Course sections
Course section settings
There are several different section formats available in a course. Selecting and changing formats is done in the course settings menu, with the format pulldown field.
The example on the left shows the section format choices in Version 1.6.
Earlier versions have fewer selections.
Weekly format
Choosing weeks from the format selection menu, will automatically fill in the dates, starting with whatever date you specify as your first day for the course, and incrementing each week by seven days thereafter. So if you start your course on Wednesday, each week will run from Wednesday to Tuesday. You may wish to start the week on Sunday or Monday prior to the actual first day of class, so that weeks will reflect the actual work/study week of your lesson (if applicable).
Topics format
Formatting course sections with topics lends itself to rolling enrollment, or courses whose duration changes often, or where sequence is less important (though these are only suggestions). Often teachers will think about their course in terms of "modules" so topics work well - one topic per module.
Remember that it is possible to have many activities and resources in any given section.
Editing sections
File:Section icons editmode.JPG
Here is a topic section "1" as seen by the teacher in edit mode. The topic does not have a title but does have a course called "New Lesson Topic 1". For help with understanding the icons go to Teacher_documentation#Editing_A_Course.
In edit mode, sections can be moved, hidden from students, highlighted or turned on, plus given titles and descriptions. Also in edit mode it is possible to do many things to a sections activity or resource.
Hiding sections
Note that sections can be easily hidden using the eyeball icon. There is a course setting that specifies whether or not these hidden sections are entirely invisible to student/participants, or just show as a horizontal block that says it is unavailable. Such sections will always be full available (greyed out though) to teacher/administrators of the course.
In Version 1.6 some activities such as Lessons, can be hidden with conditional dependency which in lesson setting. There are also non-standard addin features such as activity locking which will reveal an activity or a section only when the student has completed other activities.
A small hack: If you want to have a super-short course that is JUST the top with no section blocks, note that you must have at least one section. The solution is to have one, then make it invisible, and in your settings full hide hidden blocks. Now you have a "one main area" course.
See also
- Using Moodle Removing topics/blocks from courses forum discussion
