version 1.9
Discussion Boards are the heart of an online course, because they provide the primary method for student/student and faculty/student interaction. In Moodle they are called Forums. You may create as many as you need in the different sections of your course. A News Forum is created by default at the top of your course as a method for you to make announcements or email your entire class.
Additional forums may be created for reporting and editing posted assignments, a pre-class discussion of readings, online debates, discussion of case studies, a library of online resources discovered by the students, an interview space of outside experts, or simply a student lounge.
A. Create a Forum
1. From the homepage, click Turn Editing On.
2. Click on the dropdown menu, Add an Activity and choose Forum.
3. Fill out the Form, clicking on the orange question marks as needed for guidance.
Name--use a name that will mean something to your students.
Forum type--choose one of the three types.
**Note--There are two types of posted messages. You can post a discussion topic message that starts a new thread or you can post a reply that is indented under the message being replied to.
1. A Single Simple Discussion--Only one discussion can be added to this forum, but multiple indented replies. Use this if you want all messages visible to read on one page. What you write in the text box produces the first discussion topic message, to which all students then reply to.
2. Each Person Posts One Discussion--Each person can only add one discussion topic and then the Add a New Discussion Topic disappears. However, multiple indented replies are allowed so everyone can respond to one another as much as they like.The discussion topics are listed on an index page. Each discussion topic goes to a separate page with the entire message and all replies visible, so click on a discussion title to go inside it and read and post messages. As an instructor, you will have to open and print each discussion topic page separately if you want to print all postings.
3. Standard Forum For General Use--Each person can add multiple discussions, which are listed by title on an index page. Multiple replies are possible. Each discussion is on a separate page with the entire message and all replies visible. This is very similar to Each Person Posts One Discussion type in that all the discussions are listed by title on one page and you click on a title to go inside and post, read, and reply to messages.
Forum Introduction: This is your assignment or general instructions for the forum. If your forum is a Single Simple Forum, then this will be the first message. If the Forum is either the second or third type of forum, which allow topics that appear on an index page, then the Introduction will appear in the top header area. If you put in an assignment here, don't forget to require students to open 2 or 3 of their colleague's postings and respond.
Force everyone to be subscribed?: Subscribing to a forum means that all postings will be sent to you or your students' email addresses that are stored in Banner. Forcing your students to be subscribed will help ensure that they receive your announcements, but receiving all postings as emails can become fairly burdensome soon.
Maximum attachment size: Only increase this from 500 kb if it is very important for your assignment. The server can choke if too many large uploads come at once.
Allow posts to be rated?: This gives you choices for how to grade forum postings. You probably want to add a Scale first. Go to the homepage and click on Grades under Administration, then select Scales through the View pulldown at the top left of the page.
Post threshold for blocking?: This allows you to specify a limit for how many messages students post.
When finished with the settings, click on Save Changes.
B. Manage a Forum
1. Edit a Forum: If you need to change the type of forum, or adjust the introduction, etc. Click on the title of the forum, then click on Update this Forum in the upper right hand corner. This will take you back to the settings form for changes.
2. Post a Discussion Message or Reply: If you are inside a forum that allows Discussion Topics to be posted, you can click on Add a New Discussion Topic. A form will come up for your message. Or you can click on someone's topic and their message will appear along with a link called Reply. If you click on Reply the same form will appear, but your reply will be indented under the topic you are answering.
3. Search for a student or word: Click on the title of a forum, then in the breadcrumb menu, click on Forums, which will take you to a list of all your Forums. On the right is a search box, where you can enter in a name or word.
4. Search for all of one student's postings: An alternate way to find all the postings of a single student would be to click on Participants on the left hand side of your homepage. Click on the student's name and then click on Forum Posts.
5. Grading postings: You can allow for a Rating link to appear by each forum posting. If you click on Update this Forum, you can then edit the settings for the forum. Under Allow Posts to be Rated, you can choose who, students or faculty, can grade, who can view the grading, with what type of scale, and the proper dates a posting should have been made to get a grad e. An absolute scale and one other are there by default, but you can add your own scale by going to the homepage and clicking on Scales under Administration.
6. Groups: If you would like to divide your forums into groups, then again click on Update this Forum, and you can then edit the settings for the forum. Under Groups, you can choose one of these possibilities:
- No groups - there are no sub groups, everyone is part of one big community
- Separate groups - each group can only see their own group, others are invisible
- Visible groups - each group works in their own group, but can also see other groups
Define your groups: On the homepage under Administration, click on Groups.
Create Groups: Make as many groups as you'll need by clicking on Create group and filling out the form.
Add Users: Then select a group and then click on Add/Remove Users. On the next page, choose the student names and click on the arrow moving them into the other column. Click Back to Groups.
By selecting a group and clicking on Show Members for Group, you'll see which students are in a particular group.
Auto-create Groups: Click on Show Advanced and then fill out the form as desired and Submit. You can choose either the number of groups or the number of students in each group.
Chat is synchronous and provides instantaneous feedback, so crucial to motivation and engagement. Use chat for office hours, guest speakers (who may be in another state or country), group projects, or discussion groups.
1. From the homepage, click on Turn Editing On. Then with Add an Activity, choose Chat. Fill out the form below.
**Note--Setting chat times does not limit access to the chat channel, it just creates entries in the course calendar to remind students.
2. Click on Click Here to Enter the Chat Now. The participants will be on the right. You will type in the bottom box and hit enter to send your chat.
3. If you are meeting with more than about 5-10 student, you should teach them some rules, such as raising their hand (by typing a !) and being called on before speaking. Another good rule is to type a phrase with an ellipsis after it so that everyone will know you have more to say. So if you have 2 lines worth of thoughts, type one line and ...., then type your second line. The other participants won't have to wait for you to type two lines and they will know that more is coming after the first line.
4. Chat Discussion Groups. Set up 6 or 7 different chat channels. Designate one as the main classroom and the others as the names of your various student groups. Have the entire class come to the main classroom first where you can greet everyone and ask for questions or give preliminary material. Use the "raise your hand" rules given above. Then send the groups to their smaller group chats and go around and visit each one sending them their question to work on. You can tile the chat windows on your desktop so they are all open at once. They should each pick a notetaker and then discuss the question. After 20 min. or so have everyone come back to the main classroom. No one but the notetakers and you will speak. Have the notetakers give summaries for each group, questioning them or adding information as necessary. Grade both individual participation and notetaker participation.
