The following options are available under Assignment settings.

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1 There are several activities and resources available in Moodle. Think of an Activity as something that can be graded. To add an activity or resource turn editing on within your Moodle course. 1. Click the Add an activity or resource link. 2. An Activities window will appear. Select Assignment, then click Add. 3. Give the assignment a name in the Assignment name field. 4. Give the assignment a Description. The following options are available under Assignment settings. As you can see in the above image, you can set a time frame for when submissions are allowed, due and a cut-off date. Also notable in the Assignment settings is the Yes/No option in the Notify graders about submissions. Blind marking will allow you to grade a submission without knowing the student s identity. You can set the type of submission under Submission settings. The type of assignments that can be

2 submitted are: - An online text assignment is one that students will enter text in a text box and submit to you. There are no files to upload or attach to the assignment. Instead, students will see a button that says "Edit my submission." To enter text, click on the "Edit my submission" button. An offline assignment is an assignment that requires students to do something outside of Moodle. Students will most likely not submit anything for this assignment in Moodle. Examples of offline activities include assigned readings, visiting a website, etc. These items may be listed as activities to ensure that students include them in their to-do list for that week or module. This should be used for ALL items that you want to appear in the grade book, but submitted into Moodle. - In this assignment, students are required to upload a file or files. The file type and format will be provided by you. It is important to follow these guidelines carefully. Please note the maximum file upload size. The maximum file upload size tells students the largest file size that can be uploaded. To upload a file, students click on the Browse button. Locate the file they wish to attach and double-click the file to select it. Once they have attached the file, click on the "Upload this file" button. You can allow one or more files to be uploaded with the Maximum number of uploaded files option. Also, students may have a Notes area. The Notes area is for students to add any comments or additional information to their assignment. To add a comment to the Notes area, they click on Edit. This item is optional and may or may not be activated. Because students may need to upload more files, students now have a "Submit for marking button." When students are ready to have their work graded, they click on the "Submit for marking" button. Please note that once the work has been submitted, students will not be allowed to edit it. Instructors can see the files that were uploaded whether the assignment is still in draft stage or has officially been submitted. In addition, you will also want to: 5. Provide an assignment name 6. Give detailed instructions for the assignment. In this text box you can also attach any relevant files the students may need in order to complete the assignment. 7. Determine the maximum grade for the assignment. 8. Determine the dates and times the assignment will be available (If you do not want to restrict the assignment by dates, check the Disable boxes. 9. If you are creating an assignment in which the students can upload files, determine the maximum size each uploaded file can be. 10. If you are creating an assignment in which the students can upload multiple files, determine how many files the students can upload. 11. Determine if you want students to be able to add a comment to their submission, but allowing notes. 12. Determine if you want the assignment hidden before they are able to submit it. 13. Pick the category this assignment should fall. Distance Learning Page 2 of 7 Moodle Activities

3 14. Click Save and display to view your new assignment. 15. Please see the Handout How to Grade in Your Moodle Course for instructions on how to grade assignments. Please see the Taking Attendance in Moodle handout. If you are interested in synchronous communication in your Moodle course, this is the way to do it. A chat requires everyone to be present at the same time and in the chat. This can be a handy option for online office hours, but remember part of the benefit of an online course is that students do not need to be anywhere at a particular time. The chat feature can be useful for group projects, where the group determines their own meeting times. Chats create a log, so later you can view the discussion that was done, or a student who missed the meeting can see what he/she missed. 1. Click the Add an activity or resource and choose Chat. 2. Give the Chat room a name. 3. In Description, give detailed instructions for the chat. In this text box you can also attach any relevant files the students may need in order to properly participate in the chat. 4. Set a date and time for the next chat. Chats can always been accessed after this date and time, but this is meant to be when the meeting is held. 5. If you want to set up a chat for each week, for example, choose when the chat will be repeated. These dates and times will appear in the calendar. 6. Make sure your past sessions are set to Never delete messages. 7. Decide whether you want everyone to be able to view past chats or not. 8. Determine the category this item will appear. This is a fun little tool that allows you to ask a single question to the class. I have used this to see who has or has not yet purchased their book and to see who has or has not used Moodle before. You might use this if you want to set up a chat session to determine a good day of the week, or which topic students want to research, for example. 9. Click the Add an activity or resource, select Choice. 10. Provide a Choice name and Description. 11. In the Choice text, provide the question for the students. 12. If you are using this activity to set up groups, you may want to limit the number of responses allowed, which means determine how many students can choose each option. 13. Create the choices the students have, and, if applicable, determine how many students can choose each. 14. If you would like to set a particular time the choice is available, you may do that. 15. Decide how you want the responses to be displayed. Distance Learning Page 3 of 7 Moodle Activities

4 16. If you want students to be able to change their choice, choose yes for Allow choice to be updated. 17. If you want to show students who have yet to make a choice, choose yes for Show column for unanswered. The Database activity allows the instructor and/or students to build, display, and search a band of entries about a topic. There are several different forms this can take, but the most common is peer review of a project. 18. Click the Add an activity or resource and choose Database. 19. Give the Database a name. 20. In the Description field, give detailed instructions for the database. You can also attach any relevant files the students may need in order to properly participate in the database. 21. Set a date and time for database to be available and another for it to be viewable. 22. Determine how many entries each student is required to make. 23. Determine how many entries each student has to make before he/she can see the entries other students have made. 24. Determine the maximum number of entries a student can make 25. Determine if students can make comments on entries made by other students. 26. Determine if you have to approve entries before they become live in Moodle. 27. Determine if you want the entries to be rated (graded), if so, determine the scale you will use. 28. Determine the category this item will appear. Even though most instructors only use the standard type of forums, there are several different kinds, all of which serve a specific purpose. All forums that involve student participation can be set to be graded. In forums, the grade is called a rating. Both students and the instructor can give ratings, if set up to do so. A single simple discussion - is just a single topic, all on one page. Useful for short, focused discussions. Standard forum for general use - is an open forum where anyone can start a new topic at any time. This is the best general-purpose forum. Each person posts one discussion - Each person can post exactly one new discussion topic (everyone can reply to them though). This is useful when you want each student to start a discussion about, say, their reflections on the week's topic and everyone else responds to these. Q And A Forum - The Q & A forum requires students to post their perspectives before viewing other students' postings. After the initial posting, students can view and respond to others' postings. This feature allows equal initial posting opportunity among all students, thus encouraging original and independent thinking. For this type of forum to work properly, instructors must post the questions in a post in which the students respond. If each student creates their own question, they will not be able to see each other s postings. Distance Learning Page 4 of 7 Moodle Activities

