USE OF MOODLE IN TEACHING

TO DESIGN AND PUBLISH THE ONLINE LEARNING MODULES

A widespread use of platforms such as Moodle, especially in the context of university teaching, is the provision of online learning modules/digital self-study units. The information material on a topic is prepared didactically and made available via the platform. With this type of presentation, the content is supplemented with interactive elements. The scope and design of such learning modules can vary depending on the didactic purposes. The module you are currently working on is an example of a self-study module.

The following aspects should be considered when designing the learning modules:

• The formulation of learning objectives: The goals to be achieved should be formulated as concretely as possible. This not only helps the teachers to organise the content, but also the learners to engage with the material in a targeted way.

• The teacher must consider the processing time when planning the module and can be mentioned at the beginning of the module.

• The choice of presentation formats and activities: The design of the module should guide learners step-by-step towards achieving their learning objectives.

• Linking the module with the lessons: Even when designing such modules, consideration is given to whether they will be interlinked/embedded in the attendance phase, or whether the module will be available as pure e-learning for self-directed learning.

Different elements can be incorporated into the design of the learning modules:

• Graphic elements (such as icons, illustrations, images, infographics, videos) for visual structuring, visual storytelling and support in the perception of complex content. Pay attention to the source and licence information when using such elements.

• Interactive elements such as an interactive video, different exercise formats such as drag-and-drop tasks, matching tasks, etc.

• Interactive H5P, HTML, SCORM modules.

One advantage of the online learning modules is flexibility in terms of time and location. The content can be worked on at the learner's own pace and thus promotes learner autonomy. The interlinking with the attendance phase is subject to the teacher's decision and depends on the didactic plan.  

When using online modules or online courses, bear in mind the possible advantages and disadvantages:

AS A VIRTUAL CLASSROOM IN A BLENDED LEARNING SETTING

Another option is to use the virtual course room to accompany face-to-face teaching: To provide learning materials, to refer to further online resources, for collaborative work and for exchange.

A Moodle classroom can have the following components:

• A short description of the course: Welcome to the participants, description of the objectives or relevant information about the course, time and place where the lessons will take place, name of the teacher and other information relevant to the organisation of the course. Such a short welcome provides a great overview of the most important aspects of the course and creates structure by presenting organisational aspects briefly and concisely.
• Learning modules: The Moodle course, which is used to accompany the classroom courses, usually consists of several modules. Each module deals with a specific aspect. Depending on the didactic project, appropriate activities and work materials are selected from the Moodle palette.
• Evaluation: To collect feedback on the course.

Individual activities and resources are described below. This gives you an overview of the structure of individual modules.

ACTIVITIES AND RESOURCES FOR THE COURSE ORGANISATION

Note: Depending on which version of Moodle your institution uses or which settings are selected by the administrators, there may be differences, e.g. in the layout, individual activities or the range of functions of individual activities. It is best to find out about the characteristics of your current software version on the provider's website or from the administrators of your institution. 

After the welcome text, resources and activities are usually used at the beginning of the course with the aim of supporting the organisation of the course. This enables communication and exchange, provides materials in various formats and offers links to further information. Individual possible components are also described.

	In order to facilitate exchange within the course, the activity forum is available. Teachers can often use the message forum for course organisation, where information about the course, exams or current events is posted by the teacher. The course participants automatically receive a notification, but are not allowed to post any contributions themselves. Another possibility is to use the forum activity as a kind of notice board. Standard forum for general use is suitable for this. Each course participant can start as many discussions and give as many answers as they like. If there are questions about working with the platform or difficulties in completing individual tasks, the learners post their contributions and collect feedback from both the group and the teacher. This avoids similar questions being asked more than once. The discussions can be referred to throughout the course. With the additional functions, the forum is better controlled: "pin this discussion" pins the discussion branch and is always displayed at the top and "star this discussion" prioritises the discussion and is displayed above the others, but below the pinned topics.
	The glossary is a list of relevant terms and their explanations. The glossary entries can be created by the teacher or by the learners themselves. The choice depends on the expertise of the learners and the didactic intention of the teacher. Creating glossary entries can be a challenging task, especially for beginners. If the glossary contains the terms that are relevant for the entire course, it makes sense to place the activity at the beginning of the course room. The activity can also be part of the smaller units (individual subject blocks/learning modules).
	Moodle offers various resources for storing materials relevant to the course – see the next section Activities and Resources for building the learning modules for more details. The following resources can be used for course organisation: Individual documents are uploaded in different formats as a file: A presentation, handout, description of the module, but also files that are relevant for working with certain software. If the teacher wishes to provide several files, the folder is used: For providing the picture sets or collections of materials or for exchanging/storing the materials among the teachers. In this case, folder should be set as invisible to learners.
	The web link (URL) refers to the external resources: For example, online materials that are offered by the publisher in addition to the textbook or exam preparation materials that are available online.
	The activity chat is used for text-based synchronous communication, where exchanges on specific topics can take place. Experience has shown that this function is rarely used by course participants. If the participants want to meet in the chat, both the time and the rules for communication in the virtual space are discussed in advance.

