Identifying Key Tools and Functions within Moodle

Jenae Cohn, Academic Technology Specialist for PWR, Stanford University,  jdcohn@stanford.edu

Beth Seltzer, Academic Technology Specialist for Introductory Studies, Stanford University, bethseltzer@stanford.edu 

Edited for McNeese faculty members: Dr. Wendi Prater, Director of eLearning, McNeese State University, wprater@mcneese.edu

If you are new to using Moodle, you may appreciate some orientation to key Moodle tools and functions. 

  • Assignments: Instructors can create space for students to upload submissions, from informal reflections to formal written assignments and projects. Instructors can select the grading approach within the assignment. Assignments are best for instructors who wish for the students’ work to only be viewed and assessed by the instructor.
  • Announcements: Instructors can send mass e-mails or messages to the whole class community via the Announcements tool. The benefit to using Announcements over e-mail is that instructors do not need to collect individual student e-mail addresses and that the messages are archived in the course Moodle site.
  • Chat: The whole class, instructors and students alike, can engage in a “real time” text-based, instant messaging conversation. Messages received in Chat remain archived and can be read outside of synchronous time too. This can be a nice way for instructors and students to communicate nimbly without needing to use voice-based chat and without needing to use any outside apps or resources.
  • Discussions: Instructors can create threaded, written discussion forums for instructors to engage in written (or audio/video) dialogue with each other and respond to written prompts.
  • Files: Instructors can post key course documents, like the syllabus, readings, assignment sheets, and activity descriptions in this space.
  • Modules: Instructors can organize course content into several chunks or groups of learning content. The pieces of information that students will access, including the syllabus, assignment sheets, activity descriptions, and outside links and resources, can be grouped together in the order that students might access those resources during a synchronous or asynchronous class session. Modules can give students access to readings, activity descriptions, outside links, and assignment submission links all in one place.
  • Book: Instructors can create content for students to read or access that is not already created in a separate website or in a Word Document or other kind of document. The settings for Pages can also be changed so that the page can be edited by both instructors and students to create a class Wiki. 


For more information about the differences between organizing Moodle course pages in Modules, Pages, or Files, review additional articles in this faculty knowledgebase.