E-Learning-Inclusivo (Mashup)

"We all know activity on the Internet on a daily basis moves at lightening speed, but there's something about having the numbers in front of you that makes it just a little bit more fascinating ..."

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Not many Moodlers use the Lesson Activity in Moodle.  Mostly because it’s neither a brilliant quiz engine nor a replacement for the book module.  But when you combine both these elements and spend a bit of time on the design you can create engaging, interactive learning packages that can stand their own against popular content creation tools, and best of all, it’s authored natively in Moodle.

 Let’s look at the benefits/features of using the lesson module:

* Include a file popup – such as a supporting word doc or PDF, similar to what Storyline lets you do with resources
* Display a progress bar (which by the way can be styled to high heaven with CSS to look funky with gradients)
* Display an on-going score to learners so they can see their grade
* Can be set to work like a slideshow/stage with fixed height so it feels more like a Powerpoint or SCORM package
* Can be a timed activity
* Can be password protected
* Availability can be based upon completing a previous lesson – very powerful feature
* Availability can also be based upon the time spent on a previous lesson – perfect for Online Guided Learning Hours (UK requirement)
* Allows for multiple attempts and limited retries (fully configurable)
* In-built quiz with multiple question types
* Ability to import questions from other platforms
* Branching and clustering – allows for random quiz slides
* Workflows and pathways – learners can see different slides depending on the answers to a question – can be made interactive and personal.
* Can be linked to outcomes for improved reporting
* Has its own reporting tools
* Links with the Moodle gradebook

The dataform module is a major enhancement of the standard Database activity module and is meant to offer all the functionality offered by the Database module and much more in a more flexible way.

The module allows the course manager to design and construct an entry form from various input elements (text and rich text fields, urls, files, pictures, etc.) in a flexible layout. Users can then add information records to a collection, which can be viewed in various ways and searched for particular items.

The dataform features include (among other things):

- A multiple views system - allows the instructor to design several different views of the entries in a datform activity. Each view can show a designated subset of the entries in a designated layout.
- Enhanced template tags - A new template tags system allows for exposing many more bits of information and makes it easy to add designated patterns in new field and view types.
- Enhanced entry actions - Bulk edit, duplicate, delete, approve etc. Inline editing. Form editing options such as required fields (via Moodle forms).
- New packaging system - based on Moodle backup/restore and allows for packaing a dataform instance and restoring into an existing instance.
- Enhanced filtering system - allows the instructor to define different filters each of which can determine sort (including nested sort) and search options (various search criteria). Filters can be fixed to particular views or applied on the file from the activity main page (if included in the view template).

New view/field types include (among others):

- Tabular view - a view type which allows for displaying the entries in a table. The design of the entries table has been simplified to drawing the desired table with optional header row and an entry row in the moodle editor.
- Nanogong field - a field type for adding audio content to an entry via the nanogong applet.
- Calculated field - a field type which can display a result of a simple calculation on one or two number fields in the entry.