moodle v1.8 communications

8/8/2019 Moodle v1.8 Communications

1/42

Communicating in Moodle

Version 1.8

Notting Hill Housing Group


2/42

CONTENTS

CONTENTS........................................................................................................ 2

INTRODUCTION................................................................................................ 4ADDING/EDITING A BLOG ENTRY ................................................................. 5

WHAT IS A BLOG?.................................................................................................5

ADDING A BLOG ENTRY.......................................................................................5

EDITING A BLOG ENTRY ...................................................................................... 7

ADDING A CHAT ACTIVITY ............................................................................. 8

ADDING A CHAT ACTIVITY TO YOUR COURSE.................................................. 8

INITIATING OR JOINING A CHAT SESSION ................................................ 12

FORUMS IN MOODLE .................................................................................... 15

WHICH MOODLE FORUM BEST SUITS YOUR PURPOSE? ..............................15

TEACHING AND LEARNING FORUMS ............................................................... 16

PARTICIPATION AND SCAFFOLDING................................................................16

COMMITMENT AND PARTICIPATION.................................................................17

STUDENT-CENTRED FORUMS ...........................................................................17

THE NEWS FORUM..............................................................................................18

SUGGESTIONS FOR USING FORUMS ............................................................... 18

GRADING FORUMS.............................................................................................. 19

ADDING A FORUM IN MOODLE.................................................................... 20

SEPARATE AND CONNECTED WAYS OF KNOWING....................................... 24

FORUM TYPES.....................................................................................................25

VIEWING A FORUM........................................................................................ 26

ADDING A WIKI ACTIVITY ............................................................................. 28

WHAT IS A WIKI? .................................................................................................28

WIKI TYPES ..........................................................................................................28

ADDING A WIKI TO YOUR COURSE...................................................................29

CREATING AND MANAGING WIKI STRUCTURE AND CONTENT............. 34

FORMATTING TEXT.............................................................................................35

SAVING PAGE CONTENT....................................................................................35

PREVIEWING PAGE CONTENT........................................................................... 36

DISPLAYING IMAGES IN A PAGE....................................................................... 36

MONA LISA:..........................................................................................................39

THE LAST SUPPER:............................................................................................. 40

2


3/42

LINKS ....................................................................................................................41

HISTORY...............................................................................................................41

ATTACHMENTS....................................................................................................42

WIKI ADMINISTRATION.......................................................................................42

3


4/42

INTRODUCTION

Communication tools are fundamental to Moodle. In this course we will look at how to set up

and use Blogs, Chats, Forums and Wikis to make your Moodle courses more dynamic and to

encourage staff participation and interaction.

Iain McCulloch

Learning & Development Team

4


5/42

ADDING/EDITING A BLOG ENTRY

WHAT IS A BLOG?

The word 'blog' derives from a contraction of the term 'web log'. Blogs are a form of onlinediary or journal and are used by millions of people around the world for self-expression and

for communicating with family and friends.

Blogs are usually organized as a chronological series of postings created by the author of the

blog. Blogs usually are written by one person, although there is no reason why a blog cannot

be authored by a group of people.

Blogs in Moodle are user based - each user has their own Blog. Administrators, teachers, and

students can create Tags. Administrators can create site level tags, teachers can create Course

level tags, and students can create their own list of tags.

When a blog entry is created, the user can select which tags they wish to associate with the

new entry. Multiple tags can be selected. Users can also select who they want the blog entry to

be available to (subject to the limitations set by the blog visibility site setting).

ADDING A BLOG ENTRY

Adding a blog entry in Moodle is easy. First navigate to your Moodle personal profile page

and then click on the Blog tab . The steps for adding a new entry are as follows:

1. Click on the "Add a new entry" text-link . The Blog entry page willopen:

5


6/42

2. Write your entry and give it a title.3. If you want to attach a file, click the Browse button, find the file on your computer,

and clickOpen. Be sure your document is smaller than the maximum attachment size.

4. Choose who you wish to publish the entry to i.e. who may see the entry. There arethree options:

a. Yourself (i.e. your blog entry is a draft)

b. Anyone on your site

c. Anyone in the world

5. If you wish, select appropriate official tags for your entry and/or add one or more userdefined tags.

6. Click on the "Save changes" button .

6


7/42

EDITING A BLOG ENTRY

You can edit your blog entries at any time. If you wish, you can change the publish option

from yourself to anyone on your site. The edit window is opened by clicking on the edit

text-link at the bottom-right of the blog entry.

You may also delete the blog entry if you wish by clicking on the delete text-

link at the bottom-right of the blog entry.

The next topic introduces Moodle Chat activities which allow participants to have real-time

synchronous discussions, and explains how to create a Chat activity for your course.

7


8/42

ADDING A CHAT ACTIVITY

Chat activities in Moodle allow participants to have real-time, synchronous discussions online.

This can be a useful way for students to gain a broader understanding of each other and of the

topic being discussed. Chat rooms are used in quite a different way from the asynchronousforums considered earlier. The Chat module in Moodle contains a number of features for

managing and reviewing chat discussions.

