Moodle is growing at a seemingly unstoppable rate. One of the key reasons for Moodle's popularity is its potential to be extended with modules. This book will teach you how to find the best Moodle modules, how to install them, how to configure them, and how to get the most out of them.
There are hundreds of Moodle modules available. Find out which you can trust and how to put them to work.
This book is written to help you find modules that will be useful to you and your students, and to show examples of how these modules can be set up and used in teaching.
Chapter 1, Getting Modular with Moodle, is an introduction to adding contributed modules to a Moodle instance including how to find, install, and remove modules; related matters of site-wide settings, languages, and bugs are also discussed.
Chapter 2, Adding Content, discusses modules useful for adding various forms of content that a teacher may use with students.
Chapter 3, Connecting to the Outside World, talks about modules that allow students to access real-world resources outside of Moodle.
Chapter 4, Getting Around In Moodle, introduces handy modules that assist in navigating within and between courses in a Moodle site, also making Moodle more accessible to the visually impaired.
Chapter 5, Effective Use of Space, discusses modules that allow screen real-estate to be better used, including collapsing content.
Chapter 6, Assessing Students, discusses simple and novel modules that assist in assessing students.
Chapter 7, Organizing Students, talks about modules that assist in organizing students into groups and peer relationships, helping students with time-management, and getting feedback from students.
Chapter 8, Encouraging Student Interaction, introduces handy modules that allow students to interact in a common workspace and communicate more effectively.
Chapter 9, Informing Students talks about modules used to communicate information that is not related to regular material or assessment.
Chapter 10, Handy Tools for Teachers, discusses modules that aid and inform teachers in their tasks, such as creating activities and finding information and statistics about students.
Chapter 11, Just for Fun, ends the book with non-essential modules that make learning more enjoyable for students.
If you wish to test the modules presented in this book you will need the following:
A web server
A Moodle instance
Windows and Mac users can download packages from http://download.moodle.org/ that contain both of these ingredients combined. Alternately, you can download Moodle separately from the preceding link and add it to a web server such as XAMPP (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html).
More information about setting up and managing your test server can be found in Chapter 1, Getting Modular with Moodle.
This book is primarily aimed at readers who are involved with teaching using Moodle. This includes the following:
Teachers at relatively small institutions running their own Moodle instance
Teachers at large institutions where Moodle is used and administered
Administrators of a Moodle instance who are looking for modules that will be useful to teachers and students at their institution
Some of the topics covered in this book are specific and technical, but directions will always be provided. No programming ability is needed to add and install Moodle modules.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Unzip and copy the birthday block directory."
A block of code is set as follows:
<object width="190"> <param name="movie" value="http://localhost/moodle/file.php/2/invaders.swf"> <embed src="http://localhost/moodle/file.php/2/invaders.swf" width="190"> </embed> </object>
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "You will then be able to add the Session Theme block from the Blocks menu."
Note
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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