This document discusses making Moodle courses more interactive beyond just uploading documents. It introduces several interactive activities that can be incorporated, such as choice questions, quizzes, discussions forums and chats, collaborative activities like wikis and glossaries, and structured lessons. These activities can help engage learners more and improve feedback to tutors. The document provides examples and resources for setting up quizzes, forums, chats, and structured lessons in Moodle. RSC advisors are available for training on these interactive activities.

1. In brief
Making Moodle courses interactive
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www.rsc-em.ac.uk November 6, 2012 | slide 1
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2. Interactivity in Moodle
Moodle is very often used to make documents available to learners. Word documents, pdfs and
Powerpoint documents are put up on the page associated with the course. Learners can check back
for sessions they have missed and remind themselves about what was done in the past. This is a
valuable and powerful facility for both learners and tutors.
But there is more to moodle than a document repository – learners can be given tasks and can
collaborate and interact with each other and the tutor. Tutors may not be aware of these activities, or
may find them daunting. Many of them are not difficult to set up and use, and repay use by getting
better engagement from the learner and improved feedback to the tutor.
This in-brief session will introduce some of these activities and show how they can be incorporated into
a teaching programme.
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3. Types of interactivity
 Asking questions – getting answers
– Choice - Survey
– Quizzes
 Discussions
– Forums
– Chat
 Collaborative activities
– Wiki
– Glossary
 Structured session
– The lesson module
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4. Choice
Select Choice from
“Add an Activity”
Fill in title, question and
choices
Final result for learner
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5. The Quiz
 Easy solution – use Hot Potatoes (1.9)
– Hot Potatoes is a free download
– The Hot Potatoes file is uploaded as an activity
– Learners’ answers are tracked by the system
 Long term solution – Quiz module in Moodle
– Allows tutor to build up a bank of re-usable questions
– Saves time in the long term
– More complicated in use
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6. How to ask questions….
 Consider scenario based questions.
– E.g. The marketing team at Cookers Travel Agency wishes to
target the 18-25 age range for their new holidays in Xanthe. Which
of the following techniques would be best for this age group?
 Different Question types
– Multiple Choice
– Short Answer
– Numerical – answers are allowed to have an accepted error
– True False
– Embedded Answers – Cloze. Passage of text with embedded m/c
short answer and numerical answer.
– Calculated
– Essay
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7. Quiz Resources
 Article on creating quizzes in 1.9
– http://www.packtpub.com/article/moodle-19-testing-
assessment-multiple-choice-quizzes
– Advanced options – include pictures in your questions
http://www.packtpub.com/article/moodle-19-testing-
assessment-advanced-options-in-quiz
 You Tube videos
– Lots – Moodlerooms are good
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP1f-TQBK8Y
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8. Forums and Chat
 Forums can be set up for particular purposes
– Could be used for simulation as well as discussion
– Encourage usage by making them part of the learning
process
 Chat is immediate text discussion with members of
the course
– Could be used as follows: “I will be online in the chat
room at xx o’ clock if you have any questions”
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9. Collaborative activities
 Wiki
– Group writes up ideas and suggestions for a project
– Admin sets it up
– New pages can be added by enclosing the link words in
square brackets
– Text can be freely edited by anyone
 Glossary
– Allows definitions to be set up
– Can be used as a group exercise
– Glossary definitions will be highlighted in course text
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10. Structured Lesson
 The Lesson activity
– Allows content – text, pictures or video, to be mixed with
questions and branching.
– Needs planning before and testing afterwards
 Could be used
– as a revision aid for a particular topic
– as an introduction to a topic
– to recap material already covered in a session
 Takes time to plan and set up
– Only invest time and energy in a Lesson activity when it
is going to be re-used
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11. Training and contacts
 RSC Advisors are happy to run training sessions
in the activities covered in this session. If you
would like to discuss this please contact:
 Phil Hardcastle
– RSC East Midlands
– phil.hardcastle@rsc-em.ac.uk
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