ADDING A CHAT ACTIVITY TO YOUR COURSE

To add a Chat activity to your course, go to the Course Page, and turn editing on. Click on the

Add an activity drop-down box in the topic where you want the forum to appear and

select Chat:

The settings page for the Chat activity will be displayed:

8


9/42

The available options are described in detail below.

Name of this chat room: The name entered here will be the name that learners see inthe course content area on the Course Page. Your learners will click on this name to see

the chat room description and then to enter the chat. It is usually helpful if you name

your chat room with a name that implies its purpose. For example, if your chat room

will be used for communicating with your learners online during office hours, then you

might name it Virtual Office. Alternatively, if the chat room is intended solely to

give learners a place to socialize or discuss class activities, you might choose to call itStudent Lounge.

Introduction text: Type the description of the chat here. The description shouldinclude precise instructions for students regarding the subject of the chat. The

introduction text is intended to welcome learners to the chat and to provide information

about the purpose of the chat room. It can be as simple or as complex as you like. It is

good practice to let learners know in the Introduction text who will be able to see the

transcripts of chat sessions. The Teacher can see every part of any conversation that

takes place in a chat room. However, you can choose to make these transcripts visible

to learners as well.

Next chat time: This sets the date and time of the next scheduled chat session. If youwish to schedule chat sessions for or with your learners, then you can use this setting to

9


10/42

You should be aware that simply setting a date and time here will not restrict access to the chat

room at other times; it is just a tool to allow you to communicate with your learners. If you

want to make a chat room unavailable, you must hide it from the learners. If you do not wish

to set up specific chat times, then you can disregard the date and time settings here and then

choose not to publish them in the next step.

Repeat sessions: You can choose any of four options from the drop-down box whichallow you to decide how to schedule future chat sessions:

Don't publish any chat times: Select this option if you prefer not to schedule chats forthe chat room. If this is chosen, Moodle will disregard any date and time set above for

the Next chat time.

No repeats- publish the specified time only: This setting will cause only the date andtime selected for the Next chat time to be published. The date and time will be

displayed on the course calendar as well as when the learners click on the title of the

chat room in the course content area. Published chat times could be used to schedule

special events or meetings or simply to help learners identify a common time in which

they can expect to find other learners in the chat room.

At the same time every day: In some situations, you may want to schedule a chatsession for the same time every day. If this option is chosen, the scheduled chats will

occur at the time you selected above for the Next chat time.

At the same time every week: This allows you to schedule a chat with your learnersfor the same day and time every week. The scheduled chats will be on the same day of

the week at the same time you indicated in the Next chat time area above.

Save past sessions: This setting allows you to decide how long transcripts of past Chatsessions are kept by Moodle. When two or more users take part in a chat session, a

complete transcript of the session is created. If you are concerned about discussions

that might take place in your chat room, you may want to keep transcripts for an

extended period of time to allow them to be used for documentation. Likewise, you

may find the documentation provided by the transcript to be useful for accreditation orevaluative purposes.

Everyone can view past sessions: This allows you to decide whether or not to alloweveryone to view past chat sessions. Teachers on a course can always view transcripts

from chat room sessions. However, you can also make these transcripts available to all

of the learners on the course. If you select Yes for this setting, learners can click on the

title of the chat room and then view past sessions to see any interactions that have

taken place in the chat room.

If you select No here, then only the instructors in the course will have access to the transcripts.

If learners need access to a specific transcript though, the instructor can always copy the

transcript and share it with learners in the form of a document.

10


11/42

Group mode: Select the group mode for the Chat.NOTE that this setting is ignored ifthe Force setting in the Course Settings page was set to Yes.

Visible: This determines whether the Chat will be visible to students. If No isselected, students will not see the Chat, although the link will still be visible (but

grayed-out) to teachers.

In the next section we will explain how to initiate or join a chat session.

11


12/42

INITIATING OR JOINING A CHAT SESSION

1. Clicking on any link that contains the name of a Chat activity will open that chat anddisplay the Chat Introduction Text together with a link Click here to enter chat

now. If the Chat has next sessions scheduled, the time and date of the next sessionwill also be displayed:

2. If you have chose the option to save past sessions and you are a Teacher on the course,or if you have enabled everyone to view past sessions, then a link in the top-right

corner of the screen will take you to these past sessions.

3. Clicking on the Click here to enter chat now link will take you to the ChatWindow:

12


13/42

The Chat window has three distinct areas as indicated on the screenshot above.

1. The Chat Pane: All Chat messages are shown here, with the name and profilepicture of participants in the chat displayed to the left of each entry.

2. The User Pane: Contains a list of names and profile images of everybody currentlyin the Chat area. This list includes those who are not actively participating in the

Chat.

3. Input Field: This is where Chat messages are entered. A variety of inputs areautomatically recognised and displayed appropriately in the Chat Pane.

Chats can be made more interesting for participants if they personalise them. Several

options are available to make chats more colourful and allow participants to personalise

their contribution:

Smilies : Any smiley faces (emoticons) that you can type elsewhere in Moodle can also

be typed in here and they will be displayed correctly. For example, entering :- ) in the

input field will display in the Chat Pane.

