Hello Moodle enthusiasts! Chris here, and today we’re diving into something truly exciting: Moodle 5.0 and its new, integrated Artificial Intelligence features. While not a full-blown AI system from the get-go, Moodle 5.0 introduces core AI capabilities that allow for greater flexibility and intelligent assistance within your courses.
I’m keen to hear your thoughts on these new additions, but first, let’s take a quick tour to see how they work.
Setting Up AI in Moodle 5.0
For this demonstration, I’m running Moodle 5.0 locally on a laptop, with a local AI API (TinyLlama) installed for testing. Normally, you’d connect Moodle to an external API like ChatGPT.
Here’s a quick overview of the setup:
- Site Administration: The new AI features are seamlessly integrated into the site administration area. This is where you configure your AI connection.
- AI Placements: Within the AI settings, you can define “AI Placements.” For this demo, I’ve selected “Course Assistance” and “Text Editor.” These placements determine where the AI functionality will be available.
AI in Action: Course Assistance
Let’s jump into a course. (By the way, if you like the theme, it’s Edwiser’s Remui – a fantastic, professional theme with great front-end functionality. You can find a link below if you’re interested!)
Edwiser REMUI – https://ricoshae.com.au/edwiser-239i
On a sample page, you’ll immediately notice new AI features:
- Summarize: This option generates a concise summary of the page’s content. As you can see, it rephrases and condenses the information effectively, providing a quicker overview for students.
- Explain: The “Explain” feature generates an explanation of the page content. This is incredibly useful for students who might be confused or need a different perspective on the material. It provides a reinterpretation of the content, which can aid understanding. Both the summary and explanation can be regenerated and copied for easy use.
AI in Action: Text Editor Integration
Beyond course content, AI is also integrated into the text editor, allowing for on-the-fly content generation.
If you navigate to the description area within the settings of an activity and select “Insert,” you’ll find an “AI generated text” option. Here, you can input a prompt, and the AI will generate text based on your request.
For example, I prompted it to “explain what different styles of music are,” and it quickly generated a helpful overview of various music genres. This generated text can then be directly inserted into your page, saving you time and effort in content creation.
Your Thoughts on Moodle 5.0’s AI?
That’s a brief look at Moodle 5.0’s new AI features. I’m genuinely interested to hear what you think. Are these great features? What other AI capabilities would you like to see added? Your feedback is invaluable as Moodle continues to evolve.
If you’re interested in learning more about Moodle and how to leverage its features for teaching or content creation, be sure to check out the links below for my courses.
See you in the next one!