Moodle® For Dummies®

Course-Building Checklist

I spent some time in the first part of this chapter discussing how important it is to not compromise your learning strategies, expertise, and experience to fit into the new medium of Moodle. A better approach is to use the Moodle modules to enhance your teaching. Moodle is built on pedagogical principles, and the freedom it gives you should not hinder in any way what you and your learners are trying to achieve — it should help support your goals. I outline a number of techniques and strategies for you to consider when you start building your Moodle course.

Some of the methods and strategies in this checklist are very basic and no doubt are part of your syllabus. Your syllabus is a good starting point — use it to think about how you can add to the units/weeks by using the various modules (such as forum discussions, wikis, quizzes, linking to resources, and so on) to enhance and support what you're trying to achieve.

One cool thing about Moodle is that you can quickly make changes and alterations based on your learners' needs. If you have a group that is more advanced, or has come to your course with skills you were not aware of, you can quickly alter your strategy to make your course more challenging. If the group needs more hand-holding and explanations, you can link to supplementary exercises, upload extra work, and rework the online syllabus in few short steps.

Here are a number of techniques and strategies to consider before you start building your ...