Links: Internet addresses will be turned into links automatically.

Emoting: You can start a line with /me or : to emote. For example, if your name is

Jane and you type :laughs ! or /me laughs!, then everyone will see "Jane laughs!"

Beeps: You can send a sound to other people by hitting the "beep" link next to their

name. A useful shortcut to beep all the people in the chat at once is to type "beep all".

HTML: If you are familiar with HTML code, you can use it in your text to do things

like insert images, play sounds or create different coloured and sized text.

In order to participate in an active Chat, simply type your message text in the Input Field

and press the enter key on your keyboard:

The message will then be displayed in the Chat Pane together with any responses from

other participants:

13


14/42

As you can see whenever a participant enters or leaves the chat this is indicated in the Chat

Pane together with the time that they enter or leave:

When participants are shown in the User Pane as being present in the Chat area it is

possible to get their attention by sending them an audible beep (always provided that

they have sound enabled on their computer!). To do this, simply click on the beep link

adjacent to the participants name in the User Pane:

When you are finished in a chat room simply close the window to leave and end the

session.

14


15/42

FORUMS IN MOODLE

Forums can contribute significantly to successful communication and community development

in any online environment. In an educational setting forums may be used for a wide variety of

innovative purposes, but probably the most significant are teaching forums and studentforums.

This section will discuss the variety of forum types available in Moodle and some of the ways

that these may be used to enrich the learning experience (the News Forum has already been

introduced in the earlier courseIntroduction to Moodle).

WHICH MOODLE FORUM BEST SUITS YOUR PURPOSE?

Moodle has four kinds of forums:

1. A single simple discussion2. Standard forum for general use3. Each person posts one discussion4. Q And A Forum

Which of these best suits your needs for a particular activity can be difficult to decide. It is

often helpful to consider how you might best lead such a discussion in a face-to-face

environment. Would you throw the question out to the class and sit back to observe their

answers? Perhaps you would break them up into smaller groups first and ask them to discussthe topic with a partner before bringing their answer back to the main group? Maybe you want

to keep them focused on a particular aspect of a question and ensure that they do not digress?

All of the above approaches are valid and all can be useful, depending on your desired learning

outcomes. All can be replicated using Moodle forums.

A standard forum for general use is probably most useful for larger discussions which are

guided or monitored by you or for student-led social forums. You do not need to make a new

posting for every reply in each topic although you may find that a significant amount of time is

required to identify common threads amongst the various discussions and weave them

together to form a coherent whole. Providing overall remarks for particular topics can also be

a key aspect of monitoring and directing a discussion. An alternative approach could be to ask

your students to summarize discussion topics at agreed points (perhaps once a week or when a

thread comes to an agreed conclusion). This learner-centred approach is perhaps best used only

after the online community has been established and you have demonstrated the desired

summarizing process.

A single simple discussion is most useful for short or time-limited discussions on a single

subject or topic. This kind of forum can be very productive if you wish to keep students

focused on a particular issue.

Each person posts one discussion offers a happy medium between a large discussion and a

short, focused discussion. A single discussion topic per person allows students more freedom

15


16/42

than in a single discussion forum, but not as much as is offered in a standard forum where

every student can create as many topics as they wish. Successful forums of this selection can

be active, yet focused, as students are not limited in the number of times they can respond to

others within a given thread.

Q and A forum is, as its name suggests, best used when you have a particular question that

you wish to have answered. In a Q and A forum, the tutors post the question and students

respond with possible answers. By default, a Q and A forum requires students to post at least

once before they can view other students' postings. After the initial posting, students can view

and respond to others' postings. This feature allows equal initial posting opportunity among all

students, thus encouraging original and independent thinking.

TEACHING AND LEARNING FORUMS

When you decide to use a discussion forum as an activity in an e-learning environment you

will still need to allocate time to managing the activity in order to make it successful. If your

goal is to encourage discussion, the forum will only work if:

a.) Participants feel a need or reason to participate and that they will gainsomething from the experience. Incentives for learning, gathering support, etc.

should be explored and encouraged early on in the course to ensure that the

purpose of the forum is clear to learners. If you are considering offering grades

or marks for participation you should think very carefully about the difference

between quantity and quality of discussions in forums.

b.) A shared sense of community and purpose can be developed amongstparticipants. This can be developed either through tutor/teacher initiatives and

scaffolding, or through the students/participants themselves depending on the

nature and goals of the activity.

PARTICIPATION AND SCAFFOLDING

One of the great advantages of e-learning is the flexibility it offers participants. However, this

does not mean that days or weeks should pass without response and discussion in a forum(unless it is appropriate for it to do so). This is most especially true at the beginning of a

course when students and tutors are new to each other and in need of guidance and

encouragement.

Whilst e-learning generally, and discussions in particular, can support learning that is not

always tutor/teacher-centred, your role as teacher is important, especially as an online

community begins to develop. It is during these initial stages that your learners can become a

community of participants who begin to grow in their understandings of course material and

individual contributions to the knowledge construction process.

