Title: Options for Creating and Delivering Content
Course: Dev_TOPKIT_SAMPLE_COURSE_Bauer_S_67 > Section: Week 6 - Enhancing Your Course with Emerging Technology

<<Note: This content is provided as an example. The content should be updated with your institution's LMS materials.>>

There are many tools within <Replace - Your LMS> that aid in the creation of course content. In the past weeks of <Replace - Course Title>, you explored communication tools such as Announcements and Discussions, edited Pages such as your Syllabus and Course Expectations, explored collaboration tools such as Conferencing, and created and edited assignments such as Discussions and Quizzes.

This week, you will begin building your module and learn about the various ways to create and deliver content to your students in <Replace - Your LMS>. To guide you through the development of this module, three essential <Replace - Your LMS> tools will be presented: Files, Pages, and Modules. For various examples of how to set up a module in different ways, explore sample courses here.

Modules

Modules are used to organize, structure, and present course content such as Files, Pages, and Assignments, among others. With modules, you are structuring a sequence for your students. For instance, in <Replace - Course Title>, you will notice that you navigate through a module in a particular way. This was done deliberately as we thought about what the ideal sequence would be for students.

There is no universal way to structure a module. You may want to organize course content by weeks, units, topics, or activities. This is a great conversation to have with your instructional designer before you begin building your modules area. Let's begin by reviewing the Module tool's features...

With the Modules tool, you can:

- Create a module
- Add items to a module
- Add text to a module
- Link to an external URL
- Edit the module items
- Remove items
- Reorder items
- Lock the module until a given date
- Require students to move through each Module item in order
- Delete a module

Pages

The Pages tool allows you to create a page of content and resources for your course. For instance, the page you are reading right now called "Options for Creating and Delivering Content" was created with the Pages tool. Pages function like a wiki, meaning that they are easily editable and the entire history of the page is available. The Course Expectations and Instructor Introduction assignments were Pages which you edited and added your own content.

As you have already seen, there are many ways to deliver content on a page. You can include text, images, and videos. You can also link to outside web pages, files, Assignments, or other Pages.

Within the Pages tool, you can:

- Create a new Page
- Change a Page name
- Edit a Page
- Delete a Page
- Link to other Pages
- Embed a video in a Page

Tip: Be specific when naming your Pages. Over time, you may have many Pages showing in your list, and it is best if the Pages are named appropriately. For instance, "Introduction" is not specific enough, while "Week 4 Introduction" would be.

Files

You can use the Files tool to upload, store, and share course files such as .pptx, .pdf, .html, images, audio and videos. If you have many files, creating folders helps to organize course documents. For instance, you may want to create a folder to store the class PowerPoints. Or you may rather create a folder to store one particular module, week, or unit of content. These files can be linked in Modules, Assignments, or Pages.
Within the Files tool, you can:
- Upload a file
- Upload multiple files at once
- Preview a file
- Delete a file
- Move and organize files
- Import .zip files

Keep in mind: By default, anything uploaded to the Files can be viewed by students even if you have the area hidden in your course menu. If you have any folders or files you do not want your students to access, you must lock the files and/or folders.

Visit the Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository to view sample modules.

TOPKit Sample Course was prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.