Whether your Moodle is of type Social, Topic, or Weekly, adding activity Modules to course sections is very useful and simple. Instructors can facilitate group work through uses of Wiki modules and both students and teachers can create questionarries for reasearch purposes. The activity modules can also be used to communicate with different Moodle course users through chats and forums.
Assignments
- Any type of activity possible outside of regular class lecture. Allows for flexibility in that teachers and instructors can issue any follow up or supplemental activity pertaining to that day's lecture. For the example of the St. Anthony's clients, this can be anything from looking online to see how various computer components work to researching A+ materials. Assignments can also be uploaded to a server for grading.
Chats
- Moodle's instant messaging service. Students, teachers, moderators, and administrators can come together and talk about class issues, do test reviews, peer reviews, study sessions, etc...Also, for the non-classroom setting, this is the perfect place for Moodle community members to come together and chat.
Choices
- An activity where a teacher can pose a series of questions to students in any form about the course, material, and any information pertaining to the course. This is different from an Assignment activity in that the Choices activity is more structured, and allows for a more focused survey on the status of a course, material, student activitites, etc...
Forums
- This is a different form of the Chat activity because of its flexibility. Forums are a place for discussion, but students can also review posts to the forum as well as reply to the various posts. This activity is different because if students are not in a chat room, they receive email about new posts or reviewed posts.
Glossary
- Allows students and teachers to maintain a list of definitions and terminology. If an entry in the glossary is cited, it can be linked from that particular page.
Labels
- Not an activity in essense, but called an activity so that instructors can insert text / images into a page.
Lessons
- A more structured assignment like activity. Students read a series of pages concerning a topic and answer a question at the end of the pages. Not like the Choices activity because Choices is more like a review of key points. Whereas Lessons allow for satellite learning and q & a.
Quizzes
- Activity that allows teachers to design quizzes / tests online. These questions can range from multiple choice, true-false, and short-answer. Questions can be stored in a database for later use and question attempts are marked so teachers can review which concepts students may need to further review.
Resources
- Mainly for teachers to upload and students to use. This can be a place for various lesson plans, a tentative syllabus, links to other websites, links to special events, study guides for tests, etc...
SCORM packages
- An aggregator for graphical content, such as web pages, graphics, Flash presentations, etc...
Surveys
- A more structured version of the Choices activity in that surveys come bundled with various tools to conduct surveys. Teachers can gather data that students have submitted about the course.
Wikis
- Allows for students to collaborate on the design and content of various web pages. Students can present information on a topic and have others view the content and edit the content for corrections.
Workshop
- A module that allows for flexible peer reviews. Students can assess other student's projects and have these assessments maintained and dstributed. In the case of St. Anthony's A+ program, students can come together an present information gathered on the various certification tests and assess test difficulty, variety of questions, etc...