As discussions progress and learners become accustomed to the mechanics, rules and tone of

the forums there are ways in which your input can be reduced, thereby helping to foster a

16


17/42

community that is less dependent on you as tutor/teacher. Even then, however, you will

probably want to maintain a presence in discussions although you may choose to be one of

many contributors rather than the font of all wisdom.

COMMITMENT AND PARTICIPATION

Before you set up forums for your course you need to consider:

Whether you wish to be involved in the forum or if you want the students to lead andown the space.

Do you want the forum to add value to the face-to-face environment or have a life of itsown in its own outside the classroom?

Are you prepared to make appropriate contributions to the discussion in order to:o encourage discussion if students are quieto help shape ideas if students begin to wander off-task

Will your role be defined as discussions progress? Do you intend to explicitly, but gradually, relinquish control of the discussions? Will you encourage and support learners to share control of discussions? (for example

you might ask a learner, or group of learners, to summarise contributions to a

discussion thread/topic or you might ask particular learners to initiate discussion

topics)

STUDENT-CENTRED FORUMS

With the growing popularity of social networking software like MySpace , Facebook , and

Bebo , learners are leaving school and coming to Further and Higher Education or to the work

environment with greater technological sophistication and with new expectations for the

learning environment. Reflective and life-long learning have become significant goals in

education.

Alongside this, student-centred learning and student-centred online spaces have also gained

credence in educational and business settings. Effective learning requires access to social and

academic networks for both study material and emotional support. In this environment, onlinelearning communities can offer knowledge and support mechanisms and facilitate personal and

educational development.

Social forums (sometimes called Virtual Cafes or Common Rooms) can be set up for

individual courses or for programmes, depending on the needs of the learners. Such forums

provide common areas for learners to come together and discuss unlimited topics, including

social activities and educational ideas. They are supportive spaces for students. It can be

argued that students will experience a greater sense of community within, and a sense of

belonging to, an organisation or department having had the experience and convenience of

social forums on their course. This could even have implications for learner retention oncourses if this is an issue.

17


18/42

These forums can be highly active, especially in the early part of the course. Careful

consideration should be given to how such forums should be monitored. Monitoring can be

done by you, as teacher or tutor, or they can be self-monitored by learners. In either case, the

same rules and netiquette apply to learners within Moodle as in any other computing

environment. The Notting Hill eMail and Internet Policy gives guidance for the acceptable use

of computer networks and systems at Notting Hill.

THE NEWS FORUM

This was introduced in the earlier course Introduction to Moodle.

Every Moodle course automatically generates a News Forum. By default, all participants on a

course are automatically subscribed to the News Forum. The name of the News Forum can be

changed to something more appropriate to your needs, Important Announcements, forexample. This is a useful feature and this forum is often used in Moodle courses to announce

exam dates and times, lectures or seminars, as well important information about coursework

through the term. It can also be used for special announcements relating to the course over the

year.

SUGGESTIONS FOR USING FORUMS

It is good practice to begin with a welcome or introductory message or thread in one of your

forums. This welcome or introduction from you invites participants, for example, to post somespecific details to introduce themselves to you and their peers. This can be your icebreaker or

you can have an icebreaker separately.

If you have two questions for participants to answer, starting the two strands or topics within

the forum itself will both help learners to see where to put their responses, and remind them to

answer all parts of your question.

Remember that you are communicating in an environment that does not have the benefit of

non-verbal communication (verbal tone, eye contact, body language and the like). You may

need to take more care than usual over communications in an online environment. You may

want to warn participants about this explicitly.

Postings to a forum are always written but they can take different forms and you may wish to

consider what form best suits the activity. For instance, you might choose to articulate a form

of contribution in order to be explicit. Thus you might say:

'This is a think-aloud forum in which, together, we will try to tease out

ideas and possibilities'

or

'This is a formal forum in which you are invited to share your ideas on

(topic)'

18


19/42

Where you select the latter, you might have already suggested learners plan those ideas offline

or in another kind of activity within Moodle.

Create a forum where only the teacher can start discussions, but students can only reply. Each

thread you start contains an essay-type question (or several similar ones). The students make

bullet-point plans for the essay and post them as replies. This can work particularly well as a

revision strategy as the students can see how others have approached the same task. Once

everyone has posted their plan, you can start a discussion as to which plans seem better and

why. Creating a scale to use for rating the posts can be useful so that students can see how

helpful other people think their contribution was.

GRADING FORUMS

You can use the ratings system to grade learner activities by restricting ratings to teachersonly, and then rating all student posts. But be aware that this reports an average of all ratings

for a single student to the Moodle gradebook , and not a sum total of the ratings for all posts. If

you want your students to make several posts in one forum, then you may find it more

appropriate to use an Assignment module to house the Forum grade for a particular block.

That grade is then reported to the Moodle gradebook .

Best Practice and Shared Discussions

There are a wide range of discussions about the best-use of Forums and Forum assessment in

the Teaching Strategies Forum on www.moodle.org

The next section explains how to set up a Forum

19
http://www.moodle.org/http://www.moodle.org/http://www.moodle.org/


20/42

ADDING A FORUM IN MOODLE

Forum activities enable asynchronous discussions to take place between participants on a

course. To add a forum activity to your course, go to the Course Page, and turn editing on.

