Purpose: Moodle provides many communication tools. This overview will help you learn about the strengths and limitations of each tool and when you might choose to use it
- The Announcements Forum
- Email
- Moodle Profile Settings
- Discussion Forums
- The Upcoming Events Block & Calendar Block
- Checklist Activities
- Group Communication & Collaboration Spaces
The Announcements Forum
Announcements (previously called News Forum) is a unique forum that acts as an announcements tool for your Moodle course. It appears by default in the top section of your course homepage and is related to the Latest news block. By default, only instructors and TAs can post to Announcements.
For more, see Course Announcements in Moodle
Email
The Quickmail block is available in Moodle courses. It allows instructors and TAs (and students, if the instructor allows) to send emails to course members from Moodle. Instructors who use Moodle may find Quickmail a convenient alternative to MesAmis email lists. For more information on Quickmail see The Quickmail Block in Moodle.
Moodle will also send notification emails to inform users of particular activities such as a new post on the Announcements forum. Be sure to ask students to check their Forum notification settings to be sure "No Digest" is selected.
For more, see Email Notifications in Moodle.
Moodle Profile Settings
Every Moodle user has the ability to control how they receive email notifications from Moodle. Your Moodle Profile settings control your default email digest and forum subscription, as well as whether or not your email address is included in the "From" field of messages sent by you from Moodle.
For more information about ensuring your and your students' email settings are set to the recommended "no digest" setting, see: Managing Moodle email preferences.
Discussion Forums
Instructors and students can communicate and collaborate in Moodle using Forums, sometimes called "discussions". Instructors can create topics or, depending on the forum type, allow students to create topics to which course members can post a reply.
For descriptions of the various types of forums and instructions on how to set one up in your course, see Add a Forum Activity in Moodle.
To access participation report that includes information about students posts and views, see UMass's help article: Use Reports to Track Student Activity in Moodle.
Note: Forums can be set to allow (or force) course members to receive email copies of new posts (called subscribing). For more see Manage Email Notifications in Moodle for Instructors or Manage Email Notifications in Moodle for Students.
The Upcoming Events Block & Calendar Block
The Upcoming events and Calendar blocks help you and your students to keep track of due dates and other important events in your course. When you add an activity with a due date to a Moodle course, the due date is automatically added to the course calendar. The Upcoming events block lists events approaching on the calendar. See Upcoming Events and Calendar Block for instructions.
Checklist Activities
The Moodle Checklist allows teachers to create a "to do" list for students to work through and provides an easy visual representation of what has been accomplished so far. With a Checklist, teachers can monitor progress as students complete items on the list, and students can see a progress bar showing the percentage of the items they have completed.
Group Communication & Collaboration Spaces
While instructors can easily use activities in Moodle to deliver content and assess learning, Moodle also supports student-led activities and collaboration. In addition to forums, you can make use of the groups, wiki, and chat features of Moodle to facilitate collaboration.