A quick and simple Moodle tutorial
Get a feel for the portal by trying out a demo platform
A sandbox demo is available for those interested to try out the Moodle portal for course management. The demo will not cover set-up of the Moodle platform but assuming the Moodle platform is setup it will give you an accurate experience of how one can setup various course activities on Moodle. The aim of this demo is meant to help you evaluate the suitability of Moodle as your learning management system.
The Moodle demo is available at https://moodle.org/demo. Once there, select the ‘Moodle Sandbox’ option which will take you to https://sandbox.moodledemo.net/, where a sandboxed Moodle platform has already been set up. For the tutorial, select one of the existing courses titled — ‘My second course’. The login page will provide you the login details in the bottom panel below the login window. Choose the ‘admin’ role which gives maximum control over the course page and the Moodle platform. On logging in, you will see a sample course page that is already organized into a few sections by week. The two most common formats for a course are ‘Weeks’ or ‘Topics’ and Moodle allows one to select that while creating a new course. We will work with the default weeks format. To edit the main page, click and toggle the ‘Turn editing on’ button on the top right corner of the page.
For now, we will focus on some basics that are useful in setting up your first course page and try out the following features:
- Creating a page containing a video lecture
- Creating a forum for participants’ interaction
- Setting up a quiz
- Setting up an assignment submissions page
1. Creating a page with video content
Typically a course will contain videos as the primary content and each video lecture can be given its own page and linked on the course main page. Since there are plenty of free video hosting sites, it is efficient to host a video on an external site and just embed the video in the Moodle site. Moodle allows hosting videos locally but that will use the resources available to Moodle and count against your server’s storage and bandwidth. Hosting videos on an external video hosting service like YouTube and embedding them in the Moodle site will have the lowest demand on your server’s resources.
(i) Once you have turned editing on, new buttons ‘+ Add activity or resource’ will show up under every section (week) on the page. Click on it to access the default list of available modules.
(ii) Select the ‘Page’ module and it will take you to the settings page. We will only change the ‘Name’ and ‘Page content’, the rest you may optionally change or ignore for now.
(iii) Enter a name for the video E.g., ‘The radio Universe’ under ‘Name’.
(iv) The content field takes rich text formatting but to embed a YouTube video we will have to access the HTML formatting by clicking on two buttons from the content field toolbar as shown in images below:
(v) If the YouTube link for the video you want to embed is https://youtu.be/v_wzCQuRpSM, just copy the letters preceding “https://youtu.be/” and paste them after “https://www.youtube.com/embed/” in the code shown below.
<!-- 16:9 aspect ratio -->
<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9">
<iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v_wzCQuRpSM" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>Paste the above code in the content field with HTML formatting and the video embedded page is ready once you click ‘Save and display’ or ‘Save and return to course’.
The ‘page’ module can serve multiple purposes since any HTML content can be embedded with ease. It can be used to create a page of Syllabus or provide a list of links and other online resources.
2. Creating a forum for participants’ interaction
This one is straightforward since all you have to do is repeat the initial steps above for choosing a module (see 1(i) above) but select ‘Forum’ from the module list instead of ‘Page’. Once it redirects you to the settings page, add an appropriate title like ‘Discussion forum’ and the rest of the setting can be left at default values.
One can create multiple forums to discuss course related issues versus science/content related issues or separate forums for specific topics. It is advisable that the ‘description’ field specifies guidelines to be followed while engaging in forum discussions.
Sample guidelines in description:
This forum is to facilitate discussions on general questions related to site features/usage, course details, and immediate feedback on any aspect of this course.Please "Add a new discussion topic" with a 'Subject' (title) and a "Message" (description) explaining your question or comment in sufficient detail.Please observe the following guidelines:- Participate actively by raising questions and discussing ideas to maximize learning in this course.
- Help others understand ideas if it is within your capability. You need not wait for the course instructor to address every discussion topic.
- Adopt writing style appropriate for this academic environment. Avoid excessive banter and topics not relevant to the course.
- Be respectful towards your fellow participants to promote diversity in participants and ideas.
- Contact the course manager directly if you have any concerns or to report violations of appropriate code of conduct.NETIQUETTE: GROUND RULES FOR ONLINE DISCUSSIONS
3. Setting up a quiz
The following features of the quiz module in Moodle are worth noting:
a) Flexible set-up: The quiz may be set-up in advance such that it is accessible by participants only between the specified times that can range from less than 2 hours for a time-limited, closed-book quiz or for a week or so for open-book quiz that can be taken any time before the deadline. The quiz can be set to end at a particular time and any open attempts by test takers will be submitted.
b) Multiple question formats: Multiple choice with one or more right answers, Short answer, Matching, Missing word, Numerical questions and a few variations on these are supported (see full list here: https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/GIFT_format). The quiz also supports partial crediting and negative marking on answer choices. Randomizing of both answer choices in multiple choice/selection questions and questions in the quiz are also supported to make copying harder among participants.
c) Solutions and feedback: Can show worked-out solutions and feedback to test taker right after quiz attempts or after the quiz is closed. Analytics for teachers to compare student performance and review performance for each question.
d) Easy regrading: Any total score or score distribution change after the quiz is over can be easily incorporated by using the regrade feature, for example, dropping a question from grading or fixing a question’s correct answer option.