Click on the Add an activity drop-down box in the topic where you want the forum toappear and select Forum:

The settings page for the Forum is displayed:

20


21/42

The various options shown are described below:

Forum Name : The contents of this field become the clickable text-link on the coursepage. This is a mandatory field.

Forum type : select from the drop-down list to determine the type of forum that is tobe created:

21


22/42

The types of forum available in Moodle were discussed in some detail in the earlier sectionentitled Moodle Forums. An overview in included at the end of this section.

Introduction: The text entered in this area is displayed at the top of the list ofdiscussions on the Forum page. In addition, part of this is displayed in the Forum

summary page.

Force Everyone to be subscribed: The options in this drop-down list determinewhether all participants on a course will be subscribed to this forum:

Read tracking for this forum: If read-tracking has been enabled by the Administratorfor all forums on the site, the way in which it will operate for this forum is set by this

setting.

Maximum attachment size: the setting chosen from this drop-down list determinesthe maximum size of file that may be attached to a Forum post (if any you can

choose the option Uploads are not allowed).

Allow posts to be rated: Posts to a discussion may be rated, with the cumulative ratingdisplayed in the Grades area. Click the check box if you want to allow rating of posts.

Grade: The Grade drop-down list contains possible ratings and scales which may beused for grading posts. In addition, further scales may be created in the Scales area and

these will then be available for selection here.

22


23/42

Restrict ratings to posts with dates in this range: This setting allows ratings to belimited to the date-range specified in the drop-down boxes below:

Post threshold for blocking: These settings determine any restrictions or limitationsthat you wish to impose on your learners:

o Time period for blocking - This option defines the period in which a studentmay make the number of posts specified in "Post threshold for blocking".

o Post threshold for blocking - This option sets the number of posts a Studentmay make in the period defined above. Set to 0 to disable blocking. If blocking

is disabled, warnings are also automatically disabled.

o Post threshold for warning - Students (only) will be blocked from postingafter a specified number of posts in a given period - this option is for setting the

number of posts a Student may make before receiving a warning. Set to 0 to

disable warnings.o Group mode : Select the group mode for the forum.

NOTE that this setting is ignored if the Force setting in

the Course Settings page was set to Yes.

o Visible : This determines whether the Forum will be visible to students. If Nois selected, students will not see the Forum, although the link will still be

visible (but grayed-out) to teachers.

Clicking the Save Changes button will save the settings for the Forum and display the

Forum page.

23


24/42

SEPARATE AND CONNECTED WAYS OF KNOWING

Individual posts can be rated using a scale based on the theory of separate and connected

knowing.

This theory may help you to look at human interactions in a new way. It describes two

different ways that we can evaluate and learn about the things we see and hear.

Although each of us may use these two methods in varying amounts at different times, it may

be useful to imagine two people as examples, one who is a mostly separate knower (Peter) and

the other a mostly connected knower (Jane).

Peter likes to remain as 'objective' as possible without including his feelings andemotions. When in a discussion with other people who may have different ideas, helikes to defend his own ideas, using logic to find holes in his opponent's ideas. He is

critical of new ideas unless they are proven facts from reputable sources such as

textbooks, respected teachers or his own direct experience. Peter is a very separate

knower.

Jane is more sensitive to other people. She is skilled at empathy and tends to listen andask questions until she feels she can connect and "understand things from their point of

view". She learns by trying to share the experiences that led to the knowledge she finds

in other people. When talking to others, she avoids confrontation and will often try to

help the other person if she can see a way to do so, using logical suggestions. Jane is a

very connected knower.

In these examples the separate knower is male and the connected knower is female. That is

intentional. Some studies have shown that statistically this tends to be the case, however

individual people can be anywhere in the spectrum between these two extremes.

For a collaborative and effective group of learners it may be best if everyone were able to use

BOTH ways of knowing. In a particular situation like an online forum, a single post by a

person may exhibit either of these characteristics, or even both. Someone who is generally

very connected may post a very separate-sounding message, and vice versa. The purpose of

rating each post using this scale is to:

a) help you think about these issues when reading other posts

b) provide feedback to each author on how they are being seen by others

The results are not used towards learner assessment in any way, they are just to help improve

communication and learning.

24


25/42

References

In case you're interested, here are some references to papers by the authors who originally

developed these ideas:

Belenky, M.F., Clinchy, B.M., Goldberger, N.R., & Tarule, J.M. (1986), Women'sways of knowing: the development of self, voice, and mind. New York.

Clinchy, B.M. (1989a). The development of thoughtfulness in college women:Integrating reason and care. American Behavioural Scientist, 32(6), 647-657.

Clinchy, B.M. (1989b). On critical thinking & connected knowing. Liberal education,75(5), 14-19.

Clinchy, B.M. (1996). Connected and separate knowing; Toward a marriage of twominds. [In N.R. Goldberger, Tarule, J.M., Clinchy, B.M. & Belenky, M.F. (Eds.),

Knowledge, Difference, and Power; Essays inspired by Womens Ways of Knowing

(pp. 205-247)], New York.

