Moodle site - basic structure

How does Moodle work?

The Front page of a Moodle site - the page you reach from your browser - usually includes information about the establishment itself and can be highly customised. (Note that it is also possible to lock the front page down so that all a user sees when they click on the Moodle URL is a log in screen.)
How users join a Moodle site depends on the establishment: they might be given logins; they might be allowed to make accounts themselves, or they might be signed in automatically from another system.

Moodle's basic structure is organised around courses. These are basically pages or areas within Moodle where teachers can present their learning resources and activities to students. They can have different layouts but they usually include a number of central sections where materials are displayed and side blocks offering extra features or information.
Courses can contain content for a year's studies, a single session or any other variants depending on the teacher or establishment. They can be used by one teacher or shared by a group of teachers.
How students enrol on courses depends on the establishment; for example they can self-enrol, be enrolled manually by their teacher or automatically by the admin.
Courses are organised into categories. Physics, Chemistry and Biology courses might come under the Science category for instance.

You don't enter Moodle with the "teacher" or "student" role.
Everyone who logs into Moodle has no special privileges until they are allocated roles by the administrator according to their needs in individual courses or contexts.

A logged in user can access areas of Moodle such as their courses or profile from the My courses. What a user sees in these blocks depends on their role and any privileges granted them by the administrator.
Each user has their own customisable Dashboard.