Not so much a "tip"' more of a collating of ideas, really. Hopefully people will comment with how Moodle is used for essay writing in their own organisations and we can gather some good suggestions. So - in standard Moodle - what are the different ways students can write and submit essays, and what are the pros and cons of each?
Typing essays directly into Moodle
By selecting 'Online text' in the submission types of an assignment, it is possible to allow students to use Moodle's text editor to type and submit their essay. See Using assignment
Plus points:
- For shorter essays (no more than a few hundred words) it is easier for the student to type directly into Moodle than set up, write and upload a word-processed document.
- There are no issues with compatibility of word-processing software programs on either the students' or the teacher's side.
- (Since 2.6) teachers can add comments on the original text of the student essay, similar to writing on paper.
- (SInce 2.7) teachers can impose a word limit on the essay and students get a warning message if they exceed it.
- (Since 2.8) text entered is automatically saved at regular intervals so students don't suffer if there is a connection problem.
- With assignments, you can customise the scale or use a rubric or marking guide ("bank of statements")
Minus points:
- If your Moodle version is lower than 2.6, you don't get the recent benefits, particularly auto-saving, which could cause a problem in areas with poor internet connections.
- It's harder to keep track of different drafts if this is important to you. Does the student copy and paste into the text editor each time they redraft? Do you set a new assignment? Do they only "submit" their final draft, in which case the teacher must keep checking and commenting on earlier versions?
Uploading word-processed essays
By selecting "File submissions" in the submission types of an assignment, teachers can allow students to upload one or more essays written in, for example MS Word ™ I suspect this is the most common way of submitting essays in Moodle, (although I have no actual evidence!) See Using assignment.
Plus points:
- It uses something many students and teachers are familiar with - word processing software.
- Students create and save the essay offline before uploading to Moodle so there is no risk of work being lost if there is a poor connection. With longer essays of several thousand words, this gives greater sense of security.
- Teachers can allow more than one upload, allowing for storing of various drafts if needed - students name their versions "...v01, v02" and so on.
- Teachers can use the "track changes" feature of word-processing software to comment on the essays and then reupload for the students
- With assignments, you can customise the scale or use a rubric or marking guide ("bank of statements")
Minus points:
- Creating, saving and uploading a document gives more steps for the student than simply typing directly into Moodle
- The teacher has to download each essay, comment on each one individually and then re-upload. Is this more or less time-consuming than going through 30 exercise books and commenting in biro?
Uploading essays as pdf files
By selecting "File submissions" in the submission types of an assignment, teachers can allow students to upload one or more essays written in, for example MS Word or saved as a pdf. Since 2.6 and if ghostscript is enabled on the server, when students can save their word-processed essays as pdf files and upload them to Moodle, teachers can comment on them directly on Moodle. See Using assignment
Plus points:
- Teachers no longer need to download, annotate and reupload each student's essay. The process takes place within Moodle and (providing ghostscript is correctly enabled) is already set up and involves no extra effort on the teacher's part
- The usual advantages of using assignments for essays (customised scales, marking workflow etc, still apply)
Minus points:
- It requires an extra step for the students to save their essay as a pdf before uploading.
- The pdf annotating does take some practice to get used to.
- Not all 2.6 Moodle sites will have the feature if they don't use the necessary ghostscript.
Using the Quiz essay question type
Although the Quiz activity is mainly used with question types with automatically graded answers, it is possible to add a manually graded essay question. See Question types
Plus points:
- The essay can form part of a larger assessment, being included with other questions in the quiz.
- Students can type their response directly into Moodle (although they can also upload a file)
- (Since 2.5) teachers can create a template to 'scaffold' the students' answer to give them extra support.
- (Since 2.5) information can be included to help teachers grading the quiz, visible only to them.
Minus points:
- Because the essay is inside a quiz and not an assignment, it does not benefit from the assignment features such as custom scales, rubrics, marking workflow etc
Using the Lesson essay question type
The Lesson activity allows teachers to create branching scenarios and include a variety of questions, including an Essay question. See Building lesson.
Plus points:
- The essay can form part of a larger assessment, being included with other questions and scenarios in the Lesson.
- Students can type their response directly into Moodle.
Minus points:
- Because the essay is inside a Lesson and not an assignment, it does not benefit from the assignment features such as custom scales, rubrics, marking workflow etc.
Conclusion
It all depends on your needs as a teacher and the needs (and to some extent skill levels) of your students. Note I have only included what is already standard in Moodle and I haven't covered deadlines, resubmissions etc, but it would be good to hear others' experiences.