Galotti, K. M., Clinchy, B. M., Ainsworth, K., Lavin, B., & Mansfield, A. F. (1999). ANew Way of Assessing Ways of Knowing: The Attitudes Towards Thinking andLearning Survey (ATTLS). Sex Roles, 40(9/10), 745-766.

Galotti, K. M., Reimer, R. L., & Drebus, D. W. (2001). Ways of knowing as learningstyles: Learning MAGIC with a partner. Sex Roles, 44(7/8), 419-436.

FORUM TYPES

There are several different types of forum to choose from:

A single simple discussion - is just a single topic, all on one page. Useful for short,focussed discussions.

Standard forum for general use - is an open forum where any one can start a newtopic at any time. This is the best general-purpose forum.

Each person posts one discussion - Each person can post exactly one new discussiontopic (everyone can reply to them though). This is useful when you want each student

to start a discussion about, say, their reflections on the week's topic, and everyone else

responds to these.

Q And A Forum - The Q & A forum requires students to post their perspectivesbefore viewing other students' postings. After the initial posting, students can view and

respond to others' postings. This feature allows equal initial posting opportunity among

all students, thus encouraging original and independent thinking.

More development of forum types is expected in future versions of Moodle.

The next section looks at viewing forum discussions.

25


26/42

VIEWING A FORUM

What you can see under the introduction text to the forum depends on which of the three

options you chose in the Forum type field when creating the forum.

If you chose A single simple discussion, you will see the text you entered in the 'Forum

introduction' space while creating the forum as the first post of the discussion. There will be a

heading, which is the forum name, the information about the author and the date of the first

post. Below you will find the replies that have been posted (if any).

You can choose how replies should be displayed from the options in the drop-down list on the

top-left of the screen:

You can display a discussion in any of four ways:

Display replies flat, with oldest first - the discussion is displayed as one line. Thechronological order will be from the oldest to the newest.

Display replies flat, with newest first - the discussion is displayed on one line. Thechronological order is from the newest to the oldest.

Display replies in threaded form - only the post starting the discussion is displayed infull. Replies are reduced to headlines (including information about the author and date)

and are organized chronologically. Moreover, replies are shifted to the right so that allreplies to the same post are aligned.

Display replies in nested form - all posts to the discussion are displayed in full.Replies to posts are reduced to headlines (including information about the author and

date) and organized chronologically; Replies are aligned in a similar way to that used

to display replies in nested form.

If you chose Standard forum for general use, you will see the introduction text in a separate

space above the discussion field, in which you will see the information such as the title of the

discussion (which means the forum's title), its author, the number of replies and the date of the

last post.

26


27/42

With Each person posts one discussion the view is essentially the same as in the previous

case, Standard forum for general use. The only difference is the 'Add a new discussion' option.

You will see the text you entered in the 'Forum introduction' space while creating the forum

when viewing a forum page together with any discussions that have been started.

In all cases, above the introduction to the forum you will find options concerning subscriptionto the forum as well as the 'Update the forum' button and the 'Jump to' field, with which you

can 'jump' to any part of the course.

The next Topic will introduce Moodle Wikis and explain how to set up a Wiki for your course.

27


28/42

ADDING A WIKI ACTIVITY

WHAT IS A WIKI?

A wiki is a collection of collaboratively authored web documents. Essentially, a wiki page in

Moodle is a web page that everyone in your class can create together. They can do this directly

in their browser window, and they dont need to know HTML.

A wiki starts with one front page. Participants add further pages to the wiki by creating a link

to a page that doesn't exist yet. In Moodle, wikis can be powerful tools for collaborative work.

The entire class can edit documents together to create a class product, or each student can have

their own wiki and work on it with you and their classmates.

The name Wiki derives from the Hawaiian phrase wiki-wiki, which means very fast. In

fact, a wiki can be a very fast method for creating content as a group. It is a hugely popularformat on the Web for creating documents as a group (Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia is

probably the best-known example).

WIKI TYPES

It can be difficult for those new to the idea of a Wiki to visualise it. It can be helpful to think of

the front page of a Wiki as a structured table of contents. Each link on the front page takes you

to a page for that entry. In essence a Wiki is organised by its links.

To complicate life still further, there are three wiki types in Moodle: Teacher, Groups, and

Student. In addition, like any Moodle activity, a wiki has the Moodle group modes: "No

Groups" "Separate Groups" and "Visible Groups".

This leads to the following matrix of nine possibilities:

28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Pagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page


29/42

Group Mode

Wiki

TypeNo Groups Separate Groups Visible Groups

Teacher

There is only onewiki which only the

teacher can edit.

Students can view the

contents.

There is one wiki for every

group which just the teacher

can edit. Students can view the

wiki of their group only.

There is one wiki for every

group which just the teacher

can edit. Students can view

the wikis for all groups.

Groups

There is only one

wiki. The teacher and

all students can view

and edit this wiki.

There is one wiki per group.

Students can view and edit the

wiki of their own group only.

There is one wiki per group.

