Moodle is built on the Constructivist model for learning. This means that activities are central to the course and course participants should be encouraged to actively engage with the materials on their course site.

When you switch your course page into editing mode, you will see two options appear in each section of the course:

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The very simple way to explain the differences between the two is that Resources are items of content that are given to the course participant to consume whereas Activities require active engagement: participants are expected to interact and/or return something to the course and/or the teacher.



Available Resource types

Moodle supports a range of different resource types that allow you to insert almost any kind of web content into your courses:

Book

Book makes it easy to create multi-page resources with a book-like format to build complete book-like websites inside of your Moodle course.

Previously created websites can be imported directly into the Book module. Books can be printed entirely or by chapter.

The book module allows you to have main chapters and sub chapters, but it goes no deeper. In other words, sub chapters cannot have their own sub chapters. This was an intentional decision by the creator of the book module. He intended this to be a simple resource for teachers and students.

The book module is not interactive. You can, however, link to choices, forums etc., from within a book. And you can include multimedia objects like Flash movies in your book.

If you have many pages of static content, that can be presented linearly, and without interactivity, consider using a book to preserve space on your course main page.

Note: the book module is not part of the Moodle original installation and must be added by your network administrator. Once added it will appear as a Resource you can add.
Page
This sort of resource makes it easy to develop a complete single web page within Moodle, especially when you are using Moodle's WYSIWYG HTML editor. The page is stored in the database, not as a file, and you have a lot of freedom to do almost anything you like using HTML, including Javascript and embedding content.
Files and URL
This resource type allows you to link to any web page or other file on the public web. It also allows you to link to any web page or other file that you have uploaded into your course files area from your own desktop computer.

Normal web pages are simply displayed in the browser, while multimedia files are dealt with more intelligently and may be embedded within a web page.

For example, MP3 files will be displayed using a built-in streaming player, as will movie files, flash animations, etc.

There are many options for displaying your content in popup windows, framed windows, etc.
Folder
The folder resource can display a whole folder (and its subfolders) from your files area. Students can then browse and view all those folders and files.
IMS Content Packages
IMS content packages can be created and edited using a variety of content-authoring software. Content is usually displayed over several pages, with navigation between the pages. The content-authoring software produces a zip file, which can then be uploaded to your course in Moodle. The zip file is unzipped automatically in Moodle, and the content of the package displayed.
There are various options for displaying content in a popup window, with a navigation menu or buttons, etc.
Labels
Labels are a little different from other resources because they are text and images that are actually embedded directly among the other activity links in the course page.


Available Activity Modules

Moodle contains a wide range of activity modules that can be used to build up any type of course:

Assignments
Assignments allow the teacher to specify a task that requires students to prepare digital content (any format) and submit it by uploading it to the server. Typical assignments include essays, projects, reports, etc. This module includes grading facilities.
Chats
The Chat module allows participants to have a real-time synchronous discussion via the web. This is a useful way to get a different understanding of each other and the topic being discussed - the mode of using a chat room is quite different from the asynchronous forums. The Chat module contains a number of features for managing and reviewing chat discussions.

Choices
A choice activity is very simple - the teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses. It can be useful as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent.

Database Activity
The Database module allows the teacher and/or students to build, display and search a bank of record entries about any conceivable topic. The format and structure of these entries can be almost unlimited, including images, files, URLs, numbers and text amongst other things. You may be familiar with similar technology from building Microsoft Access or Filemaker databases.

Feedback
With this module you can survey your students with a custom survey.

Forums
This activity can be the most important - it is here that most discussion takes place. Forums can be structured in different ways, and can include peer rating of each posting. The postings can be viewed in a variety for formats, and can include attachments. By subscribing to a forum, participants will receive copies of each new posting in their email. A teacher can impose subscription on everyone if they want to.

Glossary
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 teachers 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.

Lesson
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.

Quizzes
This module allows the teacher to design and set quiz tests, consisting of multiple choice, true-false, and short answer questions. These questions are kept in a categorized database, and can be re-used within courses and even between courses. Quizzes can allow multiple attempts. Each attempt is automatically marked, and the teacher can choose whether to give feedback or to show correct answers. This module includes grading facilities.

Wikis
A Wiki enables documents to be authored collectively in a simple markup language using a web browser."Wiki wiki" means "super fast" in the Hawaiian language, and it is the speed of creating and updating pages that is one of the defining aspects of wiki technology. Generally, there is no prior review before modifications are accepted, and most wikis are open to the general public or at least to all persons who also have access to the wiki server.

The Moodle Wiki module enables participants to work together on web pages to add, expand and change the content. Old versions are never deleted and can be restored. There are several levels of access, viewing, and editing that can be set up around a wiki.

This module is based on Erfurt Wiki.

source: moodle.org

Last modified: Thursday, 18 August 2011, 1:12 PM