Manage activities

An activity is a general name for a group of features in a course. Usually an activity is something that a learner will do that interacts with other learners and or the trainer.

An Activity, such as Forums or Quizzes, properly means something learners can contribute to directly, and is often contrasted to a Resource such as a File or Page, which is presented by the trainer to them. However, the term activity is sometimes for convenience also used to refer to both Activities and Resources as a group.

Types of activities

There are 15 different types of activities in the standard Moodle that can be found when the editing is turned on and the link 'Add an activity or resource' is clicked.

Assignments : Enable teachers to grade and give comments on uploaded files and assignments created on and off line

BigBlueButton : Run live video conferencing sessions within Moodle

Chat : Allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion

Choice : A teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses

Database : Enables participants to create, maintain and search a bank of record entries

Feedback : For creating and conducting surveys to collect feedback.

Forum Allows participants to have asynchronous discussions

Glossary Enables participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary

H5P activity Enables H5P content created in the Content bank or on http://h5p.com or with the lumi App to be easily added to a course as an activity.

Lesson : For delivering content in flexible ways

(LTI) External tool : Allows participants to interact with LTI compliant learning resources and activities on other web sites. (These must first be set up by an administrator on the site before being available in individual courses.)

Quiz : Allows the teacher to design and set quiz tests, which may be automatically marked and feedback and/or to correct answers shown

SCORM : Enables SCORM packages to be included as course content

Survey : For gathering data from students to help teachers learn about their class and reflect on their own teaching

Wiki : A collection of web pages that anyone can add to or edit

Workshop : Enables peer assessment

Add an activity

To add an activity or resource to the course

1. Enable Edit mode.

2. Click 'Add an activity or resource' to open the activity chooser. Double-click to add an activity or resource; click the i for more information and click the star icon to add it to a separate, starred tab.

3. On the next page, supply the relevant details

Alternatively, certain resources and activities may be added using drag and drop:

• To add a file, simply drag and drop it onto the course section where you'd like it to appear

• To add a folder of files, simply zip the folder then drag and drop it onto the course section where you'd like it to appear, answer 'Unzip files and create folder' to the popup dialogue, then click the upload button

• To add a SCORM package, simply drag and drop it onto the course section where you'd like it to appear, answer 'Add a SCORM package' to the popup dialogue, then click the upload button

Common activity settings

From Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Common activity settings, the administrator can decide whether or not to force teachers to add a description to the activity or resource they are creating. The setting applies to all standard activities and resources on the site.

Edit an activity

1. Enable Edit mode.

2. Click on three dots on the right of the name of an activity

3. Select Edit Settings from the menu

4. Update the required fields and hit Save.

Also every activity can have certain settings as default. Go to Administration > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > and Select the activity name for default setting site wide

Delete an activity

1. Enable Edit mode.

2. Click on three dots on the right of the name of an activity

3. Select Delete from the menu

If you accidentally delete an activity, you will be able to restore the activity with in 7 days from the course recycle bin page.

Import an activity

1. From Course navigation > More > Course reuse, select 'Import'.

2. Select the course you wish to import from and click Continue.

3. You will be presented with the "backup settings" page. Use the check boxes for import activities, blocks and or filters as types of items which will show on the next screen.

4. Select the elements you want to include in the import in the Schema settings step.

5. Review and click Perform import or click the cancel or previous buttons. The confirmation page will place green check marks and red marks next to the backup settings and include item list for you to review.

6. You should see the "Import complete. Click continue to return to the course." message, or an error message indicating that the import process did not take place.

A trainer can only import an activity from the other course they are enrolled as trainer while an admin can import from any other courses as required.

Activity restriction

1. Enable Edit mode/turn editing on

2. Click on three dots/down arrow on the right of the activity name.

3. Select Edit settings from the menu

4. Expand the Restrict access area and click on Add restriction

5. Select the type of restriction that suits your need and configure.

Check out Restrict access for more information.