To set up a quiz on Moodle, use the demo page and select ‘Quiz’ module from the ‘+ Add activity or resource’ module list. In the settings page for the quiz, give it a ‘Title’, the ‘Description’ could contain quiz rules such as quiz duration, start time, end time, number and types of questions, maximum score and whether or not there will be negative marking, whether participants are allowed to collaborate with fellow learners or not, any consequences for violating the specified rules, and any other relevant information.
Click on the ‘Timing’ option and select start and end dates/times for the quiz.
Under ‘Grade’, the default option for ‘Attempts allowed’ can be changed from ‘Unlimited’ to ‘1’ for quizzes where only one attempt per participant is allowed.
The typical setting desirable for ‘Review options’ are where only ‘The attempt’ option is checked and hence visible to the participants ‘During the attempt’, ‘Immediately after the attempt’, and ‘Later, while the quiz is still open’. All the options are checked only for ‘After the quiz is closed’. This ensures that the correct answers and solutions/feedback are visible to all participants only after the quiz is closed (after the deadline). This discourages participants from finding out the correct answer before the quiz is over for everyone. For the purpose of this demo, you may leave the options at default values so that you can view the answers immediately after trying out the quiz.
The rest of the options can be left at default values. Select ‘Save and display’ from the bottom of the page.
The quiz page is now displayed with the text ‘Attempts allowed: 1’ and a button ‘Edit quiz’ under it.
To add questions to the quiz,
Step 1: Click on ‘Edit quiz’.
Step 2: In the quiz editing page, click on the ‘Add’ drop-down menu near the right margin and select the ‘+ a new question’ option. A modal window will pop-up with all the question types that are supported by the quiz.
Step 3: Select ‘Multiple choice’ from the list and click ‘Add’.
Step 4: A quiz question setting page opens up where the following sample question could be added:
‘Question name’: Q1
‘Question text’: The distance of Mars from the Sun is approximately
Under Answers:
‘Choice 1’: 1 A.U.
‘Choice 2’: 1.5 A.U.
‘Choice 3’: 2 A.U.
‘Choice 4’: 2.5 A.U.
Set ‘Grade’: 100% only under the correct option.
Click on ‘Save changes’.
Step 5: The question will now show up in the quiz editing page with a ‘Magnifying glass’ icon against it for previewing. Preview the question by clicking on that icon to see how the question will look for the test takers.
Next Step: You can add more questions by repeating steps 2–5.
To add questions in bulk,
Step 1: Navigate to the question bank
The question bank can be accessed using the gear icon on the top-right of the quiz page. Click ‘Import’ under ‘Question bank’ option of the gear icon drop-down menu.
Step 2: Import question in gift format
Gift format is a flexible plain text file format for various question answer types for quizzes. Copy paste the following sample questions in a text editor and save onto a file quiz1.gift. A comprehensive list of syntaxes for various question types supported by Moodle are listed here: https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/GIFT_format
::Q1:: The path of the Sun on the celestial sphere is a great circle called the {
~ celestial equator
~ horizon
~ north celestial pole
= ecliptic
}
//Comment: A simple multiple choice question with a unique answer::Q2:: The parallax angle of a star at a distance of 1 parsec from the Earth, is {
#1
} arc-second. (Enter numeric value only)
//Comment: A question with a numerical answer::Q3:: The condition for constructive interference, $$xB/z \= n\lambda$$, is derived under which of the following assumption? {
~%20% The light is monochromatic
~%20% The source is point-like and infinitely far from the interferometer
~%20% The apertures are infinitesimally small
~%20% The distance between the coordinate (x, y) on the screen and the central maximum is much smaller than the distance between the apertures and the screen (z)
~%-50% The difference in path lengths is less than the wavelength of the light
~%20% The distance between the apertures (B) is small compared to the distance between the apertures and the screen (z)
}
//Comment: A multiple selection question with partial credits and negative marking
Choose the ‘File format’: GIFT format
Under ‘Import questions from file’ click on ‘Choose a file’ followed by the ‘Upload a file’ option in the ‘File picker’ window and choose the quiz1.gift file saved above.
Clicking on ‘Import’, already present in the import page, will show the list of imported questions. Click on the ‘Continue’ button that shows up and its fully imported into the question bank.
Step 3: Populate the quiz with questions from the question bank
Go to the quiz page
Click on ‘Edit quiz’.
In the quiz editing page, click on the ‘Add’ drop-down menu near the right margin and select the ‘+ from question bank’ option.
The list of questions in the question bank will now be displayed.
Select all the questions listed and ‘Add selected questions to the quiz’ and the quiz is ready.
4. Setting up an assignment submissions page
Add a new activity in the course page and select ‘Assignment’ from the module list. Once it redirects you to the settings page, change the following field to set it up:
Set appropriate ‘Title’ and ‘Description’.
The assignment questions can be included in description if they are in plain text format, else an assignment file can be attached using the ‘Additional files’ field. Attached files are available for participants to download from the assignment page.
The rest of the fields can be modified as needed: ‘Availability’ — start and end times, ‘Submission types’ to specify if files can be uploaded and restricting number of files and sizes of files, and ‘Grade’ for specifying the maximum grade for the assignment. The rest can be left at default values.
Resources
A comprehensive documentation is available at the Moodle site https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Main_page
and tutorials on basic navigation and accessing features can be found here:
https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Teacher_quick_guide
https://www.youtube.com/c/moodle/playlists