Editing content is a key part of creating and maintaining a Moodle course. Only participants enrolled with the role of Instructor, Staging Manager, or Course Content Editor have the ability to modify Moodle courses.
This page is broken into key locations of a Moodle course and some things may only appear if you’ve got the correct course settings enabled.
NOTE: Before making major changes to your course you should backup your course to be restored in case of catastrophe.
Before you can modify anything in your course you will need to turn editing on.
Enter the course.
From the top-right corner of the page, toggle Edit mode into the on position.
Once editing has been turned on, you will see additional icons next to the Blocks, Sections, Activities and Resources that you have in your course.
The central part of the page is where the main content of your course will be. This includes the Sections (weeks or topics) that your course is broken up into, and the resources and activities necessary to complete the course.
Sections in Moodle are the containers for each week/module/topic offered in a course. Sections can be expanded or collapsed to limit scrolling.
Each section has a summary you can modify. You may also choose change the behavior of sections (show/hide) or move sections. When you change the behavior or move sections it affects all the activities and resources inside of the section.
In a new course the first section is titles Course Essentials, and the other section names are the week’s date range determined by the Course start date listed in Course Settings.
If editing is turned on, there will be a link to Add topic or Add week at the bottom of each section.
NOTE: If you add or remove a section when using the Weekly format it will adjust the default section names, and which week is highlighted as this week.
The Edit menu for sections (weeks or topics) appears as three vertical dots in the top-left corner.
You can rename a section by editing the week/topic, but you can also quickly rename a section by clicking the pencil icon at the end of the section’s name.
NOTE: Clicking outside of the text box will close it and not save your changes.
If you want to move a Section (and every one of its activities and resources) to change the order of the topics or resources offered in your course you can:
There are a few ways to add new content to the main part of your course. This may be handy for creating new assignments (file turn-ins), documents like your Syllabus and/or Course Calendar, etc.
At the bottom of every Section you’ll find a link/button to Add activities and resources. Clicking that button will open up a list of your options.
Every Activity and Resource will have an Edit Menu with fairly similar contents, here are some common tasks:
NOTE: If this is done in error check out the Recycle bin link in the Secondary navigation under More at the top of the page)
If you want to move an Activity or Resource to change the order or move an item to a different section even you can:
To quickly rename an item you can click the pencil icon at the end of the item’s name.
While not tied directly to the gradebook these can be used by both student and instructor to track a student’s progress manually, automatically, or even with instructor overrides and can help students quickly tell where they left off in a course.
The block drawer is a column to the right side of your screen. If the block drawer isn’t visible you will need to click the Open Block Drawer button to expand it.
Blocks are mostly supplemental and specialized information found on the right side of pages in Moodle (or below the content on a smaller screen like a mobile device) and are a good place to put helpful resources but not vital-to-the-course information or tasks.
Blocks can be:
Different blocks can have very different functions, here are some common uses:
Enter the course in question
Enable editing from the top-right corner of the page, toggle Edit mode into the On position (if you haven’t already).
Expand the Block drawer (by clicking on the rounded navy button near the top of the right edge of the screen.
The Add a new block button should now show at the very top of the opened Block drawer.
Select the desired block.
The page will reload and you can edit the new block as needed.
If you want to change the behavior or content of a block click the Gear and arrow icon to access block’s Edit menu.
From this menu your most common actions are to:
