Plugins are the lifeblood of Moodle because they contribute to the usability, efficiency, and functionality of the platform. It’s impossible to name one undisputed winner, but here are our picks for some of the best game-changing Moodle plugins available.
1. HotPot
Innovative and convenient, HotPot systematically observes the statistical trends of student scores achieved in tests. In a nutshell, it’s a powerfully insightful tool that allows teachers to administer Hot Potatoes and TexToys quizzes via Moodle and view the results in innovative ways.
HotPot also functions as an activity module that allows teachers to create and upload quizzes from Hot Potatoes and TexToys via Moodle. HotPot gives the educator access to a plethora of reports and analytics to show how answers were determined and presents statistical trends generated from student quiz scores. The statistics that HotPot generates help teachers easily identify which teaching techniques contribute to greater student success and which subjects and teaching methodologies require additional attention.
2. H5P
The biggest single factor that gets H5P on this list is the elimination of development coding for users. This incredible ease of use is solely responsible for a progressive injection of creativity into learning strategies — plus, it’s free.
H5P specializes in Creating and adding rich, interactive content and tools for eLearning videos that help keep students and users engaged and captivated. Teachers can easily create interactive videos, quizzes, and Collages - and it also allows for the sharing and reuse of content. Notably, recycled and reused content can be translated into different languages or adjusted to address a new situation or topic, making it highly adaptable and inclusive.
Lambda offers a live webinar focusing on creative tools within H5P for both Moodle and Totara platforms that work to empower educators, administrators, and managers to accelerate and improve their content creation skills. We’ll demonstrate how H5P enables access to different interactive content types and how it allows users to share and reuse content by downloading the H5P plugin, making desired changes, translating copy to a new language or adjusting it for a new situation, and publishing it to boost engagement and interactivity that’s a welcome addition for students and trainees.
WATCH our webinar on How to Easily Create Interactive Content in Your LMS
3. MEDIAL
A storage solution for unique creative teaching content, MEDIAL is a learner engagement-centric media library and a video streaming software plugin application that allows teachers and instructors the ability to link to a specific video or audio file on a Moodle course page.
By enabling this linkage, teachers and students can create and respond to given video assignments that are uploaded, stored, and entered into MEDIAL’s database rather than Moodle itself for easy accessibility.
4. BigBlueButton
Share slides, audio, video, chat, desktops, and textually-based visuals whiteboard with this clever, standalone plugin. BigBlueButton can be combined entirely with Moodle and allows instructors to deliver and present live web conferencing sessions and to record all sessions to provide a hard copy of learning for future use.
The live chalkboard feature is a teacher/student favourite, enabling users to visually explain and direct core subject matter to their peers and colleagues. Being able to graphically direct subjects helps make difficult or confusing subjects easier to understand, and further, this innovative feature allows viewers the ability to make notes while watching a presentation.
5. Zoola Analytics
Zoola Analytics is a proprietary eLearning analytics solution developed by Lambda Solutions - but it’s also much more than a plug-in - it’s a report generator that streamlines organizational workflows to assist in making tough decisions easier to make with the presence of good, thorough data.
Zoola Analytics is an LMS reporting and analytics system that allows its users to access real-time learning data to better communicate the value of eLearning and gain control of valuable information provided by students, trainees, or other administrators and/or teachers. Zoola allows users to build out custom reports to better utilize insights gained from this collected data. Further to data collection, Zoola automates internal workflows to optimize decision-making processes.
The global Moodle community is the heart and soul of the learning platform’s success. Hundreds, if not thousands, of innovative and useful plugins are backed up and developed by legions of loyal Moodle users, helping to elevate Moodle to new heights time and time again. These 5 game-changers are incredible sources of creativity, efficiency, privacy, and increased organization.
Looking For More Plugins? Here: The Complete Guide To The Top 20 Moodle & Totara Learn Plugins
Other resources you might be interested in:
- Blog Post: Top 5 Moodle Plugins to Boost Your Online Training Productivity
- Blog Post: Top 5 Benefits of Online Learning for Teachers
- Webinar: How to Easily Create Interactive Content in Your LMS 2.0
