Note:

If you want to create a new page for developers, you should create it on the Moodle Developer Resource site.

Adding blocks to lesson

From MoodleDocs
Revision as of 03:54, 22 December 2006 by Mark Nielsen (talk | contribs)

The lesson module lends itself well to blocks. It already has a three column format same as a course format. Also, via the lesson settings, one can add a left menu, a timer or a link to a media file. All of these are displayed in the left or the right column, are static and are block like. In order to add greater flexibility to the lesson and to reduce the number of lesson settings, which are numerous, block functionality should be added to lesson.

Lesson blocks

Lesson features that would be extracted from lesson and placed into blocks would be the following:

  • Left menu (block name lesson_menu)
  • Media file (block name lesson_media_file)
  • Timer (block name lesson_clock)

The settings for these features would be removed from lesson and would be handled by the block configuration interface. Also these features, as blocks, could be more easily expanded. For example:

  • lesson_menu could be configurable to include any lesson page or branch table (often requested).
  • lesson_media_file could be configurable to display the media file via a pop-up or embedded into the lesson page.
  • lesson_clock could be configurable to be a count down timer or as a clock that displays how long a user has been in a lesson (has been requested).

Other blocks

By adding block functionality to lesson, other blocks become available to lesson. Some blocks would not make sense in a lesson like the admin block. To handle this, lesson would have a global configuration that could disable blocks from being added to a lesson. This will help to reduce confusion for lesson authors.

Sticky blocks

Sticky blocks could be used to force a block to appear on every lesson page. Then non-sticky blocks would only appear on specific lesson pages. This would allow one to add a sticky block like lesson_menu to all pages and add another block like the HTML block that would only appear on a single page.

The possibility of using sticky blocks is still fuzzy. It could prove to be difficult to design an interface that works well with the current block API. If a clean implementation of sticky blocks cannot be found, then all blocks would behave like sticky blocks. Meaning, all pages would have the same blocks.

Conclusion

Blocks seem to suit lesson well. Here are a few key points:

  • Lesson would have a more customizable layout.
  • Lesson can take advantage of an existing Moodle feature.
  • Moodle users can create their own blocks to plug into lesson.
  • The number of lesson settings can be reduced.
  • More functionality can be added to existing lesson features.

Author

Mark Nielsen