Book Image

Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment

Book Image

Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment

Overview of this book

Moodle is a free Course Management System (CMS), which is a web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. Moodle also has many effective modules and assessment techniques for testing that can be used for any subject. Computer-based testing is inevitable in any online teaching course. As you consider the benefits of computer-based testing you will want to easily create tests and instantaneously assess them.Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment puts together a variety of modules and activities that allow us to easily create and deliver a variety of tests on any subject. It is a step-by-step guide that will assist you to develop and assess simple as well as complex quizzes and tests.You will initially learn to create different types of questions such as short answer questions, multiple choice questions, and so on. After you have learned to create questions, you will learn to integrate all of them in a Moodle quiz to create a complete test by tweaking the various options. Next you will learn to create and set up a Lesson, which you can use to create simple vocabulary or flash card tests or complex tests. You will learn to test and assess students through work submitted using Moodle Workshop. This module also provides an opportunity for self- and peer-assessment of your student's work. Then you will learn skill-specific tests such as listening, reading, speaking, and writing tests that will help you to judge a person's ability in a particular field. At the end of this book you will learn how you can grade tests using Moodle Gradebook. This hands-on guide helps you to establish optimal tests that can be graded using Moodle modules.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Moodle 1.9 Testing and Assessment
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

What is Moodle Quiz?


The Quiz module is one of the core components of the Moodle VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). It is intended to help the instructors to develop tests quickly and easily and offer computer-based tests to their students inside their Moodle course. There are many types of items available for use in the tests including: True/False, Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Essay, Embedded Answer, and several others.

Moodle Quiz is a powerful tool for instructors with the ability to offer tests via the course, as well as providing a range of tools that help to research and develop better questions. Moodle Quiz can provide immediate, teacher-created feedback, as well as allow students to immediately see their test scores for most item types.

I have downloaded and installed Moodle version 1.9.7 for this book and I created a no-frills, topic-based course that we will use as a model when developing our Moodle-based tests. I did this for two reasons. The first is simplicity and showing how things are built over time. An unused course is fresh and empty, and will allow me to show you what we are going to do and how it will look without anything else interfering. The second reason is that I need to explain how to show hidden items, and install contributed and third party modules and blocks in Moodle. I have made one small change to the course. I have changed the default theme to make some of the screenshots look better. If you want to change the theme of your site, and you have administrative privileges, go to Site Administration|Appearance |Themes|Theme Selector and you will see a list of available themes. So, while your course may have different themes or modules, you will have the same functionality as I do.