Using Moodle

Chapter 7. Assignments and Exercises

Assignments

After looking at the complex and powerful workshop and quiz modules, assignments will be a refreshingly simple method for collecting student work. Assignments are a simple and flexible catch-all for things you want to grade, but don’t fall into any of the other tool types.

The assignment module gives you an easy way to allow students to upload any digital content for grading. You can ask them to submit essays, spreadsheets, presentations, photographs, or small audio or video clips. Anything they can store on their hard drives can be submitted in response to an assignment.

Assignments don’t need to require uploads. You can create offline assignments to remind students of real-world assignments they need to complete. Currently, these “offline” assignments are used to record grades online for activities that don’t have an online component.

Assignments are a simple, useful tool you can use in creative ways to collect more authentic responses from your students than is possible with the quiz engine.

How to Create an Assignment

Compared to some of the other tools we’ve looked at, assignments are easy to create. Basically, you create a description of the assignment and a place for students to upload their responses. There is no special processing or a lot of options.

To create an assignment:

1. Click Turn Editing Mode On.

2. Select Assignment from the Add menu.

3. On the Editing Assignment page, shown in Figure 7-1, give your assignment a meaningful name. ...