Communication

Moodle gives the user different tools in which to communicate with learners and staff members. In this section, you will be shown some of those tools you can use to benefit the learner experience. Before using some of these tools think about how you could incorporate some of these ideas into your 'SOW's and inform students of how to use these tools effectively. 

 

Messaging your students

Moodle has facilities to allow both individual and group instant messaging directly in the interface. Messages can be sent to an individual user, a selection of users or a group inside a module. The ability to send a message can be found in many places throughout the interface of Moodle. When users are sent a message they will be notified immediately through an email, a notification on the Moodle Mobile app or through the Moodle interface.

For lecturers, the best way to send messages to students is through the module participants list.

To find out how you can do this please click here

Forums

The forum activity module enables participants to have asynchronous discussions i.e. discussions that take place over an extended period of time.There are several forum types to choose from, such as a standard forum where anyone can start a new discussion at any time; a forum where each student can post exactly one discussion; or a question and answer forum where students must first post before being able to view other students' posts. A teacher can allow files to be attached to forum posts. Attached images are displayed in the forum post.Participants can subscribe to a forum to receive notifications of new forum posts. A teacher can set the subscription mode to optional, forced or auto, or prevent subscription completely. If required, students can be blocked from posting more than a given number of posts in a given time period; this can prevent individuals from dominating discussions.Forum posts can be rated by teachers or students (peer evaluation). Ratings can be aggregated to form a final grade which is recorded in the gradebook.
Forums have many uses, such as
  • A social space for students to get to know each other
  • For course announcements (using a news forum with forced subscription)
  • For discussing course content or reading materials
  • For continuing online an issue raised previously in a face-to-face session
  • For teacher-only discussions (using a hidden forum)
  • A help centre where tutors and students can give advice
  • A one-on-one support area for private student-teacher communications (using a forum with separate groups and with one student per group)
  • For extension activities, for example, 'brain teasers' for students to ponder and suggest solutions to

For more information click here.

Chat

The chat activity module enables participants to have text-based, real-time synchronous discussions.

The chat may be a one-time activity or it may be repeated at the same time each day or each week. Chat sessions are saved and can be made available for everyone to view or restricted to users with the capability to view chat session logs.

Chats are especially useful when the group chatting is not able to meet face-to-face, such as

  • Regular meetings of students participating in online courses to enable them to share experiences with others in the same course but in a different location
  • A student temporarily unable to attend in person chatting with their lecturer to catch up with work
  • Students out on work experience getting together to discuss their experiences with each other and their lecturer
  • Younger children using chat at home in the evenings as a controlled (monitored) introduction to the world of social networking
  • A question and answer session with an invited speaker in a different location

For more information click here

Feedback

The feedback activity module enables a teacher to create a custom survey for collecting feedback from participants using a variety of question types including multiple choice, yes/no or text input. This can be used as a quick activity to get a response about what has been delivered and how? Or about a particular idea raised in a session. 

Feedback responses may be anonymous if desired, and results may be shown to all participants or restricted to teachers only. Any feedback activities on the site front page may also be completed by non-logged-in users. This can be useful to gauge how well things have been delivered or engaged with.  

Feedback activities may be used

  • For course evaluations, helping improve the content for later participants
  • To enable participants to sign up for course modules, events etc.
  • For guest surveys of course choices, school policies etc.
  • For anti-bullying surveys in which students can report incidents anonymously

For more information click here.

 

Scheduler

The scheduler activity helps you in scheduling appointments with your students.

Teachers specify time slots for meetings, students then choose one of them on Moodle. Teachers in turn can record the outcome of the meeting - and optionally a grade - within the scheduler.

Group scheduling is supported; that is, each time slot can accommodate several students, and optionally it is possible to schedule appointments for entire groups at the same time.

For more information click here

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