I recently wrote a blog post listing some of the best Moodle modules & plugins. After reading a chapter in the book, Moodle Administration, about 3rd party add-ons and hearing your own suggestions I decided to write a little more on the topic.
List of “popular add-ons” from the book, Moodle Administration (minus the ones mentioned in my earlier post):
Recommendations from users:
Source: maberdour (Twitter)
Activity Module: Face-to-face
Description: Face-to-face activities are used to keep track of in-person (e.g. classroom) trainings which require advance booking.Each activity is offered in one or more identical sessions. These sessions can be given over multiple days.
Reminder messages are sent to users and their managers a few days before the session is scheduled to start. Confirmation messages are sent when users sign-up for a session or cancel.
This module may be of interest to administrators looking for a way to provide event management support for blended learning environments.
Activity Module: Feedback
Description: The Feedback module allows users to create and conduct surveys to collect feedback. The Feedback module is planned to be included in Moodle 2.0. As a result, the link to the Download latest version has been removed.
Documentation
Discussion
Source: Awyatt (Twitter / web site)
Activity Module: Attendance
Description: Module and block for not automatically marks attendance. Distributing as package of module and block. Main part is module, block is optional.
Documentation
Discussion
Activity Module: Course Menu
Description: A tree based expanding menu block with option to include links to the Gradebook, Calendar, Blog Menu and Messages blocks.
Interesting & Others:
(via @moodleman) Accessibility Block (modified)
Block: Administration Alert
Description: This block alerts the administration about things that can be wrong in Moodle site. (read more)
I quickly tested this block out on a past development site. It gives administrators alerts in a block about various information on the Moodle site. I do not have this block installed on our current production server for our site but I plan to install it soon.
Documentation
Discussion
Block: Trouble ticket
Description: The trouble ticket block was developed to provide Moodle users with a simple way to notify Moodle site administrators of a problem with the site or a specific module or block. The trouble ticket block allows Teachers to add multiple types of trouble tickets to a page as either a link or a button. Each Trouble ticket can be configured with a specific email to send the notification to as well as a custom response to the user.
I have not tested this block out, but it’s one that is on my list to try. Instead of sending emails, this seems like a good system to allow users who are having issues contact the correct person.
Discussion
Other Module & Plug-in information:
Cool tip! Visit: http://download.moodle.org/stats.php – See the top 50 plug-ins downloaded in the last 60 days (scroll down to the “plug-ins” section).
Cool tip! Note that there is a “rating system” for add-ons. On each individual add-on page there is a rating. But be aware that just because that rating is high (or low) does not mean it is good (or bad) necessarily. To determine whether or not an add-on is trustworthy check for ratings, documentation, support and discussions about the add-on.
As you can tell, I have not personally used each and every listed add-on. Some I’ve tested, some I’ve researched and some have been recommend from others. I plan to install and test drive a lot of the previously mentioned add-ons on my own development site. Later on I will write about my experiences in doing so.
If you have any experience with certain Moodle add-ons (positive or negative) please comment below.
Related Links:
Best Moodle modules & plugins (my first post about modules & plugins)
Moodle Administration book (Some of the above information and suggestions were taken from this great book!)
Contributed modules and plugins forum (Forum)
Installing contributed modules or plugins (Documentation)
Development:Guidelines for contributed code (Documentation)
Modules and Plugins Database – an improved rating system? (Discussion thread)
