Tasks are elements within a page that learners interact with, such as a multiple choice question, matching a word with a definition, or writing a paragraph in response to a question.
There are two main reasons why authors might put tasks into courses:
For the learner to practice (active learning teaches us to learn through experience).
For the facilitator to "assess" the learner (either non-assessed or assessed).
Tasks can also be:
automarked, or marked by a facilitator,
reused and edited throughout your course saving you time,
edited once your course is live - giving you the flexibility to update as needed,
used to create quizzes - either build quizzes from scratch or create them from existing tasks,
used as a set of variations where learners get one variation at random, or
easily viewed in one place by learners and facilitators so that users can see what's been done and what's left to do.
Task types
There are over 20 task types available from multiple choice, fill in the blanks, matching and many, many more. Read more about what's available in Task types.
Task variations
Task variations lets you add a number of variations to the one task element so that learners can get one of the variations at random. Read more about how this works in Task variations.
Quizzes with tasks
Quizzes are collections of tasks. You can add tasks from elsewhere in a course, or create quiz questions from within the quiz itself. Quizzes can be themed (one question from each theme chosen at random), and you can set a time for completion and number of attempts allowed. Read more about how these work in Adding a quiz using tasks.
Marking options
Each task is worth 1 point by default however you can change the points for each in the task settings.
Note: Points are separate from the "weighting" of an assessed task/quiz. See Add a weighting to your assessed task for more information on weighting
Some tasks allow authors to set a correct answer, such as multiple choice and matching tasks. When a correct answer is set by an author, the task can be automarked by the system. That way learners can immediately see what they got correct.
Other tasks, such as essays and uploading videos, are not able to be automarked. There are also task types that could be automarked, but the author hasn't specified a correct answer (for example fill in the blanks, with no set answer for the blank). Tasks without a correct answer become 'manually marked' tasks and will have a marking template associated for facilitators to mark and possibly add feedback. Read more more about marking templates here: Marking templates.
Republishing
As an author, you can edit tasks in live class activations of a course. When you republish, learners will automatically see the updated version. There's a bit to think about with republishing, so be sure to read When to edit, republish or duplicate courses if you need to make changes to tasks while classes are live.