The built-in Moodle editor isn’t the only tool for creating lessons and courses for Moodle. You can also use the iSpring Suite toolkit, a powerful PowerPoint add-in that empowers you to build interactive courses and assessments for Moodle quickly in a familiar environment.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create a course in iSpring Suite step by step. You can
download a free iSpring Suite trial to put theory into practice right away.
Step 1: Create Info Slides
Create a new PowerPoint presentation. You don’t need to use any additional functions so far; just create enough slides as you usually do and fill them with information.
You can set custom backgrounds for slides to make them more informative and attractive. Go to the Design tab and click Format Background. Choose Picture or texture fill in the right pane and then select an image you’d like to use from your computer. For the cover page of the Solar System lesson, we used a photo with stars.
Step 2: Add Quiz Questions
There are 14 types of tasks in iSpring Suite. Go to the iSpring Suite tab and click the Quiz icon to launch QuizMaker.
In the new window, choose Graded Quiz.
The first test question in the lesson is multiple choice. Click Question in the upper left corner of the ribbon and choose the necessary question type. If you take a look at the different preview icons in the drop-down list, you’ll get an idea of how each question will look on the slide.
iSpring QuizMaker has an interface similar to that of Microsoft Word, so it’s easy to work with text. Fill in the Question, Choices, and Feedback fields. Then go to the Quiz Results section in the left pane.
In Quiz Results, enter custom feedback for learners who pass or fail and uncheck all the boxes, and then save specifying Allow user to retry quiz (for the Failed tab) in the Result Slide Options to the right. In our sample, we don’t need to show the user’s score or set a passing score, so we’ll leave only one button, Retry, on the Results slide. You can experiment with different configurations and click Preview on the ribbon to see what it will look like.
Let’s add three more questions. To make the lesson more interactive, let’s use some question types that aren’t present in the Moodle editor.
Sequence question. You can ask learners to choose not only one response but organise options — planets, in our case — in the correct order.
Drag-and-Drop question. For example, you need to check how well students know which planets are terrestrial. The drag-and-drop feature turns an ordinary question into a game in which the learners can select different planets and drag them to the Sun.
Hotspot question. In hotspot questions, students need to mark one or more objects, which is much more engaging than answering standard questions.
When creating questions, you can also check how they look in the Slide View and customise fonts, text size, and objects, and insert images.
Step 3: Publish to Moodle
When the lesson is ready, you can see what the content looks like on different devices in the Preview mode and then click Publish on the ribbon.
In the pop-up menu, select the LMS tab. Select a folder on your desktop where iSpring Suite will save the lesson. Choose SCORM 1.2, the format Moodle recognises, under LMS Profile. Then, click Publish and the archive with the quiz will appear in the specified folder.
Upload the course to Moodle, and that’s it!
A Special Offer for MootIEUK Attendants
Get iSpring Suite Max and a video course “How to Create an Interactive Online Course” at 15% off. Learn more about this offer on our website.
iSpring Suite Max is the best plan for educators that empowers you to create courses, quizzes, video lectures, educational games, interactive articles, and much more — quickly and easily.
It comes with an extensive library of ready-made slide templates, characters, and backgrounds. And there’s an online storage space for all your educational materials that you can also use to share courses with your students.
The video course “How to Create an Interactive Online Course” will teach you how to use iSpring Suite like a pro, provide you with all the theory and models needed to teach students online, and will give you the opportunity to put theory into practice and receive detailed feedback from an experienced online education specialist.
Check this and other special iSpring offers for MootIEUK attendants here.