Learning Tools

Local plugins ::: local_learningtools
Maintained by Stefan Scholz, bdecent gmbh
Create bookmarks, take notes, schedule activities and focus mode for better learning experiences … and much more!
Latest release:
511 sites
155 downloads
57 fans
Current versions available: 3

Learning Tools by bdecent


For a better learning and teaching experience.

Learning Tools is a Moodle plugin that offers a suite of micro-tools to enhance the learning and teaching experience. These tools are conveniently accessed via an intuitive floating action button (FAB) located at the bottom right of every course page. 

Each tool is designed to address specific, common needs — such as taking contextual notes, scheduling time to study, or resuming a course from where you left off (Pro feature). The goal is to support learners and educators with small but effective functionalities that complement existing Moodle features.

Use cases

  • Onboarding new learners
  • Supporting self-paced learning
  • Streamlining communication
  • Personalizing the learning journey

Learning Tools provides great features that are completely free. For more functionality, we offer a Pro plan.

Feature Overview


Learning Tools for learners

These tools are intended to support students, employees, and lifelong learners as they navigate courses and training materials. They provide quick access to functions that help manage tasks, revisit resources, and maintain focus — all from within the course environment.

Note: All learner tools are also accessible to teachers, though primarily designed for student use.

Learning Tools by bdecent — available tools for learners

Course interface

A central overview for all notes created with Learning Tools. Accessible via the secondary course navigation, this interface allows learners to view, organize, search, print, and manage their notes by section or activity.

Course information

Displays the course summary and image in the floating menu for quick orientation.

Schedule learning

Allows users to create calendar entries — either in the Moodle calendar or external calendars — to plan when they want to work on specific activities or the course in general.

Focus mode

Temporarily hides blocks, headers, and navigation to minimize distractions and allow focused reading. Focus mode can be styled via CSS in the admin settings.

Notes

Create quick notes on any page, activity, or course. Notes are saved per user and context, and can be reviewed or exported at any time. The note modal can be expanded, allowing you to write side-by-side with the course content. All notes are centrally listed under My profile > Notes, including references to the corresponding course, activity, or Content Designer chapter (if applicable).

Bookmarks

Save bookmarks for courses, activities, or individual pages. All bookmarks are centrally listed under My profile > Bookmarks, with links to the corresponding course, activity, or Content Designer chapter (if applicable).

Resume course PRO

Automatically return to the exact location last visited in a course — whether it's a forum post, lesson page, or resource — helping users pick up where they left off.

Read more


Learning Tools for teachers

These tools support course creators, trainers, and educators by simplifying common tasks — such as onboarding learners, guiding progression, or managing communication. Instead of configuring multiple Moodle settings, teachers gain quick access to specific actions directly from the course view.

Teachers can also use learner-focused tools, such as creating notes or enabling focus mode, in their own workflow.

Learning Tools by bdecent — available tools for teachers

Invitation PRO

Quickly enrol users by entering email addresses. If users already exist, they are enrolled immediately. If not, and automatic account creation is allowed, accounts are created and enrolled automatically. A summary shows the result of each invitation.

Force activity PRO

Redirect learners to a required activity before they can continue with the course. Teachers can define a custom message explaining why the step is necessary.

Email PRO

Send messages to enrolled users in a course. Messages can include attachments and be filtered by role. All sent emails are logged for reference.

Custom course styles PRO

Add course-specific CSS directly in the settings to adjust layout, appearance, or visibility — without needing to modify the global theme.

Read more


Appearance

Admins can tailor the floating menu to fit the platform’s design and functional needs. They can define which tools are visible, adjust their order, keep key tools permanently accessible, and apply custom colors to match the brand.

Learning Tools by bdecent — styling options

Visibility control

Admins can decide which tools are enabled or hidden and arrange their order in the floating menu.

Visibility can be scoped to specific course categories, course pages only, or platform-wide. Tools can also be disabled for certain activity types — for example, hiding the menu during quizzes.

Sticky tools

Admins can mark key tools as sticky, making them permanently visible as standalone icons. This gives users instant access without opening the main menu. Once at least one tool is sticky, the menu button changes to an expandable icon, allowing access to additional tools while keeping the interface clean and focused.

Custom colors

Admins can define background and icon colors for each tool and for the main floating button. This enables color theming, visual grouping, or emphasizing specific tools based on their function.

Read more

Potential privacy issues

The user can save bookmarks and take notes; depending on the configuration of the roles on the site, teachers and managers can see those.

Screenshots

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Contributors

Stefan Scholz (Lead maintainer)
Please login to view contributors details and/or to contact them

Comments RSS

Vis kommentarer
  • Kenneth Hansen
    tor., 28 apr. 2022, 23:19
    Hi Stefan,
    Sorry to bug you. I would like to send my screenshots. I'll try GitHub...

