MoodleDach

I am writing this from Lubeck Germany ready for the start of MoodleDach “unconference” starting tomorrow 2nd September 2025. I have been twice before and the unconference concept means that the schedule is decided on the first day. This has been very effective in the past and the related discussion forum is starting to fill with ideas as to what should be covered. 

MoodleDach is developer focussed and in previous years people have developed new plugins from concept to plugins database over the event.

MoodleMoot Global

This will be held in Edinburgh Scotland from 16 – 18 September. The schedule is available here https://moodlemoot.org/2025/program/

I will be attending, and I will have my guitar with me…

Improvements in Core AI

The core Moodle AI Subsystem now has more meaningful error messages. Previously whenever there was an error the user would see a generic 

“ Something went wrong”

Try again later

https://moodle.atlassian.net/browse/MDL-83147

Question Generation

The people at ByCS Lernplattform (formerly Mebis) have done a huge update to the questiongen plugin. It is configurable to work with 3rd party question types and can even pull in text from pdf’s as the source for generating questions.

https://github.com/bycs-lp/moodle-qbank_questiongen

Alternatives LLM’S /ChatGPT

I opened an account with Together AI and spent US$5 (five) worth of tokens. After quite a lot of experimenting it is currently costing me on average 1 US$ cent per day.

I have attached one of my moodle sites to Google Gemini using the ByCS local_ai_manager and I am impressed with the results.   

AI for teaching programming

I have tweaked my AI Text question type to process questions relating to programming languages and  have found the Qwen models particularly effective.

Bulk Tags AI Suggestions

I have added an “AI Suggestions” feature to my Question bank bulk tagging plugin. This currently only works with Moodle 5.0 but I can retrofit it for Moodle 4.5 if anyone wants it badly enough.

https://github.com/marcusgreen/moodle-qbank_bulktags/wiki/AI-Suggestions

Moodle HQ

If you want to follow discussions about the Core Moodle AI Subsystem there is a forum at moodle.org here

https://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=8826

However it does seem rather quiet.

I recommend the AI Lounge here

https://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=8776

Which contains summaries of the biweekly meetings chaired by Martin Dougiamas and is a really useful source of up to date information.

Moodle AI Plugins

I have been gathering a list of Moodle plugins that use AI/LLM systems that do not require a subscription to the provider of the plugin (though of course they all require access to an LLM. You can find the list at the end of this page.

https://github.com/marcusgreen/moodle-tool_aiconnect/wiki/Other-AI-Plugins

Moodle 5.1 

The next version of Moodle is scheduled for release on 6 October 2025 and is currently in QA. These items  caught my eye on Jira

AI: Add user access controls at course and activity level

https://moodle.atlassian.net/browse/MDL-85738

Allow teachers to specify AI access per activity (e.g., disable “generate text” in a particular quiz) rather than at a broader level.

Let site admins set default AI settings that can be locked or overridden at the course level.

Allow report builder schedule types to be easily extended

https://moodle.atlassian.net/browse/MDL-86066

Restructure moodle code directories

https://moodle.atlassian.net/browse/MDL-83424

A Moodle Gemini provider

I have not tried it yet but … according to the page at moodle org

“A Moodle AI provider plugin that integrates Google’s Gemini AI models into Moodle’s AI subsystem. Supports text generation, image generation, and text summarization with configurable rate limiting and privacy-first design.”

https://moodle.org/plugins/aiprovider_gemini

AIText

The updates and features in the next release can be seen here

https://github.com/marcusgreen/moodle-qtype_aitext/blob/develop/changelog.md

I will be including an “expert mode”, which will give people experienced with prompt creation more control over what is sent to the external AI.

In a recent conversation I discovered an organisation that looks after the Moodle setup in 23 universities is testing my AI Text question type with a view to deployment.

I am hoping that more people using it will result in more ideas for prompting. 

Canvas and OpenAI in partnership

Instructure and OpenAI (makers of ChatGPT) have announced a  Global Partnership to Embed AI Learning Experiences within Canvas.

https://www.instructure.com/press-release/instructure-and-openai-announce-global-partnership-embed-ai-learning-experiences

I view this as two organisations with no obvious path to profit propping each other up. If they don’t get bought up they will both run out of money.