Moodle activity plugins review

Which plugin activities do you use, and why?

Moodle has lots of plugins. Lots. It’s getting on towards 2,000! Albeit some of those are for older Moodle versions now. Still, it’s a lot. One of the most popular family of plugins are of course activities, which extend the functionality of Moodle, by providing a new activity for teachers or learners. So what are the most downloaded activity plugins? Take a look at the chart below:

What does this tell us?

• Interactive Content (H5P) is by far the most popular activity plugin, and part of the reason Moodle integrated H5P into core from version 3.8
• Custom Certificate is next – illustrating how many sites need to issue a certificate at the end of a course
  • Note that the newer ‘Certificate’ module is further down the list, but these two are likely to cross over during the coming years
• Attendance – very popular, maybe with schools?
• Big Blue Button – the video-conferencing / webinar solution
• Questionnaire – like a greatly expanded Feedback activity

What does this tell us?

• H5P should be integrated into Moodle – no questions asked
• Moodle should have a Certificate module as standard
• Moodle should have an Attendance module (maybe with a simple on/off switch so those who don’t need it won’t see it)
• Questionnaire should be included in core – or the functionality incorporated into Feedback. But I’ve beed saying this for years, and Moodle HQ have a very big blind spot here.

I don’t think Big Blue Button should be in core, although it is a standard part of MoodleCloud now. Zoom has many advantages. And there are numerous other options too. It’s probably best if Moodle core simply continues to make it easy to integrate whichever video-conference system you want to choose.

What activities does your site have, and why?

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• About
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Stuart Mealor

Managing Director at HRDNZ

Stuart is interested in all things e-learning, with specific interests in Moodle, e-learning strategy, and business development.His experience in education over 30 years, MBA in International Business, and knowledge of e-learning systems implementation, together with graphic design background, give him a unique skill set for e-learning projects.

Latest posts by Stuart Mealor (see all)

• H5P periodic table – 8th September 2023
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• Moodle 4.0 other highlights – 14th May 2022