Chapter 2.  Instructional Material

Deciding what you'll put in your course can be one of the most rewarding aspects of course development. Because Moodle has so many options, you'll enjoy flexibility and also ease of use. With Moodle, you'll be able to incorporate a wide range of instructional materials and applications, all of which can help you expand the ways in which you can engage your students and encourage them to interact with each other. You'll be able to include videos, audio files, presentations, and animations in addition to documents and graphics.

Another benefit of using Moodle is the simplicity of a forum-based structure that allows you to keep your ultimate goals in mind and to clearly match the materials with your outcomes. Once you've selected your instructional materials, Moodle makes it very easy for you to get started and create a structure that flows nicely from topic to topic and facilitates the teaching and the learning process.

This chapter offers you solutions for selecting and organizing your course materials so that you're always focused on learning objectives, course outcomes, dynamic student engagement, and strong student performance. The first section in this chapter focuses on the best ways to select and organize your course material. The later sections focuses on developing and managing a framework for your materials by employing forums.