5 29. Click the Add an activity or resource and choose Forum. 30. Give the Forum a name. 31. Determine the type of forum you are going to use 32. In the Description area, give detailed instructions for the forum. In this text box you can also attach any relevant files the students may need in order to properly participate in the forum. Be sure to include clear expectations for participation here. 33. Determine if you want everyone to be subscribed to the forum if students are subscribed, they will receive an 30 minutes after each post is made. 34. Determine if you want read tracking on for this forum this will let participants know whether there are posts within a topic that have not be viewed yet. 35. Determine the maximum file size students can attach to their posts. 36. Determine the Aggregate type this is how you want to arrive at the grade. Typically Sum of ratings works the best here. This allows you to rate individual posts, which will be added together to arrive at the final grade, but here are all of the choices you have and how each works: a. Average (default) - The mean of all the ratings given to posts in that forum. This is especially useful with peer grading when there are a lot of ratings being made. b. Count - The number of rated posts becomes the final grade. This is useful when the number of posts is important. Note that the total cannot exceed the maximum grade allowed for the forum. c. Max - The highest rating is returned as the final grade. This method is useful for emphasizing the best work from participants, allowing them to post one high-quality post as well as a number of more casual responses to others. d. Min - The smallest rating is returned as the final grade. This method promotes a culture of high quality for all posts. e. Sum - All the ratings for a particular user are added together. Note that the total is not allowed to exceed the maximum grade for the forum. 37. Next determine the Grade. There is a Discussion Board grade that is possible. This grade is based on 5 points, 2 points for an original post and 1 point for each of 3 additional posts. If you have different requirements, you can choose from several other options as well. 38. If you want to make sure students do not receive credit for late posts, check the box to Restrict ratings to posts with dates in this range, then put in start and end dates and times. 39. If you want to restrict how many posts students can make in a given amount of time, choose a time period for blocking anywhere from 1 day to 1 week. 40. Determine how many postings a student can make within the given period for blocking. 41. Determine how many postings a student can make before a warning is sent to the student. 42. Then move to the last section to determine the category in the grade book where this item should reside. 43. Click Save and display to view the discussion board. This activity allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary. The entries can be searched or browsed in many different formats. The glossary also allows instructors to export entries from one glossary to another (the main one) within the same course. Finally, it is possible to automatically create links to these entries from throughout the course. Distance Learning Page 5 of 7 Moodle Activities

6 44. Click Add an activity or resource and choose Glossary. 45. Give the Glossary a name. 46. Give detailed instructions for the glossary. In this text box you can also attach any relevant files the students may need in order to properly participate in the forum. 47. Determine how many entries will be displayed per page of the glossary. 48. Determine if duplicate entries are allowed. 49. Determine if students can comment on entries made by other students 50. Determine if students can print the glossary 51. Determine if you want individual entries in this glossary to be automatically linked whenever the concept words and phrases appear throughout the rest of the same course. This includes forum postings, internal resources, week summaries and so on. Please keep in mind that these links continue on into testing. 52. Determine if you need to approve the entries before they go live. 53. Determine how the entries display: 54. Simple, dictionary style - Looks like a conventional dictionary with separate entries. No authors are displayed and attachments are shown as links. 55. Continuous without author - Shows the entries one after other without any kind of separation but the editing icons. 56. Full with author - A forum-like display format showing author's data. Attachments are shown as links. 57. Full without author: A forum-like display format that does not show author's data. Attachments are shown as links. 58. Encyclopedia - Like 'Full with author' but attached images are shown inline. 59. Entry list: This lists the concepts as links. 60. FAQ - Useful for displaying lists of Frequently Asked Questions. It automatically appends the words QUESTION and ANSWER in the concept and definition respectively. 61. Determine if you want to rate (grade) entries. 62. Determine if only instructors can rate entries or if everyone can. 63. Determine the maximum grade 64. Determine if you want gradable entries only within certain dates. 65. Determine the category this item will fall in the grade book. Journals are important reflective activities. The instructor 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 instructor, who can offer feedback and a grade on each journal entry. 66. Click the Add an activity or resource and choose Journal. 67. Give the Journal a name. 68. Give detailed instructions for the journal. In this text box you can also attach any relevant files the students may need in order to properly participate in the forum. Be sure to include clear expectations for participation here. 69. Determine the grade for the journal. 70. Determine how long the journal will be open. 71. Determine the category this item will fall in the grade book. Distance Learning Page 6 of 7 Moodle Activities

7 A lesson delivers content in an interesting and flexible way. It consists of a number of pages. Each page normally ends with a question and a number of possible answers. Depending on the student's choice of answer they either progress to the next page or are taken back to a previous page. Navigation through the lesson can be straight forward or complex, depending largely on the structure of the material being presented. Distance Learning Page 7 of 7 Moodle Activities