Summary

Below you will find information, hints and manuals for communication in moodle.

These instructions are intended for users of the e-learning platform of the University of Jena according to their roles and rights.


Read about the following activities here


The forum

Use the forum activity to exchange ideas with the participants in your course or to initiate exchanges with one another. A forum serves as:

  • Communication channel between students and between teachers and students
  • Organization tool e.g. for group or project work or to enable participants to upload material
  • Structuring tool, e.g. to support presentations, lectures, etc.

There are five different forum types:

  • A single simple discussion - All participants may respond to this topic. This type does not work with separate groups.
  • Each person posts one discussion - All participants may start a new topic to which all others can then reply.
  • Q and A forum - All participants must first answer a question before they can see other contributions.
  • Standard forum displays in a blog-like format - Open forum in which all participants can start a topic at any time and reply to other posts. The discussion topics and links to the posts are visible in an overview.
  • Standard forum for for general use - open forum in which all participants can start a topic at any time and reply to other posts.



To activate forum tracking, you need to adjust the forum settings in your user profile. To do this, proceed as follows:

  1. In the upper right corner of the window, click on your user account and select settings / set up forums.
  2. Activate the option yes, mark new posts in color in the follow forum / forum tracking section.

From now on, new forum posts are highlighted and you can tell at first glance that there is something new.

My participants cannot post in the forum

Then it is very likely to be the forum announcements, which is automatically created in each course room. If you want to use a forum in which you can write, you have to add a standard forum to the course room.

If necessary, also check whether a group mode is activated and the participants are in the correct group in order to be able to write entries.

MoodleOverflow

  • Alternative to the forum with a focus on a solution-orientated question and answer structure
  • Posts are not organised chronologically, but according to individual settings for targeted information
  • Possibility to mark helpful answers from questioners or teachers to ensure prioritisation and highlighting
  • Adjustable mode for displaying answers: prioritisation of the best answers or marked solutions
  • Multiple answers can be marked as correct
  • Participants can earn reputation through actions such as upvoting answers
  • Anonymity option for using the forum


Hinweis

Anonymisations cannot be reversed. In addition, user data is always stored in the database, which means that complete anonymity cannot be guaranteed.


Forum vs. MoodleOverflow - Which activity for which purpose

Functional design ForumMoodleOverflow
Structure and focus 
  • Discussions on a given topic
  • Focus on question-answer structure with solution-orientation 
Organisation of contributions
  • Posts are displayed chronologically
  • Customised settings for sorting posts to obtain specific information
Tagging of contributions
  • Evaluation of contributions through upvoting
  • Prioritisation and highlighting of helpful answers or solved questions
Display modes
  • Chronological view
  • Customisable display modes
ActivityForumMoodleOverflow
Authorisation forTeachersStudentsTeachers Students

Creation of questions or contributions 

(Haken) 

(Haken) 

(Haken)(Fehler) 
Answering questions(Haken)(Haken)(Haken)(Haken)
Moderation by reviewing, editing and deleting posts(Haken)(Fehler) (Haken)(Fehler) 
Evaluation of answers or contributions(Haken)(Haken)(Haken)(Haken)
Marking answers as helpful or solved(Fehler) (Fehler) (Haken)(Fehler) 
Collecting reputation(Fehler) (Fehler) (Fehler) (Haken)
Upload files(Haken)(Haken)(Fehler) (Fehler) 
Anonymity option(Fehler) (Fehler) (Haken)(Haken)

The chat

With the chat function, Moodle offers a tool for synchronous communication between teachers and participants.

  • can only be used by a maximum of six people at the same time
  • can only be used in a specific, definable time slot and is therefore not permanently available
  • is therefore best suited for an exchange of limited time and content, such as online consultation hours or for communication between (project) groups and teachers


Quickmail

With Quickmail you can send emails to everyone in a learning room, groups, groups and individuals. Emails can be sent in Moodle, but not received. Students do not have access to the Quickmail module.

Quickmail is displayed as a block on the right side of your learning room. To send a Quickmail, open the right sidebar and click "Add Block", then click Quickmail. You can now write course messages.


The Kanban Board

The Kanban activity in Moodle is a visual organisation method consisting of a board. There are four different types of boards that can be used on Moodle: 

  • Course board, which can be used by everyone within a course
  • Personal board for each individual user
  • Group boards for collaborative work
  • Template boards that allow an existing board to be copied as a template board to create a new board in the Kanban activity, no user data is copied.

By default, the boards contain the columns "ToDo", "Doing" and "Done", but can be customised. Cards and columns can be easily added, moved and edited, with various features such as assignment, due dates and discussion options available.

Configuration options: 

  • Evaluation of the digital post-its by students (likes)
  • Display order of the posts
  • Allow students to determine the placement of their posts
  • Adjustable editing deadline for posts after a specific date


Title: "Communication within the moodle course room"

Date: 13.02.2024

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena - Impressum - Barrierefreiheit