theme settings
  • Google Analytics - Insert your Google tracking ID and watch the stats roll in
  • Google Fonts - Use any google font by simply copy/paste the embed code steps in theme settings
  • Custom Logos, Images, and Colors - Fully customizable with many styling options for all major elements of the page
  • Full integration with Moodle course format Socialwall which turns your course into a social learning experience and is a separate download

Custom Course Header Image

course header image.png
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Course Gradebook Slider

Gradebook Slider.png
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Custom Tab Slider

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Pioneer Theme Release Notes and Information RSS

Release Notes and Information for the Pioneer Theme

Version 1.3.6

* Fixed an issue with Socialwall Course Format in which a "Save" button would not appear when using the theme. 

Pioneer v1.3.5

* Fixed a slight issue with Google Analytics and defined variables.
* Moved the background image upload and parameters from General Settings to the page with the color pickers since it is part of the background colors.
* Added a box styling to all main content including in-course activity pages. This should have been done before releasing. From the homepage to the course page everything was inside a styled box... until you went to an activity and then the box went away. There is now a color picker for the box that wraps activities.
* Numerous CSS fixes and enhancements.

Pioneer v1.3.4

* Google Analytics added to theme.  Now site admins can simply add the UA tracking id number and begin collecting traffic and usage of their moodle site with clean URL's.  

Pioneer v1.3.3

* The Course Grade Slider can now be controlled by the teacher.  If course settings is set to Not Show Gradebook to Students then the Course Grade slider will not display.  In order to use the Course Grade Slider it must be turned on in Admin Theme Settings for Pioneer and at the course level to show gradebook to students which is set by the teacher on a course by course setting.

Pioneer v1.3.2

* New feature - Position blocks to the right or left of the content. We added a position toggle on the general settings page to pick where the blocks appear. This has been a much requested feature as some people like the blocks on the left.

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