The Lesson Tool

The lesson tool is a series of webpages containing anything from text, images, media, links, etc. that requires students to navigate either in a linear or branched fashion to answer/engage in content, questions or activities. This is perhaps one of the best but also one of the least used tools in Wattle (Moodle) that deserves to be explored and showcased.

There are reasons why these are not used frequently but we will give the most common:

It takes time and planning to create – Yes this is not one of those tools you can just jump in and create something for your course on the spur of the moment. The Lesson tool requires planning as the branching nature of the activities need to be constructed logically.
Needs to be fully tested before being offered to students as there are a number of things that can go wrong if not created well. So definitely not an activity to be devised, created and deployed quickly.
It is a complex activity that needs to be embedded in an assessment structure that encourages students to use adaptive style learning.

So, if you are looking for a great way to produce activities that are engaging, require decision-making, taking a side, scaffolding knowledge, etc. the Lesson Tool activity is worth the time it takes to be created appropriately.

Lesson “how to”

There are many good videos and sites that can show how to use and create course materials using the Lesson Tool, the following are some of the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hXNSqEbjwE (full tutorial)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlZRVGxqkW8&feature=emb_title (great video about the Lesson Tool)
https://www.ispringsolutions.com/blog/how-to-create-a-course-in-moodle (step by step instructions)
https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/Lesson_FAQ (great FAQ page and examples)
https://docs.moodle.org/20/en/Lesson_samples (this is an old version but still useful to see a range of ways to use the Lesson Tool)