Blocks

Blocks are page elements that contain various information and can be added in the right column or in the middle of the page („Content“).

Blocks can be added to any Moodle page using the „Add Block“ dropdown menu. To do this, switch the Moodle page to edit mode. Go to „More > +Add Block“ at the bottom left of the page.
Note:Jade University's moodle design only supports blocks on the right side (in your courses) or in the content area (on the Dashboard).

• Activities

are interactive course elements that can be added to any course section via a dropdown menu when the course page is switched to edit mode. The Activities block lists all the activities available in the course (e.g. forums, tests, etc.) as well as the working materials (which usually are not interactive elements). This allows a comfortable, targeted navigation to these course elements. When you start creating a course, you will usually only see the Forum activity - since there is a Forum Announcements activity in the course by default. The more content you provide in the course, the larger the list becomes.

• Current Events

Displays a list of future events. The events displayed can be:

• Appointments that have been entered in the calendar,
• Deadlines of tasks, if they have been stored,
• Availability dates (for example, when the availability of a lesson ends).

• Calendar

This block shows appointments from these four possible categories:

• General appointments (valid site-wide and visible in all course calendars - are entered by the administrator (moodle team)).
• Course dates (only visible for members of the course - entered by the teacher)
• Group dates (only visible for members of the respective group - entered by the teacher)
• Personal appointments (visible only for the individual participant who also enters these appointments)

• New activities

lists what has happened in the course since the last login: new or changed activities, new forum posts, submitted assignments, etc. The „All recent activities“ link at the top of the block can be used to access an overview page with filter functions. Hereby you can selectively display the activities by user, activity or date.

• Text block

With a text block you can place text and images in one block. The entry of a title is optional and can be left empty. This flexible block can fulfill a wide variety of functions and objectives. Thanks to the HTML editor, which is also available here, text can be formatted, images and links can be placed. Likewise, by switching to source code view, any valid HTML code can be used. For example, you could enter office hours or contact options here so that students are informed about your availability.

A complete list of all blocks and functions can be found here:

• docs.moodle.org
• YouTube video on blocks

For some blocks, you can set specific preferences. For a text block, for example, you can enter the title of the block, which will then appear in the header.

You have several options to place and arrange the blocks:

• Normal block placement: Provides information about where the block was originally created.
• Display on these pages: allows you to specify the context in which the block is displayed.
• Default area: the selection „right“ cannot be changed.
• Default weight: This defines where a block appears within the selected column: -10 means at the top, 10 means at the bottom of the column.

• Visible: Yes or No
• Area: the selection „right“ can not be changed.
• Weighting: Here you can override the default weighting for the block for this Moodle page.