Moodle as a communications hub

90 minutes, ideally (but one hour at a pinch).

In a computer room.

Topic

Communications with students are a crucial aspect of their overall experience. But distributing them between different channels and encounters brings a number of risks. One is that messages can become fragmented - if students need to refer back to a communication and forget where it first happened, this can lead to wasted time, feelings of disorientation and questions for staff. Another risk is that messages aren't targeted, leading to the difficulties getting students' attention. We will look at how Moodle can be used for educational, social, and administrative communications.

In this hands-on session we will explore and discuss effective ways to provide:

• relevant communications which target the right people at the right time.
• somewhere students can ask questions or contribute their views, including anonymously.
• communications which can be easily found again and referred back to in future.
• version-controlled information which is easy to search and update e.g. the module handbook.
• searchable FAQs which avoid staff having to repeat themselves.
  
• a way to sign up for events or allocate appointments.

Where possible we will demonstrate these with reference to examples here at UCL.

This session is intended for anybody with editing permissions to a Moodle space.

Learning outcomes

In this session you will learn how select and set up appropriate Moodle activities (K4) to teach or support learning in your own context (A2). Where we touch on activities which encourage contributions from students, this will be in a way which recognises the needs of diverse students (V1, V2).

You will see how Moodle tools: Groups, Forum, Scheduler, Hot Questions, Choice, Glossary and Book can work from a student's point of view. From a staff point of view, you will gain an overview of the different ways you can set them up. You will be able to weigh up the advantages of creating handbooks for example, within Moodle compared with uploading them to Moodle.

Resources

The 'Moodle as a communications hub' space on Moodle (needs updating).