ACTIVITIES AND RESOURCES FOR BUILDING THE LEARNING MODULES

The structure of the learning modules, the selection and composition of activities and resources depend on the didactic purposes and the teaching scenario. The following key questions are helpful for the structure of the learning modules:

• What learning content would you like to work on? What is your learning objective?
• Which activities can your learners best achieve the learning objective?
• How should your learners work – individually or in groups?
• Are the results of the work evaluated? If so, how?
• How is the content linked to the attendance phase? 
• What would best support your learners in their exam preparation?

The Moodle learning platform offers a large selection of activities and resources, which are marked in different colours depending on their function (version Moodle 4.3). In order to better assess the didactic potential of individual activities, the individual activities and resources are also presented and described in clusters. The description provides an overview of the range of functions; detailed information can be found in the provider's documentation. The links are provided at the end of the chapter.

Activities and resources clustered:

• Present material

• Collecting ideas and material/practising content

• Practising content/assessment

• Peer feedback

• Evaluation

PRESENT MATERIAL

The Moodle learning platform offers various options for making teaching and learning material available. When uploading materials and information, the teacher should pay attention to copyrights.

	File or folder offer the option of uploading files in different formats. File is useful for individual files. Folder is useful when several files belong together. These resources are helpful if you want to provide materials that have been prepared in advance, e.g. presentations, worksheets, software files, etc. The files are saved on the learner's end device after downloading. For certain file types, learners need appropriate software for further editing.
	Page, text & media area, book and lesson are further options for presenting content within the Moodle course. Text & media area is primarily used to structure the course room and as a placeholder between the activities and resources, e.g. to give instructions or clearly organise the course. Audio, video and image files can be added. Page is well-suited for presenting short content. The integration of multimedia is also possible. Compared to file, page is easier to edit from the app and within the platform. Book is the resource that consists of several pages. Multimedia content can be integrated. The book can be printed out as a whole or as individual chapters.  Lesson offers the possibility of presenting the learning material and supplementing it with questions such as multiple choice, matching and short answer. The resource is suitable for creating branching scenarios. The time required to create a lesson is usually estimated to be relatively high.
	SCORM package and IMS content package enable the integration of files according to these standards. If you, as a teacher, work with e-learning software and create interactive content such as simulations, serious games and interactive learning modules, in most cases, it is possible to save this content in SCORM format and integrate it into the learning modules.  H5P is an additional plugin that is not integrated into the learning platform at all institutions. The H5P content can be created on the provider's website, saved locally and integrated into the course. If H5P-Plugin is integrated into your learning platform, it is possible to develop the content on the platform. H5P offers numerous interactive exercise formats such as interactive book, interactive video, picture selection, find hotspot, etc. Both SCORM and H5P content can be used not only to present learning material, but also to practise the content.
	External content is linked via URL: such as videos stored on other platforms, materials from external digital tools such as interactive exercises, online pinboards, collaborative workspaces and other resources from the web.

COLLECTING IDEAS AND MATERIAL/PRACTISING CONTENT

While the resources mentioned in the section Presenting material are usually created and made available by the teacher themselves, the Moodle platform allows learners to work on the content themselves or collaboratively.

