Creating a Course in Moodle: A Quick 10-Minute Guide
If you’re looking to set up a course in Moodle in record time, you’re in the right place. In this post, I’ll walk you through how to create a course, set up assignments, quizzes, and configure the gradebook—all in less than 10 minutes. Let’s get started!
1. Create a New Course
First things first: log into Moodle as a course creator. The role allows you to set up and manage your courses. Here’s a quick rundown of the process:
- Navigate to Site Administration and click Manage Courses.
- Click Create Course and enter the course name. For example, let’s call it Introduction to Adobe Animate for Education. Use a short name like Adobe Animate for the URL.
- Set the Start Date to today. You don’t need an end date for this course, so leave that blank.
- Add a Course Summary to provide a brief description. For example, Learn to create animations for education using Adobe Animate, including how to export to your Learning Management System (LMS).
- Upload a Course Image to personalize your course.
- For Course Format, leave it as Topics, which is the default format for Moodle courses.
- Turn on Completion Tracking and Show Activity Completion Conditions. These options will help you keep track of students’ progress.
Once you’re done, click Save and Display, and voila! Your course is created.
2. Add Topics
Next, we’ll add topics to structure the course. In this case, we’ll be creating a course about Adobe Animate, so the topics might look like this:
- Introduction
- Adobe Animate Settings
- Working Through the Project
- Testing Your Animation
- Exporting Your Animations
- Technical Issues
Turn Edit Mode on, then click the pencil icon next to each topic to rename it. For example, rename the first topic to Introduction and continue down the list. Once all topics are added, you can turn off edit mode and your course outline is ready!
3. Add Assessments & Activities
Now, let’s set up the assessments. For this course, we’re adding assignments and a quiz to evaluate student progress.
- Assignment 1: This assignment asks students to complete their version of an Adobe Animate project and upload their Illustrator file for review.
- Set Submission Type to file submissions.
- Choose Adobe Illustrator files (.ai) as the acceptable file type.
- Set the Grade to 100, with a passing grade of 80.
- For Activity Completion, ensure students must submit their work and receive a grade to complete the assignment.
Repeat the same process for the next two assignments:
- Assignment 2: Students upload their drawing and a description of the activity.
- Assignment 3: Students upload a video of their completed animation.
For each assignment, adjust the file type and grade, and set activity completion criteria as necessary.
4. Add a Quiz
Next, create a quiz to assess students’ understanding of Adobe Animate. For this quiz:
- Set the Description to something like Test your knowledge of Adobe Animate.
- Choose the Grade (e.g., 10 points per question, 5 questions total).
- Set Activity Completion to require students to pass the quiz to mark it as complete.
You can add the questions later, but the quiz structure is ready to go!
5. Set Up the Gradebook
Now, it’s time to set up the gradebook. Go to Gradebook Setup and adjust the weighting for each assignment and quiz:
- Assignment 1: 20%
- Assignment 2: 20%
- Assignment 3: 50% (since this is the main assignment where students create their project)
- Quiz: 10%
Ensure the total weight adds up to 100%.
6. Configure Course Completion
Finally, let’s set up the course completion criteria. Go to Course Completion settings, and specify that students must:
- Complete all assignments.
- Pass the quiz.
Once everything is set, save your changes!
Conclusion
And there you have it! In just under 10 minutes, you’ve created a course, added topics, set up assignments and a quiz, and configured the gradebook and course completion settings. Your course is now ready for students to join, and you’re all set to start teaching!
For more tips and Moodle tutorials, check out the courses available at the link below. If you need further assistance or have questions, feel free to reach out!
Happy teaching, and I’ll see you in the next video!
