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Resources and Activities in a Moodle Course
A Moodle course is made up of many different parts. These split into two
different general types:
Resources are things that contain information that can be read, viewed,
downloaded or used in some way to extract that information.
Activities are things that engage you to do some work based on the resources
you have used.
Resources and activities have their own icon so you can directly identify
the type of the content: activity or resource. In the section below resources
and activities are listed with their icon.
Icons used below are from the Moodle operating system and are not the property
of ION.
Resources
 Resources are contents a teacher
brings into the course. These can be prepared files uploaded to the course
server; pages edited directly in Moodle; or
external web pages. The following resource types may be encountered in
a Moodle course :
- Plain Text pages
- HTML pages
- References
- Uploaded files
- Web Links
- Web Pages
This page is an example of a resource that is a HTML file.
Activities
The following activity types may be found in a Moodle course [NOTE:
Some activity types might not be used in a MVCR course]. Activities
generally
involve some form of grading, whether automatically by the Moodle system
or manually by your facilitators.
 Forums: It is here that most discussion takes place. A forum is a kind of
discussion board, where students and staff can have extended conversations,
question and answer sessions and so on. Forums can be structured in different
ways, and can include peer rating of each posting. The postings can be viewed
in a variety for formats, and can include attachments. Forum messages can
even be graded by your instructors. By subscribing to a forum, participants
will receive copies of each new posting in their email. A teacher can impose
subscription on everyone if they want to. Try it.
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 Chats: The Chat module allows participants to have
a real-time synchronous discussion via the web (text only). This
is a useful
way to get a different
understanding of each other and the topic being discussed - the mode
of using a chat room is quite different from the asynchronous
forums. The
Chat module contains a number of features for managing and reviewing
chat discussions. Try it.
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 Quizzes: This module allows the teacher to design and set quiz
tests, consisting of multiple choice, true-false, and short answer
questions. These questions
are kept in a categorized database, and can be re-used within courses
and even between courses. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts.
Each attempt
is automatically marked, and the teacher can choose whether to give
feedback or to show correct answers. Try it.
 Choice (Vote/Poll): A choice activity is very simple - the teacher
asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses.
It can be useful
as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class
to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent.
Try it.
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 Assignments: The Assignments module allows the teacher to specify
a task that requires students to prepare digital content (any
format) and submit
it by uploading it to the server. Typical assignments include essays,
projects, and reports and so on. This module includes grading
facilities. Try it.
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 Journals: This module is a very important reflective activity.
The teacher asks the student to reflect on a particular topic,
and the student can
edit and refine their answer over time. This answer is private and
can only be seen by the teacher, who can offer feedback and a
grade on each
journal entry. Try it.
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 Surveys: The Survey module provides a number of verified survey
instruments that are useful in assessing and stimulating learning
in online environments.
Teachers can use these to gather data from their students that will
help them learn about their class and reflect on their own teaching.
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