	Via forum, information, opinions and thoughts are collected and exchanged. A discussion branch can be created either by the teacher or by the learners themselves. Moodle provides several forum types: Standard forum for general use: Anyone can start as many discussions and answers as they like. A single simple discussion: The discussion is limited to the specified topic. Learners cannot start a new topic. This is useful if you want to focus on one topic. Each person posts one discussion: Each participant may ask exactly one question to everyone or open a topic-related discussion. Q and A forum: To see the answers to the question or the opinions of others, you must first post your own answer. Standard forum displayed in a blog-like format: This is an open form of discussion in which anyone can open as many new discussions as they like and reply to all posts. All topics are presented on one page. The activity forum can be used, for example, to collect the pro and/or con arguments for the discussion if each learner posts their own ideas in response to the discussion question. In addition, the format of Q and A forum format is useful for checking knowledge and ensuring understanding. Once you have posted your own answer, you can now also view other answers.
	The database is an organised collection of structured information or data that can essentially be presented as a table. The Moodle database contains the following field types: checkboxes, coordinates, date, dropdown list, file, image, multi-select list, number, radio buttons, short text, text area, url. Elements can be combined in different ways depending on the didactic purposes. The database can be set so that the individual entries are checked before they are published. The database elements are displayed in single or list view. The database can also be edited in groups. A database can be used to create collections of information and materials, e.g. a collection of links, images, songs, recipes, etc. The results of research on a question or topic can also be presented.
	The Wiki activity is used for collaborative asynchronous writing. With Wiki, all course participants work together on a product and everyone contributes to the result. In this way, a story or list of tips and advice can be created together - a joint list of ideas is developed. Wiki is developed individually, in small groups or together. Etherpad, which can also be integrated into the learning module by linking to external providers, is ideal for synchronised text creation.
	A glossary contains a list of terms and their definitions. The Moodle learning platform distinguishes between 3 glossary types: global glossary – administrators can make a global glossary, with entries linking throughout the whole Moodle site. main glossary – only one main glossary per course is possible. secondary glossary – any number of secondary glossaries possible, entries can be added to the main glossary. The created glossary can be displayed in several formats: simple, dictionary style, continuous without author, full with/without author, encyclopaedia, entry list, FAQ. A glossary is used to create lists of words, describe terms and collect information on keywords. The glossary entries can be commented on each other.
	With the activity student folder, course participants upload their own files. Before publishing, the files can be checked by the teacher and then released. Both the teacher and the students themselves can decide which files will be visible to others.
	A Mind map plugin can be integrated into your learning platform. Mind maps can be used to create word networks, collect ideas and cluster terms. The plugin allows you to create simple mind maps from several nodes.

PRACTISING CONTENT/ASSESSMENT

If learners want to test their knowledge acquisition, they have various options at their disposal. On the one hand, there are activities that enable self-assessment, and on the other hand, there is the opportunity to receive feedback from the other course participants and from the teacher.

	The activity Quiz allows learners to check their level of knowledge. The teacher has a variety of question types available for this: calculated, drag and drop, gapfill, multiple choice, matching, short-answer, numerical, select missing words, short answer, true/false and others. The questions created are saved in a collection of questions and can be reused for the other courses. When configuring quizzes, the number of attempts and the time limit can be set. Hints and feedback are shown to the learners. When the quiz is restarted, the questions are reorganised.
	The activity Assignment allows students to submit their solutions to the tasks and receive feedback from the teacher. On the one hand, the activity can be used to remind/formulate tasks that are processed and submitted offline; on the other hand, the solution to the task/the result can be submitted via the platform as single or multiple files or directly via online text input. The solutions can be handed in individually or in groups. The teacher has several options for giving feedback: Inline comment, feedback as comment, offline evaluation table and feedback files.
	The two forms Lesson and SCORM package serve the primary function of providing content on the platform. However, the content can be supplemented with questions and in this case serves as practice. E-learning units such as simulations, games etc. can be integrated, especially with a SCORM module. This expands the range of exercise options. Systems and processes can be modelled that are difficult to imagine in real situations.
	H5P and HotPot are examples of plugins that can be integrated into the learning platform and offer extended options for practising the content. H5P offers formats such as interactive book, dictation, crossword, image choice, multiple choice, mark the words, drag and drop, dialogue cards, fill in the blanks etc. The H5P content can be integrated into other activities or work materials such as lesson or book. The activity HotPot enables teachers to integrate quizzes created with HotPot or TextToys into the Moodle platform. The content is created on the teacher's computer and then uploaded to the platform.

PEER FEEDBACK / EVALUATION

The activity workshop enables peer assessment. Peer assessment is a method in which peers (people with the same role, e.g. students) assess the results of each other's work. In this sense, course participants submit their work on the learning platform, assess each other and receive feedback from the teacher. The method and its implementation via Moodle requires preparation on the part of both the teacher and the learners themselves. Course participants must learn to give each other feedback. Exemplary assessments can be provided by the teacher to demonstrate the structure and criteria.

	With the activity choice, the teacher asks a question and gives several possible answers. In this way, you can decide on a topic, assign yourself to a group to work on a task or get an opinion on a question.
	The activity feedback can be used to prepare surveys. The questions are not pre-formulated as in the activity survey, but are prepared by the teacher. The activity is particularly suitable for carrying out an evaluation at the end of the module or course.

EXPLORE MOODLE

The activities and resources clustered and listed above provide an overview of the possible didactic applications. Combining individual components helps to achieve the learning objectives. If you are in the process of creating your own Moodle course and/or have difficulties implementing certain activities, detailed Moodle documentation on the individual activities and resources (video tutorials, descriptions of individual features and open questions) is available.

• Activities
• Resources

On the official website of the Moodle provider, you can find examples of Moodle course rooms in different subjects. If you are interested in checking out the Moodle classroom, use – MoodleOrange School a real-school environment with ready-made accounts.