After working on hundreds of LMS projects, our LMS experts know exactly what features benefit course creators the most. While some of these features might not always be available by default on all LMS platforms, they often can be added through add-ons or customization. In this case, we’ll be taking a look at the best additional features you can add to your Moodle site using Moodle plugins to supercharge your online courses.
What is a Moodle Plugin?
While Moodle comes with many functionalities built-in in its core, it is possible to expand its capabilities by installing additional plugins. Plugins can be found in the official Moodle plugin directory and provide you with the necessary tools to customize the platform. Plugins give you access to additional features and options for building Moodle online courses.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s jump straight into the recommendations. Here are the best Moodle plugins to add to your eLearning site.
Content Authoring and Course Design Plugins
Interactive Content – H5P
H5P is one of the most popular content authoring tools allowing educators to create interactive pieces of HTML5 content for their courses. Games, image hot spots, branching scenarios, arithmetic quizzes, and dictation exercises are just among a few of the content types you can create using this tool.
H5P integrates with a variety of LMS systems including those running on WordPress sites and Moodle. If you are interested in adding H5P content to your Moodle courses, then the Interactive Content – H5P Moodle plugin is a must.
This free plugin allows you to add all H5P activities and content types to your course pages, helping you build richer courses.
Custom Certificate
Course certificates are an essential element in any online course since they act as major motivators to drive students to complete a course. While course certificates are not a default feature on Moodle, you can easily start offering them on your site using the Custom Certificate plugin. The plugin is free and works by automatically generating dynamic PDF certificates for your courses.
Content Pages
Online courses are in very simple terms made up of several pages of content. These pages can include video lessons, written resources, media, quizzes, and much more. The Content Pages plugin provides instructors with an easy-to-use tool for adding new course pages. Pages can be bookmarked and each has a section for student comments and can be enhanced with questions about the information on the page.
Interactivity and Social Learning Plugins
Face-to-face
If you practice blended learning or run a hybrid classroom, with online and offline components, the face-to-face plugin is essential for your Moodle site. This plugin allows you to track attendance for in-person or classroom-based sessions. Additionally, the plugin aids in management by sending student reminders about scheduled events and confirmation messages for session attendance sign-ups.
Zoom Meeting
Zoom is one of the most popular web conferencing tools today. As is, it is often used by educators for offering live sessions to their students. Since social interaction is a major component of the learning experience, offering live sessions, tutoring or conferences through this plugin can help you instantly elevate your online course.
The Zoom Meeting plugin will help you easily do this by integrating your Moodle site with Zoom, aiding in webinar creation, creating backups of live sessions, and grading attendance on zoom meetings.
Global Chat
Further contributing to the concept of social learning and student collaboration we find the Global Chat plugin for Moodle. This tool allows you to add a chat window on your eLearning site that teachers and students can use to communicate in real-time. The window is accessible from any page on the site, meaning students won’t have to browse away from their course content and activities in order to ask questions or share comments with their peers.
Quiz, Activity, and Gamification
JazzQuiz
If you are running a hybrid classroom, with online and offline elements, the Jazz Quiz plugin is a must. This tool allows you to deliver online quizzes in a real-life classroom environment. During the lesson, the teacher can manually start a quiz containing varied question types which students can connect to from their own devices. Instructors have total control of the pace of a quiz as each question can end automatically or be manually ended by the teacher supervising the evaluation. Furthermore, once the quiz is over teachers have access to each student’s individual question answers.
Game Activity Module
The more fun your courses are, the more engaged your students will be and the more motivated they will feel to continue learning. This is why if you want to boost interactivity and keep your students interested in learning, there’s no better option than the Game Activity Module plugin. This Moodle plugin allows you to work games right into your online courses. Using course questions, quizzes, and glossary terms, the plugin generates interactive games such as hangman, crosswords, snakes and ladders, and sudoku.
Level Up!
E-learning gamification is the process of using game-like elements in an online course in order to increase student engagement and improve the learning experience. When it comes to moodle, Level Up! is one of the best tools available for online course gamification.
The plugin includes a wide set of features such as:
- Allowing students to earn points by completing certain activities
- Rank students in different levels according to the number of points they have earned
- Display student rankings in leaderboards and track student progress towards reaching the next levels
- Unlock content when new levels are reached
Web Design
Edwiser Course Formats
If you want to revamp the way your students experience your courses on the front end, the Edwiser Course Formats is an excellent tool to consider. This plugin gives course creators access to two different course layouts: list and card format. The Card Format displays course sections and activities as stacked cards on a course page. On the other hand, the list format is more minimal and simply displays activities in list form.
Additionally, this plugin is compatible with a wide variety of Moodle themes, including the Edwiser RemUI theme.
Socialwall Format
If you’d like to implement social features into your Moodle courses and give your site a different look at the same time, the Socialwall Format plugin is the way to go. Essentially, this plugin transforms your site into a social platform featuring a set of posts displayed on a timeline.
You can easily attach activities, files, and URLs to your posts. Teachers and students can also interact directly with the posts by leaving a comment and replying to others’ comments. Additionally, students can view their course results and read feedback on their assignments directly on their timeline
Management
Configurable Reports
If you are looking for the best way to gather and process admin data for your eLearning site, this is it. The Configurable Reports plugin allows you to generate reports using data filtered by course, category, or user. You can also generate Custom SQL Reports with custom SQL queries. Furthermore, you’ll have total control over which users can access and view your reports.
Edwiser Reports
If Moodle reporting is too complicated for you and you’re tired of creating and collating several scattered reports using multiple different Moodle plugins; you can explore Edwiser Reports. It’s an easy-to-use dashboard-based visual reporting plugin for Moodle. It comes with over 10 readymade reports integrated into a single place for you to capture actionable insights in minutes, the way you want. You can easily get a quick overview or drill down to specific reports to understand user behavior and make improvements to your courses. It also lets you monitor learner engagement & progress, create custom reports without SQL knowledge, automatically schedule key reports to your mailbox, and much more.
Conclusion
One of the best things about Moodle is the platform’s flexibility. You can easily tailor your courses to your preferences and needs using Moodle plugins like the ones above. The list above includes varied options providing educators with useful additional features for many types of online courses. If you need personal plugin stack recommendations for your specific online course, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team of Moodle experts. We’d be happy to look into your specific requirements and help you select the ideal set of tools to build your e-learning site.