    Another question... Will it be possible to use this nice tool with the Moodle App?

    Kind regards
    Kenneth
  • Tanja B.
    tor., 23 jun. 2022, 21:11
    hey Stefan,

    I saw that a tiny rest is open for German language and wanted to contribute by following the link: You can see the available translations here:
    https://moodle.org/plugins/local_learningtools/translations

    When I try to contribute to German, I run into a set of errors:

    Coding error detected, it must be fixed by a programmer: Url parameters values can not be arrays!

    Debug info:
    Error code: codingerror

    Coding error detected, it must be fixed by a programmer: Url parameters values can not be arrays!

    I am not sure, if it is right to address you with that?

    Many greetings, Tanja
  • Elizmarié Louw
    tir., 25 okt. 2022, 16:57
    Good day Stefan,

    Thank you for developing the Learning Tools plugin. I am sure its functionality will be very useful to our proposed students.

    I wanted to check whether there is any chance of it being updated to be functional on the Moodle app? We will promote it to learners mainly for its note-taking capability and it would be much appreciated if that particular function (at least) could be available on the app too.

    Looking forward to receiving your feedback.

    With thanks and kind regards,

    Elizmarié
  • Stefan Scholz
    ons., 26 okt. 2022, 05:18
    Hi Elizmarié,

    glad you like our Learning Tools! Currently, Learning Tools is not compatible with the mobile app (as you already found out). Adding support for note taking (and bookmarking) in the app would indeed make sense. I'll check with my team if our floating action button interface is something that can be implemented in the app, and how much effort it would be.

    All the best
    Stefan
  • Stefan Scholz
    tor., 27 okt. 2022, 14:47
    Morning Elizmarié,

    We’ve discussed this internally. It’s not as easy as it seems, but it is indeed possible. In order to implement it, we would need some funding for it though. If you’re able/interested, please reach out privately and we can discuss it.

    Best
    Stefan
  • Florencia Ferreyra
    fre., 30 jun. 2023, 10:51
    Hi! I've been having some problems with this plugin. The icons are a little right-sided. Additionally, it cracks when the language is changed to Spanish, the "ñ" is not visible
  • Khari Kambon
    søn., 16 jul. 2023, 05:33
    Hi, we love this plug-in, but on Moodle 4.1.3 in the Adaptable theme it only displays and functions properly for the admin and refuses to display for the student role except for on one page: the user profile page. The minute the student user navigates away to any other page it disappears. This is mind-boggling. I would think that if it were a theme compatibility issue it wouldn't work at all for anyone. I was wondering if anyone might know why this is the case and maybe how we might resolve as we really want to be able to use this plugin for our students. Thanks for any help!
  • Rashad Raza
    tor., 31 aug. 2023, 10:32
    I am also facing exactly the same problem. The problem is only with Adaptable Theme, have no idea if this the theme or settings within theme. Would love to know more about the solution.
  • Nick Rider
    fre., 9 feb. 2024, 03:57
    I discovered that the script for the Learning Tools is targeting the footer element in the HTML to write the code. If you are using a different theme than boost, there is a good chance that your theme might not have the element. To remedy, one thing you could do is go to the Appearance > Additional HTML and paste in an empty footer tag in the code before the body closes. Did the trick for me. If your Adaptable theme is having issues - it is possible the profile page has the 'footer' tag and the other pages do not.
  • Vincent Garnier
    tir., 23 apr. 2024, 17:47
    Hello Stefan
    Great tool! A quick question. We want to use the note feature but not the others. They are. not useful in our environment. Is there a way to hide the other features via CSS or via a setting of the plugin ? Thank you in advance
  • Stefan Scholz
    tir., 23 apr. 2024, 18:50
    Hi Vincent, glad you like it! In the plugin's general settings, you can enable/disabled each tool separately. Also, there are capabilities for each tool, so you can control which roles have access to which tool. Hope this helps! Stefan
  • Kit D
    man., 21 okt. 2024, 23:22
    Hiya - have tested this plugin on my beta site and very excited by the notes function! Just wondering if there is functionality for students to be able to download all their notes? Thanks!
    Best,
    Catherine.
  • Pablo Schmid
    ons., 30 okt. 2024, 07:52
    Hi Stefan. Congrats. Amazing plugin.
    Do you have plans to support moodle 4.5? Due to the update of Fontawesome, it unfortunately no longer displays the icons.
  • Stefan Scholz
    lør., 25 jan. 2025, 03:17
    Just a quick note: the current version of Learning Tools works fine on 4.5 – we have updated the plugin since then.
  • Andrei AG
    tor., 20 mar. 2025, 00:24
    Hi,

    This plugin is quite impressive!
    I have a quick question— I couldn't find an option to display when the exam will start. Is it possible to make this information accessible only within the quiz, rather than displaying it everywhere?
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