Students can change the wiki

of their own group only. They

can view the wikis for all

groups.

Student

Every student hastheir own wiki which

only they and their

teacher can view and

edit.

Every student has their ownwiki, which only they and

their teacher can edit. Students

can view the wikis of other

students in their group.

Every student has their ownwiki, which only they and

their teacher can edit. Students

can view the wikis of all other

students in the course.

Unless you chose to force the group mode on the course settings page, it can be set with the

groups icon on the course home page after the wiki has been created.

NOTE: Teachers can always edit every wiki in the course

ADDING A WIKI TO YOUR COURSE

To add a Wiki to your course, go to the Course Page, and turn editing on. Click on the Add

an activity drop-down box in the topic where you want the Wiki to appear and select

Wiki:

29


30/42

The Wiki settings page will be displayed:

The basic options are described in detail below.

Name: The name entered here will be the name that learners see in the course content area on

the Course Page. Your learners will click on this name to access the Wiki. It is usually helpful(though not essential) to name your Wiki with a name that implies its purpose. This is a

mandatory field.

Summary: The text (and any other content) entered her will appear on the Wiki summary

page which is the first page that course participants see when the click on the link in the course

content area. This is a mandatory field. [The Wiki summary page can also be accessed by

clicking on the Wiki link in the Administration Block on the Course Page.]

Type: The type of Wiki Teacher, Groups, or Student. (See table above).

Group mode: This setting, combined with the Type setting above, define how the Wiki will

be configured for your course. (See table above).

Visible: This determines whether the Chat will be visible to students. If No is selected,

students will not see the Chat, although the link will still be visible (but grayed-out) toteachers.

30


31/42

Advanced Settings

Clicking on the Show Advanced button in either the General Settings,or Optional Settings will display additional configuration options for your Wiki.

NOTE : In most cases, staff at Notting Hill will be able to use the

default Wiki settings when they need to create a Wiki for their

course and so will not need to concern themselves with these

advanced settings.

General Settings

The additional settings are shown with a green asterisk:

The extra configuration options are:

Print wiki name on every page: If set to Yes, the name of the Wiki page will appear as a

link on every page.

31


32/42

HTML mode: This determines how HTML tags are to be treated by the Wiki.

oNo HTML: All Html tags will be ignored. Formatting can only be achieved by usingWikiWords

oSafe HTML: Some HTML tags are allowed.oHTML only: WikiWords do not work in this mode. All formatting is achieved by using

HTML.

oAllow binary files: If you allow binary content (such as images), you have twopossibilities:

1. You can upload and use images on wiki-pages. When editing a page, an upload

form will be displayed for uploading images. After a successful upload, an image

code is displayed that you can embed in your pages using square brackets. For

example: [internal:// myimage.gif ].

2. You can attach files to a Wiki Page which can be displayed by the attachments

action. The size is limited to the setting made in Moodle.

oWiki auto-linking options: In certain situations, you may not want automatic linkingbased on CamelCase words. If this is so, check this box to disable CamelCase linking.

WARNING -- CamelCase is a standard wiki feature. Disabling itmay cause any imported wikis to work incorrectly. Use this feature

only if you are absolutely certain you do not want CamelCase linking.

oStudent admin options: Where students are allowed to edit a Wiki, the selected optionsfrom this list will be available to students from the Administration drop-down list in the

Wiki.

32
https://wiki.viznet.ac.uk/bin/view/TWiki/WikiWordhttps://wiki.viznet.ac.uk/bin/view/TWiki/WikiWordhttps://wiki.viznet.ac.uk/bin/view/TWiki/WikiWordhttps://wiki.viznet.ac.uk/bin/view/TWiki/WikiWord


33/42

Optional Settings

The additional settings are shown with a green asterisk:

Page name: If you want the name of the first page of the wiki to be something other than the

wiki name, you can specify it here. This name will become the first page of the wiki for every

created instance of this wiki. If you leave this field blank, the initial page name will be the wiki

name, unless you select a page in the 'initial page' field.

Choose an initial page : This is content which can be initially loaded into the Wiki. If you

want your own initial content, create it as text-files, and upload it to a directory in the course

files area. Then select one of the files as the initial page. All the pages in that directory will

become content for each new wiki structure created for this wiki, and the selected page will be

the first page.

33


34/42

CREATING AND MANAGING WIKI STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

When you create a new Wiki in Moodle and click on the Save Changes button the content

and structure of the Wiki are saved. The Wiki page will be displayed:

The screenshot above will be similar to your new Wiki if you have not selected the Choose

an Initial Page option on the settings page. Clicking the View tab will display the

page content. If your page does not yet contain any content, clicking on the View tab show

the same as if the Edit tab had been clicked.

Clicking on the Edit tab causes the editing options for the page to be displayed.

Enter text into the text area as required. Text may be formatted using the HTML editor,directly using HTML code (unless No HTML was selected in the HTML Mode setting), or

using Wiki formatting. The standard Moodle formatting tools are available at the top of the

text area:

Navigation between Wiki pages is achieved by a series of links that you create within the text

area. These page links are created by entering text in one of the following formats:

CamelCase Words capitalised and joined without spaces.

