Moodle plugin of the month – Word count
If you have assignments that have a word limit, then the Word Count plugin may be just what you need.
Word count is a plugin for the Atto text editor – the default editor used to create content within Moodle. This plugin enables students to check how many words (and letters) are in a piece of text.
When configured an additional icon appears in the Atto editor. Note that the icon must be enabled by an administrator by adding to the toolbar configuration. This is found in:
Site administration > Plugins >Text editors > Atto HTML editor >Toolbar settings
When students type text into the Atto editor, for example in an forum post, blog entry, assignment, or essay quiz question, they can click the word count icon and a pop up will show how many words they have entered. The number of letter is also displayed, although this seems much less useful.
This can be really helpful when student need to type a certain number of words for an assignment – it could be a minimum, or a maximum – either way they will know how they are doing 🙂
Word count for Atto is a contributed plugin which must be installed by an administrator. The main plugin page is:Â https://moodle.org/plugins/atto_count
It’s worth noting that the plugin has been developed and maintained since Moodle 2.7 and is part of the MoodleCloud plugins set, so it’s expected to be available long term.
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