Fix Your Broken Attendance Activity

In case you haven't noticed, the Attendance activity in our current version of Moodle is… well, it's not really broken, it just has numerous redundant session types. The most commonly used session types are:

Present
Late
Excused
Absent

You only need one each of those basic session types to use the Moodle Attendance activity, but most Instructors I have been working with shy away from it when they see all of the redundant (not to mention repetitive and extraneous) session types:

Ugh. Who would want to take the time to delete all but one each of the necessary "PLEA" session types? I'll tell ya who - ME! Want a copy of it to put into your own Moodle course? Okay, here you go, and here is how to put it into your course shell:

1. Download the "Attendance-PLEA" Activity Attendance Moodle file.

2. Log into your Moodle course.

3. Click "Restore" in the Settings block:

4. Browse for the "Attendance-PLEA.mbz" file you downloaded from the above link, and click the "Restore" button:

5. Make sure "Merge the backup course into this course" is selected, and click the "Continue" button below it:

6. Click the "Continue" and "Next" buttons on the next few screens…

7. … and then the "Perform restore" button.

8. When the process is complete (it should only take a few seconds), click the "Continue" button to be taken to your course shell:

9. You can now use the Attendance activity to track student attendance, with or without point value. You can also deploy the corresponding Attendance block:

There you have it - now you can document your students' attendance directly in Moodle!