[Page1] surrounding text by square brackets.

34
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelcasehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelcase


35/42

Clicking on a link created in this way will open the page that it links to if that page already

exists. If the page doesnt exist, the text-link to the page is displayed with a question mark

after it when you view (or preview) the page. So, for example:

Clicking on the ? will create the new page.

FORMATTING TEXT

If you have changed the HTML mode in the advanced settings to something other than

HTML only then you can use an alternative markup formatting system to format your text.This system provides an extensive set of tools for formatting Wiki pages. Further details of

these markup tools can be found at the ErfurtWiki web site.

A few examples will be given here to demonstrate:

!heading heading (H1)

!!heading heading (H2)

''emphasis'' (two pairs ofsingle quote marks) emphasis

__bold__ bold

#Rangers 1. Rangers

#Aberdeen 2. Aberdeen#Hearts 3. Hearts

#Celtic 4. Celtic

One advantage of using this method of formatting is that, once learnt, it can be used to create

and format Wiki pages very quickly. More information on Wiki markup can be found on the

Moodle.org site.

SAVING PAGE CONTENT

Content added to a Wiki page is saved and displayed by clicking on the Save button.

35
http://erfurtwiki.sourceforge.net/http://moodle.org/help.php?module=wiki&file=howtowiki.html&forcelang=#wikimarkuphttp://moodle.org/help.php?module=wiki&file=howtowiki.html&forcelang=#wikimarkuphttp://erfurtwiki.sourceforge.net/


36/42

PREVIEWING PAGE CONTENT

If you wish to preview the page content before saving (highly recommended), click the

Preview button. The page is shown as it will be seen in its final form with the text entered

into the text box below:

DISPLAYING IMAGES IN A PAGE

If you wish to allow images and other content to be displayed in your Wiki you will need to set

the Allow binary files advanced option to yes in the Wiki settings. In this case, the

additional field and buttons shown below will be available when the Wiki page is displayed in

editing mode:

36


37/42

Either enter the path to the file or browse to locate it on your system. When the correct path is

displayed in the field, click the Upload button to upload the file. A new browser window

will open to confirm that the upload was successful when the upload is complete:

The new window contains the text of the link that needs to be inserted into the text area. Copy

and past the link into the text box where the image is to be displayed:

Click on the Save or Preview buttons to view the page:

Further links can now be added to create new pages for the Wiki. In this example we will

create pages for the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper:

37


38/42

When this page is saved, clicking on the "?"s next to Mona Lisa and Last Supper will allow us

to create the Wiki pages for those entries:

38


39/42

MONA LISA:

39


40/42

THE LAST SUPPER:

40


41/42

LINKS

Clicking on the Links tab at the top of the Wiki page will display all links that

target this page.

HISTORY

Clicking on the History tab will display a list of versions of the page currently

being viewed:

Information about the page status and modification is displayed for each page together withlinks to perform further operations.

Version: This displays the version number of the current Wiki page. Clicking on the number

will cause the current version of the page to be displayed. The extra links act as follows:

Browse: displays the current version of the Wiki page.

Fetch-back: opens the current version of the Wiki page in editing mode.

Diff: Clicking this link will show the page with differences from the previous version

highlighted.

Author: The name of the person who created the Wiki page is displayed as a link, together

with the persons associated user-profile image. Clicking on either of these will display the

persons profile.Created: This shows the day, date and time that the first version of the Wiki page was created.

Last Modification: This shows the day, date and time that the current version of the Wiki

page was created.

References: This lists Wiki pages and any other files that are linked to this page. For the

current version of the page these will appear as clickable links.

41


42/42

ATTACHMENTS

The attachments tab is only displayed if Allow binary files was set to yes

in the advanced settings of the Wiki settings page. Clicking the link displays the attachment

options for the page together with a link allowing you to view any attachments that have

already been made to the page.

WIKI ADMINISTRATION

As you and your class develop your Wiki you may find that pages sometimes become

orphaned, or that you need to manage your learners contributions. Fortunately, the

Administration drop-down menu provides you with the tools that you will need to keep yourWiki running smoothly:

Set page flags: Page flags are the properties that can set on a per-page basis. Each page can

be set with different permissions.Remove pages: The wiki engine automatically tracks pages that aren't linked from anywhere

else (i.e. a page that was created and then the link to it was later deleted) and empty pages.

This tool allows you to remove such orphaned wiki pages, which can't be reached through

the ordinary wiki interface.

Strip pages: While the wiki engine tracks changes, it stores ALL old versions in the database.

To make it easier to follow what has happened to the data, you may occasionally want to

delete all the old versions and just keep the current one.

Revertmass changes: This tool allows you to roll-back changes to all pages in the Wiki if a

particular student (or Teacher!) makes a mess of many pages in the wiki.

Further help on How to Wiki can be found on the Moodle.org site
http://moodle.org/help.php?module=wiki&file=howtowiki.html&forcelang=#createpageshttp://moodle.org/help.php?module=wiki&file=howtowiki.html&forcelang=#createpages

moodle v1.8 communications

Documents