Designing the learning environment

Learning resources and activities are the most used elements of the learning environment.These are where participants will spend the largest portion of their time, often just passing through the course interface quickly to get to them.

Learning Resources

Information on the different types of learning resources and how to make them available in Moodle is covered in Unit 2: Provide Learning Resources.  It is important to make these obvious and accessible, so that participants do not have to search for them. 1.1 Design the Course Interface in this unit will cover ways to do this.

Learning Activities

Activities are just as critical as the resources. They are what make learning and communication about learning possible. They also make assessment possible. Will the course be highly interactive? Will it require mostly independent work? Will interactions be based on discussions or other collaborative activities? These decisions will help determine which tools and activities are required.

Activities are the topic of Units 3: Provide Opportunities for Dialogue and Reflection, Unit 4: Design Opportunities for Practice, and Unit 5: Design Learning Assessments. You can use Moodle features to create easy access to specific activities or specific types of activities through the use of Blocks and other interface elements. In this unit, see 1.1.3 Using blocks to aid navigation, 1.2.1 Include communication opportunities, and 1.2.2 Provide evaluation information.