Moodle 2 allows you to restrict the availability of
activities until certain conditions are met. These are called conditional
activities. For example, you may restrict all of the content and
activities in a particular module until a certain grade is earned on the quiz
in a previous module.
Conditional activities are a way for you to force your
students to work through things in a particular order. It is certainly
good course design to make it clear to your students what they are expected to
do next, but do you need to force? Malcolm Knowles and his principles of
andragogy would tell us that adult learners like to be in control of their own
learning. So, should you use labels and layout, rather than locks and
keys, to suggest the best learning path? Something to think about,
eh? Here are some suggestions for when the use of conditional activities
might be appropriate:
- The idea of restricting access to something
until another task has been completed happens to nicely mirror the level
structure present in many games. You could venture into games-based
learning. Just a thought for those who are creative in that way…
- Conditional activities are good to use when one
week/module builds on the next. If you need to lead the horse to water AND
make him/her drink, a conditional activity might be just what you are looking
for. Suppose you need the students to choose a group for an activity.
You can create a “Choice” activity and then make access to that week’s graded
discussion forum dependent upon the completion of the “Choice” activity.
- If you want to be sure that students have read
content before posting in the discussion forums or before taking a quiz, you
can set up the forums or the quiz so that the PDFs/URLs (i.e. electronic
reading material) must be opened before the activities become available.
This way, the students can’t discuss material that they have never even opened!
-Facilitating self-directed learning is perhaps
where conditional activities are the most powerful. They allow you to
automate several paths through content. Conditional activities make it
simple to offer both extension and remedial activities to students simultaneously.
For instance, you might have a practice quiz set up so that students who
achieve above a certain score are directed to further exploration activities
whereas those who achieve below a certain score are given access to some help
resources.
Watch this video to learn how to set up conditional activities in your Moodle course:
