Teaching with Moodle

Perhaps this can be done by using Moodle's file system, but this is not how I do it.

I prefer to use "web pages" outside of Moodle for these common pages. Then, in Moodle, I display these web pages using a "URL" resource. When I update content on one of these web pages, I don't need to do anything in Moodle.

There are pros and cons to my methods, as with any method. But this has worked for me since 1998. One advantage is that these web pages are easy to reference anywhere. For example, I could easily share my Business Analytics syllabus.  And since this syllabus was created with a powerful web-creation tool, I can do more within it than Moodle provides.  Using a website for course content used to be supported by many schools back in the late 1990's.  Somehow, we have gotten away from that concept.

I once gave a presentation about my method. It may help guide you to solving your problem.

I do something similar to what Rick does, except I do it in Moodle. I create a tutorial/documentation/explanation category with specific courses, in which I enroll everyone. Since I manually enroll everyone via a CSV file, this is easy to do. I then use the specific courses to sort related subject matter in to appropriate courses. I initially thought about using Wiki's for all the explanation pages, but dropped that like a hot rock when I realized what a nightmare it was going to be to create and maintain all the links within individual wiki's, especially when wanting to add or delete information. I settled on using Books as it handles all the internal links to the various pages, automatically. All I had to do was in each actual course, 1, 2, 3, etc., was provide the initial link to the subject matter with an explanation of what was going on with the links.

 

EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention, I also had Moodle bookmark capability setup, and taught them how to use it to keep track of where they were at at the end of each day. (I used to teach in a face-to-face computer lab.)

Wouldn't you be able to create something like this with a site level Glossary activity, set up like a FAQ? If you'd create the glossary in Site home, make it a Global one so you can link the content from anywhere in the Moodle instance.

You'd just have to set up the glossary item auto linking filter in each of the courses and make sure to make exact reference to each of the glossary item titles/names.

With a bit more work, you could do the same with a site level book, and manually created links to book chapters. Come to think of it, same goes for a site level Wiki and links to the Wiki pages created manually.

** Off topic: Wish I still had my helpful Moodler indication...

Another possibility is what we call mini-sites. Make a self-contained web site with those HTML pages, zip it and upload as a File resource. Before saving unzip the archive and set the main index file. See File_resource_settings#Displaying_a_website_index_page.

P.S. Also ref. the running discussion Sharing Across Moodles.