Unzip and copy the sharing_cart block directory into the /moodle/blocks/ directory, then visit the Notifications page.

There is a global settings page for this block. You will be taken to it after visiting the Notifications page.

The Sharing Cart block is built to be modular. The global settings page allows you enable plugins for the block. At the time of writing there appears to be only the one plugin available called the repository plugin. The repository plugin allows teachers to copy activities and resources to and from a repository on the web. This could be useful in order to share activities and resources between sites. If you don't think this will be useful, you might want to turn this off to avoid confusing teachers. To disable the plugin, hold the Ctrl key and click on repository, then click on the button labeled Save Changes.

Once the block is installed and its global settings have been saved, you can add the block by selecting Sharing Cart from the Blocks menu. The block only appears to teachers, course creators, and administrators, and is only displayed when editing is turned on.

After adding an instance of the Sharing Cart block to a course page you will also notice a new icon next to each activity and resource in the central column of your course page.

This new icon allows you to add a copy of an item to the Sharing Cart. Items are copied without user data, so assignment submissions, forum posts, and so on, are left with the original and not copied.

When an item is copied to the Sharing Cart it appears in a list:

To copy an item from another course, simply go to that course and copy the item. This applies to other teachers' courses as well, so long as you are allowed access to their course.

The Sharing Cart can hold a large number of copied items. Items initially appear in the order they were copied, with recent items at the top, however you can reorder items by clicking the up-down icon.

Items can be organized into folders by clicking the right-facing arrow icon; if no folders exist a textbox is presented to allow a new folder to be created; previously created folders can be selected from a drop-down list.

With an item in the Sharing Cart, it is possible to clone the item to a course. Clicking the icon that appears as a cube with an outgoing arrow creates a number of target locations in the central column:

To clone the activity, click on one of the target locations. With the cloned activity copied to a section of the central column, it can be shifted up or down as needed. While the target locations are displayed, you can cancel the copy by clicking on the Cancel link at the top of the page.

The Sharing Cart utilizes the backup and restore functionality built into most activities and resources. It therefore works for all standard activities and resources, although there are known complications with quiz questions. For a work-around for quizzes, see the online documentation for the block.

The Sharing Cart may also work with contributed modules, although you will want to test this. The commonly used Feedback module (discussed in Chapter 7, Organizing Students) has been tested by the Sharing Cart authors, and the Peer Review assignment type worked during this author's testing. Not all contributed modules have backup and restore capabilities.

While modules appear in the Sharing Cart block they are kept as zip files in the server's file system. This is unlikely to cause space issues as course files associated with activities and resources are stored separately in the file system.