Make sure that editing is turned on by clicking the Edit mode toggle in the upper right corner of your course page. Scroll to the desired Topic or Week, and at the bottom of that section click Add an activity or resource.  In the window that appears, select Attendance from the list of options.

By default, the Attendance module becomes part of the students' course grades, just like an assignment.  Each student is given a score based on her or his attendance, with 100 being the maximum.  Later on, you'll learn how to customize the way that the Attendance module calculates this score.

If you want to change the maximum score for attendance, click to expand the Grade section and change the Maximum grade.

If you want to track students' attendance but not have it be a part of their course grade, click to expand the Grade section and the Type to "None."

Whether you stay with the defaults of make changes, click the Save and display button at the bottom of the page.

Suppose that the class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm.  Class sessions can be added one at a time, but it is far easier to set up the sessions as repeating.  To do this:

1. Click on the Add session tab near the top of the page
2. In Date and Time, enter the information for the first class session.  Note that the time field uses a 24-hour clock; e.g., 3:00 pm is entered as 15:00.
3. Click the Multiple sessions section to expand it.  Click the checkbox for Repeat the session as follows, and click the checkboxes for each day of the week that the class meets.  Finally, enter the date of the last class session in the Repeat until field.

Click the Add button at the bottom of the screen when finished.

When you're ready to take attendance for a class session, click the triangle icon next to it

On the next screen, you'll see a list of your students with the option to mark them as Present, Late, Excused, or Absent (P, L, E, A).  Assuming most of your students attend class, it might be easier to use the Set status for all users option to mark everyone as Present, and then to manually mark individual students as not present.

To change the default options of Present, Late, Excused, and Absent, first click the Status Set tab.  On the next screen, you can edit, delete, or add options.

The Acronym and Description is your choice.  The Points value is essentially a way to weight the options.  In the example below, students receive full credit for being Present, half credit for being Late or Excused, and no credit for being Absent.  If Present and Excused were changed to 4 points, and Excused and Absent were kept at 1 and 0 points, then students would receive full credit for being Present or Excused, 25% credit for being Late, and no credit for being Absent.

Suppose class is held twice a week but at different times.  For example, suppose lecture is held on Mondays from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm and a lab session is held on Wednesdays from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm.  To do this, we first set up the repeating Monday sessions and then set up the repeating Wednesday sessions.

1. Following the instructions above, enter the date and time of the first Monday session, then set it to repeat every week on Mondays until the end of the course.  You'll see only the Monday sessions on the list of sessions.
2. Next, enter the date and time of the first Wednesday session, then set it to repeat every week on Wednesdays until the end of the course.  Now your list of class sessions includes sessions from both days and times.