This guide introduces the terminology and processes around adding content - whether interactive activities or static resources - to Moodle in order to create a well-organised and rich learning environment for students.

In our guides, we refer to both 'activities' and 'resources' using the latter term as a catchall for items added using the 'Add an activity or resource' link in each section of the course. Blocks are added from the 'Add a block' link below the left-hand side navigation menu.

You must turn on editing in order to add content.

Activities

An 'activity' is the general name for resources that enable or require interaction by participants. There are more than a dozen types of activities in Moodle.

Assessment activities

There are some activity types - assignment, lesson, quiz - which are particularly suited to Assessment and these have been dealt with separately under assessment and feedback in this guide.

Communication activities

There are a number of activity types - wiki, blog, forum, announcements - that are particularly suited to, and covered in the section dedicated to, communication and collaboration.

Resources

'Resources' are generally static items that a teacher wants the students to read or watch, such as a file, image or link. The links below are some of the more commonly used examples - we also cover the use of these in the introduction to Moodle training course.

Labels, pages and books

Labels are elements used to separate activities and resources. They usually comprise a short amount of text and/or images.

A page resource is the equivalent of a webpage and can contain larger amounts of related text, images, and media.

A book resource is a stack of pages with a table of contents and additional navigation. It can help organise substantial amounts of content.

Files and folders

A file resource is a single item added by dragging and dropping onto the course, or adding through the file picker on the editing toolbar.

A folder resource contains one or more files that can be made available for download as a zip file.

URLs

URLs are used to link to or embed external web resources such as SiteBuilder pages.

Blocks

Please see Structure your course for more information on using blocks.

Blocks are a type of static content, similar to resources. They are used to provide an overview of the course itself or to link to external tools such as lecture capture (Echo 360) and reading lists (Talis Aspire).

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