LM | Glossary

In Moodle terminology, Activities, such as Forums or Quizzes, mean something students can contribute to directly, and are often contrasted to Resources such as video URLs or Files, which are presented by the teacher to the student. It is possible that the terms activities and resources can be used interchangeably or one can refer to both.

The Classroom is the name we have given our course's online space within Moodle. When you are in the Classroom for a particular course, you are in the online Moodle space for that course.

The Dashboard is a personalized page within Moodle that organizes a user's courses and upcoming deadlines. The Dashboard shows up as a link within the User Menu as well as in the Navigation block in the Classroom.

An Exercise is an activity within a lesson that includes questions to answer or reflect on. In our courses, most exercises are files that you can view from your browser or download and print. Other exercises might ask that you post a response to a question in a discussion forum within the module.

A Forum is an activity that allows students and teachers to post comments as part of a thread. There are several different types of forums within Moodle, the most common forums we will use include the news forum, Q&A forum, and discussion forum. Your instructor may ask you to respond to a question or comment in a discussion forum as part of a lesson exercise.

*Keep in mind that posts made in a forum are visible to all course participants. Do not use a forum for private conversations.  

A Lesson is a group of resources and activities organized by the instructor on a similar topic. A lesson is a smaller subset of a module.

Messages or Messaging is the name given to the private communication feature within Moodle. It can be used to send a private message to a classmate, instructor, or small group of people within a class. Messages should not be confused with forum posts.

Your user Profile contains information about you from your email address and interests and privacy settings. To view or edit your profile information, click your name to access the User Menu in the upper right corner of any Moodle page.