About Adding Activities to a Moodle Course

Activities are interactive tools used to engage students in learning and asses their progress. Moodle includes the standard tools you'd expect from any learning management system including Forums, Assignments, and Quizzes, along with collaborative activities such as Wiki, Glossary and Database activities.

Activities appear as a single link proceeded by an icon indicating the activity type. Activity settings let you control conditions for submitting, grading and assignment to groups. Activities can be graded by TAs (Non-editing teachers) and instructors (Teachers). Activities can be moved, hidden and edited by an instructor.

Types of Activities

For a description of available activities and links to step-by-step instructions for each type see Activity Types in Moodle.

Add an Activity using the Activity Chooser

Note: If you used Moodle prior to Spring 2013, you will notice that the two drop-down menus for adding course content (Add a resource... and Add an Activity... have been replaced by a single link (Add an activity or resource). If you prefer the old interface, see Turn the Activity Chooser Off and On (below).

1. On your main course page, click Turn editing on (top right).
2. In the Section where you want the activity to appear, click + Add an activity or resource. The Activity chooser dialog opens.
3. In the Activity chooser, select an activity. The right side of the dialog will change to show a description of the activity and links to help.
     (Click to enlarge)
4. Once you have selected the activity to add, click Add. The Settings page for the activity opens.
5. Configure the settings for the activity
6. At the bottom of the page click Save and return to course or Save and display.
   Note: Many activities, including Attendance, Quizzes, Glossaries, and Databases require additional setup from within the activity. If you returned to the course page, click the link to open the activity (not the Update icon) and complete your set up.

Once you have added an activity, you can:

• Move the activity link up or down the course page by dragging it by its Move icon ( ).You can even drag items between Sections. (If you use the Collapsed topics format, the target section must be toggled open.)
• Edit the settings for the activity by clicking its Update icon ().
• Hide an activity that you are not ready to release to students by clicking it's Eye icon ( ).
• Change your role to Student to test submitting an activity (e.g., to submit and test scoring on a quiz) by going to the Settings block, clicking Change role to..., then Student.

Advanced Activity Settings

• You can assign different activities, or the same activity, to different groups of students. See Assign an Activity to a Group or Grouping in Moodle.
• You can restrict access to an activity manually (by hiding or showing it), based on time, or based on grades earned on previous activities. You can also provide extra time for students requiring accommodations on quizzes. See Control Access to Resources and Activities in Moodle.

Turn the Activity Chooser Off and On

If you prefer the interface for adding resources and activities from Moodle 2.2 and earlier, you can easily turn off the Activity chooser.

1. On your main course page, in the Settings block, click Activity chooser off. The + Add an activity or resource link will be replaced by the Add a resource... and Add an activity... drop-down menus.
2. To turn the Activity chooser back on, in the Settings block, click Activity chooser on. The Add a resource... and Add an activity... drop-down menus will be replaced by the + Add an activity or resource link.